ALL the photos from Paris and Giverny:
https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos/103620108216329120374/albums/5899458681943720433
After a quick detour to Luxembourg and Belgium, we spent our last few days in France near Paris. Paris is beautiful in the summer! We spent a day and a half walking around to our favorite sites (both of us have been to Paris before), concluding with a picnic under the Eiffel Tower with a bottle of wine we had picked up in Burgundy.
We have become experts on picnicking in France. Delicious baguettes are everywhere - just stop by any boulangerie. We also learned to go to local markets for meats and cheeses. The selection is always great and prices unbeatable. Parks, benches, and lawns are abundant. We had two large baguettes for our last picnic in Paris, since I’m sure we will be missing delicious bread very shortly.
 |
| La Basilique du Sacre Coeur de Montmartre |
 |
| The Louvre at dusk |
 |
| Carnival near the Jardin des Tuileries |
 |
| Heading to our picnic under the Eiffel Tower |
On our last day, just before our flight to Oslo, we took a quick side trip to Giverny to visit the home of Claude Monet. I was afraid that it would be a tourist trap, but it was everything I had hoped for and more. The house is perfectly maintained in it’s original condition, with all the artwork Monet had collected (including a lot of Japanese art). The gardens are huge and filled with beautiful flowers and plants. I felt like I had stepped into a painting. What a great conclusion to France!
 |
| Monet's house |
 |
| Just like the paintings! |
A quick note on Belgium: Brugge is on the top of my cute-small-cities list. Unlike a lot of small cities that have a couple of blocks of Old Town, Brugge’s historical area is quite large. We spent several hours just wandering its streets, most of which lead to the main town square (Market Square). Also, Brugge is a paradise for chocolate lovers. Every other store in town center was a chocolatier. I probably spent half of my time just browsing these shops.
 |
| Main square in Brugge - it's so lively on a beautiful summer day! |
 |
| Traditional architecture in Brugge |
No comments:
Post a Comment