Visiting the Monet's: Giverny

Monet's house and garden in Giverny

 

 It was summer and that time of the year where I got out of my usual routine and got down to packing my bags for a new journey. The destination this time around was Paris. Tickets and a accomodation in place, I had 2 weeks. With quick packing and zero planning, I set out with my partner and a couple of friends to explore this beautiful city of love. 

After being there for a week and almost covering whole of Paris on foot (literally), I started to get impatient and decided to explore places around. Due to lack of planning, everything turned out to be pretty expensive and after scouring the internet, I zeroed on a small town outside Paris on the way to the province of Normandy, called Giverny.



My love for art added on to my inquisitiveness as it was this place where the most famous impressionist artist Claude Monet used to reside. So one sunny day we set out to go to Giverny. We took a train to Vernon from Paris Gare St-Lazare. The train ride which took us almost 35 -40 mins to reach was quite a ride in itself. We passed through lovely quaint towns, rivers, and I could’nt help but indulge myself in the beauty of French countryside.

 

 

We arrived at Vernon, which looked quite deserted albeit the signs which directed us to the bus stop which would drop us to Giverny. Having missed the earliest bus we had some time on our hands to sit and explore the area around Vernon station. There are many small French bistros around and we hopped into one for a quick bite.

On Our Way to Giverny from Vernon.

 

The bus ride to Giverny from Vernon was as appeasing to the eye as the train ride. Vernon is a beautiful small town with wide roads surrounded by lush fields and meadows. Giverny is around 15 mins ride from Vernon if you take the coach; there are other options to rent a bike and ride around if you have time or best walk it up.

Lush Meadows in Giverny

 It was a short walk from the bus station to Monet’s house. We passed his studio and also a curio shop which was beautifully decorated with vines and rose climbers. The first thing I noticed about the place was that it was a riot of colors from the different flowering shrubs and plants. The moment I entered the vicinity of Monet’s house it was madness. Given I love flowers (much to the chagrin of my friend who were accompanying me and a very tired personal photographer hubby.:D), I took every opportunity to capture this beauty of nature, and it still wasn’t enough.

 

 

Curio Shop

A quite visit inside his house which was as gorgeous as its surroundings, reflected different personalities of the artist and I wasn’t surprised to notice that these gardens were where he drew his inspiration from. 

The best portion of this whole trip was the picturesque Japanese garden which was tucked a little away from his home which was accessible through an underground bridge. This was the place which is reflected in most of the Monet’s paintings particularly the Japanese bridge series. A lot of his paintings are based on the charming Japanese bridge covered with wisterias planted by Monet himself.  Walking across the bridge ,over the water lilies, was like walking in a different era , the calmness of the place making you want to take out your paint brushes and capture the beautiful scenery around on your canvas. Before I could soak in the magic around me, I realized it was my time to leave as we had the coach waiting for us to get us back to Vernon. As I left the Jarden De Monet, I couldn’t help but reminisce the words I had read by the master himself.

“I am following Nature without being able to grasp her… I perhaps owe having become a painter to flowers”.

And I couldn’t agree less.:)

Japanese Garden

Quick tips:

Giverny is worth a visit if you love art and flowers. Try and book a guided tour if possible which would cover other places in Vernon and Giverny such as museum displaying Monet's works and a chapel.

The scenery is picturesque and worth it, even better if you have stamina to rent and ride a bike.

The ice cream they sell outside the curio shop is to die for.

 

Ganpati Bappa: Loved or Lost.

Modern Ganesha painted by me::Acrylic on canvas.

I faintly remember as a kid, my parents used to take my sister and me to see the Ganeshas during ganeshutsav. Those were the times when commuting across the Vashi bridge was almost like a small vacation for us. Visiting Ganesh pandals was an exciting part of our lives as kids. For me it was like an adventure looking at the well decorated and beautifully lit pandals. We used to wait amidst the lesser crowd and shorter lines as compared to today, in anticipation, waiting for a glimpse of our ganpati bappa.

I remember one particular incident when I was perched on my mom’s hand, waiting in line for one of the famous ganpatis and I was super excited as mom kept on adding on to our inquisitiveness with mythical stories of the elephant headed god. I remember mom taking me in front of the huge idol and the mystical effect it had on me. Even as a kid, I couldn’t contain my awe looking up at the soft dewy eyed god in front of me.  As we left, I was enthralled and from then on Ganesh was my favorite God.

The love continued for many years, and I used to collect Ganesh idols of every shape, size material, made some, painted loads, even carved them out of chalks. My friends knew what exactly to gift me on my birthdays. It was pure obsession.

 While returning home from work last week during a 5^th Ganesh visarjan day, I was stuck in terrible traffic. There was chaos all around.Ganesh idols being taken in a truck with disco lights and Bollywood music, youth almost drunk dancing on the streets. For me it was an ugly and disgusting sight. I began to retrospect on the reverence of the festival in today’s day and age. Politicians throwing money around, with their obnoxious faces plastered on the life size posters. It made me think that would the lord really feel it was worth a visit? A day after immersion was even more pathetic, with broken lifeless pieces of the idols lying in the gutters and on the creek. It made me think, would the ignorance and callous attitude of people towards environment and other people actually appease the lord? We welcome the lord with so much love and reverence but fail to respect our social and ecological environment. People show love and respect and worship the idols, prepare elaborate delicacies to appease the god, but fail to even look at the pollution caused due to immersion of flowers, plastic bags and Plaster of Paris idols in the lakes and ocean.  Call for ecological Ganesh festivities have also seems to have fallen on deaf ears.

I haven’t visited a single pandal since last few years. I don’t think god would reside in any of them as well. I still love my bappa and today being the last day sure makes me feel a sense of sadness that my beloved god is going, but also gives me a sense of relief that the chaos will be over. My favorite childhood memories have been replaced by this disturbing reality of environment pollution and pandal politics. I say with absolute love and admiration  ”Ganpati bappa moraya “,but don’t know if I should say “come soon next year”, as I doubt that lord Ganesh would himself be pleased to come down to earth.

||एकदन्ताय वाक्रतुन्दया गौरी तानाह्या  धीमही ||
||गाजेशानया भाल्चान्द्रया श्री गणेशाय धीमही ||