That Time I Studied in London: Day 42

Saturday, June 23 -

I went to Giverny (pronounced jew-ver-knee, for anyone not French) and went to Claude Monet's house and garden. I did a report on him in my french class in high school, so seeing his paintings resurfaced a tiny bit of that knowledge. The gardens were beautiful!

Oddly enough, this is the road Monet's house is on.

Monet's garden

The following 18 pictures are all of flowers in Monet's garden:

Monet's house

The view of the gardens from Monet's bedroom

That one boat Monet painted

That one bridge Monet painted

For lunch we had to grab food really quick so we could catch the shuttle back to the train. I went pretty French and got a hot dog in a baguette and an Orangina!

After that we hopped on the train to go across the city to Versailles. European Union residents and long-term citizens under the age of 26 got into the palace for free. Our plan was to talk in British accents and pretend to be British while our friend spoke in French and told the people at the ticket booth we lived in London and asked if we needed to pay. We must have been pretty convincing because we walked right through security and straight into the Palace without even seeing a ticket booth. They did check our visas, though, so there is a small chance the visa qualified us as EU residents.

Inside the Palace was beautiful, but so crowded. We can't complain much though since we got in for free! Unfortunately, the gardens were closed by the time we got to them. They were having some sort of firework show that night, but since the sun doesn't ever set here it didn't start until 11:30 at night, and the trains close so we'd be stuck.

The Palace of Versailles

The gates to the palace

A chandelier inside the palace

Walking into the Hall of Mirrors

Hall of Mirrors

Shoes made out of pots

Someone's bedroom in the palace

A very fancy table

Mairie Antoinette

Another room inside the palace

The view of the gardens from the palace

We ate dinner at a cute little French Cafe, and I went French again and got a Croque Madame! It was like a grilled cheese sandwich with ham and an egg on the top. It was delicious and we ate outside like true Europeans.

After dinner we took a cruise down the Seine! We didn't get a discount for this one, but it was worth it. We went in the evening so we got to watch the sun set over the river. We also ended up right in front of the Eiffel Tower during the light show.