Day 4
Thursday September 10

Today, Jose-Maria planned to drive us to Giverny to visit the home and garden of Claude Monet. We needed an early start because of rush-hour traffic, so we left at 9:15 AM. There was plenty of traffic, and there were plenty of visitors to Giverny. The garden was spectacular! Everyone was taking photos. Some used Smart Phones, others iPads, and still others used cameras! Hundreds of varieties of dahlias were in bloom, in dozens of hues. Amazingly, many of the flowers were as tall as I am. The sights and the fragrances were nourishment to the spirit. We then walked under the garden through a tunnel to reach the Japanese garden. The water lilies were not in bloom, but I could use my imagination. I so wished Agnès could have been with us, and I thought of friends who are artists and photographers, who would have been entranced by the colors, the shapes, the light, the shading, and the mood. I wished that they would be able to be there someday.

Monet’s house had copies of his work on the walls. The huge room in which he actually painted is now the gift shop. We left in time to avoid the afternoon rush hour, driving through Paris, seeing the Statue of Liberty replica, Les Invalides, the Eiffel Tower, and the Place de la Concorde. Another magnificent day in France!

The pedometer turned up! Yesterday we had taken 7,704 steps.
3,579 steps