Afternoon in Giverny: Impressionist Photography?

On Tuesday afternoon we hopped on a train to Normandy to explore the towns of Giverny and Vernon, visit Monet's house and gardens and the Impressionist museum there.  This trip had been recommended to us by our friends Amanda and Joe and my love of impressionism and recent amazement at the waterlilies in the Musée d'Orangerie put this excursion near the top of my list of things to do while in France.


We took the 12:20pm train from Saint-Lazare and 45 minutes later we arrived in Vernon, rented bicycles at the local pub and set off on a beautiful 4km bicycle path to Giverny. The weather was cloudy but warm, basically perfect for cycling.


Although I was very interested in seeing the real-life Monet gardens, I was also slightly apprehensive because I was pretty sure that they would be a let down compared to the paintings I have seen.  I was also quite sure that any photos I took of the gardens would be nowhere near as nice as Monet's paintings.  So, I decided that I would instead experiment with taking some impressionist style photos of the gardens.  This is a quite a departure from my usual preference of perfectly focused photos, but I love setting myself little tasks with photography so I was excited to try it out.  I've included some in-focus shots as well for those interested in seeing the comparison.


Here is the main garden from the upstairs window of Monet's house.

The house itself is fabulous, all the walls and mouldings are painted in bright colours, my favourite is the dining room.  I would take this over Pottery Barn beige anyday!

photo from here

This is my favourite flower, the dahlia, they were everywhere in the gardens (and in Paris!), one day I hope to have a garden full of them.

A view of the house from the garden. 

A lovely shot Graham took of a bee on a flower.

Here are some impressionist attempts

The ponds which inspired Monet's waterlilies are in a separate part of the property.

The next photos are of the famous waterlilie pond itself with the japonese bridge in the background (now quite overgrown with vines).

We also loved the apple trees in the garden, which have been pruned into low hedges.  

After seeing the gardens we hopped back onto our bicycles and headed to the museum.  The village of Giverny is incredibly picturesque.

My favourite cycling buddy.

At the museum there was a special exhibit of 70 paintings from the Clark Collection (based in Williamstown, USA).  Many Renoirs to look at and we loved learning about the Clark family and their amazing art collecting.  

On the way back we ventured off the main cycle path to this little track.  It was lovely.

Every time I am on the continent I happen on little scenes like this and can't believe that people actually live like this.  They probably think nothing of sitting in this incredible garden at their completely perfect red and white polka dot table.  That makes me so happy.

We then cycled around Vernon a bit and came across this funny little suspended house on the banks of the Seine.

The Vernon town centre is beautiful.  Large parts of it were destroyed in WWII but what remains is still lovely.  There was a little farmers market set up just beyond this street where we picked up a huge jar of local honey.  Yummy.

The town square and beautiful medieval church.  Nearly all the stained glass windows inside are modern because the 15th century originals were destroyed during the war.  

Thanks so much for the tip Amanda and Joe!!

p.s.   For anyone interested in photography stuff, in order to get the impressionist feel I tried to fill the frame with my subjects (like Monet did!).  To make my photos so blurry I adjusted my F-stop to the lowest number (=widest aperture) for a shallow depth of field and used manual focussing to further blurr the pictures.  I also boosted the contrast a bit in iPhoto.  If I try this again I will underexpose the photos a stop or two in order to get the darker shadows that I achieved by altering them in iPhoto.  I don't usually process my photos but it seemed to help with achieving the effect this time.  Any and all constructive criticism welcome!  

Au revoir Paris, hello Edinburgh!

Today we leave our little Parisian life by train and to return to Edinburgh via London.

We have loved our time here but we're also looking forward to a wonderful weekend catching up with friends before we re-pack for our American adventure!

Ode to a Beautiful Yoghurt

This my friends is the most beautiful pot of yoghurt I have ever bought at a grocery store.  

Or anywhere else for that matter.  

So beautiful and so delicious that I actually stopped throughout to take pictures of it so I never forget my most perfect yoghurt experience.  

And now in the crazy world of public oversharing that is a blog, I can share this experience with you all!

