Tuesday with Monet

YIKES!!!! We are all up before 7:00am as we prepare to head out to Giverny - Monet's house and gardens. We have a long subway ride and then a train ride to get there.

We get the 'opportunity' to ride the subway during the rush hour. It is just lots of fun riding in a hot, humid, stinky, dark culvert next to guy who bathed in July. But we make it to the train station with nothing but olfactory damage. Then we get on the train for the hour ride to Giverny and it is also crowded. Shirley gets to ride with a couple from Ohio who both have suitcases twice the size of anything we have. They are putting their luggage on the opposite seat so, in effect, they have four seats and the train is packed. So the self appointed conductor tells them they either have to buy a ticket for their luggage or let her sit in one of the seats. They begrudgingly oblige. Me, I'm not so lucky, I sit across from a 65 year old lady in bright coral dress,

who is somewhat attractive, but, shall we say, past her prime, who is raveling with her 30 ish, has-to-be male "friend" aka giggolo. After the train we ride a bus from the train station to the grounds.

We get to walk quite a distance from the bus park to the house and grounds. But it is a unique place, not a park but a house and an estate with exquisite well manicured grounds with all kinds of flowering plants and bushes. The water lilies were in full bloom and the ponds were magnificent, just too many people there to show their true

essence. But still quite nice. We hopped on the bus, after going to a small restaurant (my seat mates on the train are seated across from us, oh YAH no misinterpretation here) and having some refreshment, for the 30 minute ride back into town. Got our train tickets validated and sat, totally by mistake, kinda, in the first class section of the train on the way back to Paris.

When we got back I was really worn out. So, as we left the closest Metro station, we split up. Shirley went to get a baguette, Carol went to get some cheese, and me, I went to the hotel Nord to get a drink and wait for them to show up. Sounded like a fair deal to me....

Day was 11,300 steps, 13 flights and 4.4 miles, not too bad