We should all eat yoghurt like the French.

Watching the final stage of the Tour de France

On Sunday afternoon we set up camp in the Jardin des Tuilleries to experience the final stage of the world renowned Tour de France.  It was the perfect Sunday being equal parts relaxing and exciting.


When we had first planned our month in Paris I had mistakenly thought we would miss the Tour de France.  
However, a couple of very excited facebook messages early last week from our favourite Dakiniewichs Shannon and Troy confirmed that it was in fact on Sunday the 24th and begged us to go on their behalf.  


We were of course happy to take up the challenge and went online to try to figure out the logistics of watching the final laps in Paris.  Unfortunately the english info was sorely lacking.  So, in an effort to somewhat rectify that I'm going to include lots of practical details in this post.  If you'd rather look at pictures feel free to skip the next few paragraphs.


Where to watch & when to get there:


The Tour de France always ends in Paris with the finish at the Arc de Triomphe.  Every year the cyclists start in the outskirts of the city (different parts each year) and then make their way into the centre ending with an 8 lap circuit up and down the Champs d'Elysées and around the Tuilleries Gardens (where the Louvre is).  The cyclists don't actually get into the centre until at least 3:30pm (after 4pm in our case).  


The epicentre of the event is the Champs d'Elysées, crowds are tight and they have screens showing the cyclists as well loudspeakers with commentary.  This is the most exciting place to view the race because the cyclists go up and down the Champs which means that you get to watch them pass 16 times.  However, the catch is that you have to put the time in and be prepared to get there by at least noon in order to get a good spot.  This is especially important if you are short because it is very difficult to see over the crowds.  


Not being diehard cycling fans we decided to take the more relaxed option and view the race from the Tuilleries.  We still showed up pretty early (12:30pm) and this allowed us to bag a primo spot next to the Musée d'Orangerie on the Seine side of the gardens where we could look down at the cyclists as they passed on the street below.  Another huge bonus to the Tuilleries option was that we could sit on the park chairs while we waited.  


After setting ourselves up with the sweet park chairs, a baguette and some cheese for lunch we spent the entire afternoon relaxing in the sun and waiting for the cyclists to arrive.  

Sweet spot

The first group to arrive was a fleet of red trucks, they honked their horns and we cheered them on.  I'm guessing they were on the road with the cyclists the whole time so they must have been pumped to be coming into Paris as well!

As the cyclists neared Paris, the sidewalk opposite started to fill up with spectators.

The first six people (left to right) in this shot are fellow french course friends.  This is also a good shot of our sweet reclining park chairs.  I would totally take one home if it that wasn't stealing.

Lots of official cars came through.

Then some cars with bikes on top, that's when we started to get excited.

Here they come!!

   

SO fast.  Graham had trouble keeping them in focus!

We dutifully screamed "Allez allez!" with loads of French people who materialised to cheer minutes before the cyclists came through.

Then came the team cars with all the bikes on top.  So many many bikes (they are hard to see in these shots but each car must have had at least 10 bikes on top).  They drove like maniacs too, so close to each other and then one would just lay on his horn and start zooming past all the others to get to the front (perhaps to assist a cyclist?).  It was fun/a bit scary to watch.

 At this point Jason decided to take a nap.  Not during the four hours while we were waiting for the cyclists but once they arrived. Some of the other guys tied his shoelaces together as punishment.

Here they are again (remember the 8 laps part), also note the yellow motorcyclist guys holding up a sign, it said 33 then a the next time 32, we could figure out what that meant.  Any thoughts Troy? 

Here's an extra big pic of that.  Would love to know what it means! (update: my friend Chris has kindly clarified that these signs indicate to the distance, in seconds between the breakaway pack and the rest of the riders, thanks Chris!).

And here they are again!  I'm guessing that you get the picture by now, it was so great because they go so fast that if they had only passed once it would have been a let down.  But this way we got to notice new things each time they went by.  Plus, screaming "Allez" is always fun.

A plethora of pics are for our Dakiniewich peeps.

Loved it, totally recommend it, bet it would be even more fun (although less comfortable) watching on the Champs d'Elysées!