Travel and Adventure by Various Travel Authors

Paris had been cold. Dark figures in coats and scarves filled the street. But the day we set off for Giverny to see the gardens and home of Claude Monet, magic, color, and spring arrived.

Even as I traveled by train the 40 miles from Paris to the village of Vernon, near Giverny, and talked with my two friends, tears began to fill my eyes. Something about this trip, this excursion into beauty was touching me in an unexpected way — as if my heart were about to open.

This can't be real, I thought. A lifetime of seeing Monet's images in high and low places — and a few actual Monet paintings in museums, like the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. And while in Paris I'd viewed others at the Musee D'Orsay.

I had visited homes of famous writers, and found that exciting and rewarding — to step on the floorboards in Dickens' house, and know he probably heard the same squeak — or to gaze out the upstairs nursery window in the Bronte parsonage, and see the moors as Charlotte, Emily, and Anne did. But the idea of visiting the great Claude Monet's garden and home — actually seeing his inspiration and creation — seemed overwhelming.

Less than an hour from Paris we were in Vernon. Just outside the train station were buses to Giverny, as well as taxis and even bicycles.

It was April, so even though several others were heading to the village, I could only imagine the huge crowds that would make the trek in summer.

Only a short few minutes ride and were at Giverny. Walking from the bus we passed the American Museum, full of paintings by the expatriate American Impressionists who lived and painted in Giverny before the start of World War I. They wanted to be near their hero and model, Claude Monet, and to experience the shimmering light and misty landscapes of his paintings. (In truth Monet was not always happy with this group of followers who painted his garden and neighborhood).

Though I hoped to see this museum at some point, my interest was with the master himself. First, his home and environs.

Walking through the gift shop (at one time his water lily studio) it was fun to glance at books, posters, T-shirts, all of which I hoped to look at more closely later. And then I saw the door leading to the garden.

I stepped through it like Dorothy entering the Emerald City.

Spring seemed to arrive the minute I stepped into Monet's world.

If life was in color before, I'd hardly noticed. Here it felt a veil had been lifted from my eyes.

A palette of moss green, new grass green and waxen dark green mixed with pink tulips, yellow daisies, purple irises and small lavender blossoms. It shone with intensity, fresh as a dream. Colors were scattered in the flowerbeds, like splashes of paint. And, as in Monet's paintings, there seemed to be no horizon. The garden was all around and above us.

The willows and poplars laced above, and Monet's pink and green house filled the space to our right. Bright yellow flowering forsythia bushes filled in the middle space, while pink Busy Lizzie flowers encircled a nearby tree.

There was nowhere to look that wasn't full of color and a reflection of light.

Later I read that Monet chose the area because of the way the surrounding hills diffused the light. It was indeed a softer, less harsh light — a painter's or photographer's light.

Wonder filled me. I felt also like Linnea in the children's book "Linnea in Monet's Garden" by Cristina Bjork and Lena Anderson. I was a child in wonderland and at the same time a mere mortal in paradise.

The surroundings felt healing — as if no matter the pain or sadness or problem a person brought with them, being in the garden would help.

The long archway, the Grande Allee, directly in front of the house defined and divided the Clos Normand garden. The green of climbing roses, not yet in bloom, covered the archway.

We walked all the paths, noting and sometimes photographing the tiniest bright blooms and shuddering, brilliant bushes.

It was time to look inside the pink house. Appropriately so, Monet had painted each of the eight rooms a beautiful light color, so that the tones suffused the room. The yellow dining room has not only yellow walls, but also a yellow table, chairs, cupboard, even yellow-and-blue dishes that Monet especially designed. (It's also filled with his collection of Japanese prints).

The blue kitchen has blue patterned walls, blue tile in back of the stove, a blue table and cupboards.

Color saturated Monet's life.

Here he lived with Alice Raingo Hoschede, his second wife.

Alice and Claude lived in the house with their collective eight children.

Alice and Claude had dinner gatherings that included artists, such as Auguste Rodin, Pierre Bonnard, and Paul Cezanne — and visiting writers included the symbolist poet, Paul Valery.

During the 43 years Monet was in Giverny, he used the garden as inspiration. He also painted nearby scenes — the grain stacks, the poplars along the river.

We decided to visit the lily pond. We passed gardeners off to the side, digging and planting, their high rubber boots like the ones Monet appears to wear in some photos.

We passed two flat-bottomed, blue boats, the prows seeming to kiss. These are replicas of the boat used in Monet's day — and they are used to clear the underwater weeds from the lily pond.

A branch of the River Epte streams through the garden. At one point I saw a little boy, sailing leaves downstream as if a filmmaker had cast him.

In 1893, Monet created the water garden, surrounded by poplars and Babylon willows, where he grew and painted exotic water lilies in white, yellow and mauve. The Japanese Bridge was built shortly after the pond. In summer, wisteria blossoms arch above the graceful bridge. Lilies, rhododendron and azaleas splash their color on the bank.

From 1895 on, Monet devoted much of his final years to painting the water lilies and pond in all hours of the day. He painted them in all seasons and light. He even painted when his eyesight was failing. (He began to lose his vision in 1908, and by 1923 was blind. Later, two surgeries and glasses restored it).

The day we were there it was still too early for the water lilies to be in bloom. But their pads floated on the top above the reflections of the willows and bridge, and above the Japanese koi gliding beneath the surface.

Later, when the lilies are in bloom, so are the throngs of admirers, as they clamber over and fill the bridge. Perhaps one day I'll see them in bloom. But in all, my day in the garden couldn't have been more beautiful or perfect.

I looked at the pond. It seemed every color was reflected in it. I could imagine how Monet was drawn to it again and again, — an ever changing kaleidoscope. Here was memory, illusion, reflection — the moment.

Monet's last and greatest work was the "Waterlily Decoration," which fills L'Orangerie (now reopened for visitors after a two-year renovation). Visitors there are surrounded by his masterworks.

After our requisite photo on and off the bridge, my friends and I wound our way back to the house.

I remembered I'd brought a few watercolor postcards, along with a small paint box and bottle of water. We decided to head for the benches in front of the house at the top of the garden.

We decided to do our part in capturing a fleeting glance of our own. So we set to work painting our own view of his house or garden.

As I painted the house, with its green shutters and trails of vines, I felt I could glimpse Monet gazing out a window to see his garden. Then I saw him walking out the door, greeting the new day and the daily changes in his living artwork — the great artist laden with paint, paintbrushes and canvasses, ready to begin a new day immersed in color, light, and shimmer.

We were working so intently we hardly noticed when an employee of the garden came up to us.

"Bonjour," he said, "Since you are artists, I want to invite you to come any Monday and paint. Every Monday artists are admitted free to the garden. You can come here and paint all day."

I promised myself then that I would return. My time in the garden, immersed in Monet's world, and my brief time of seeing what he saw had changed me, and opened a new door in my perception. The images and feelings are a memory I go back to again and again.

The great artist gave the gift of his paintings and his wonderful garden to the world. And now I realized we are all more artist than we were before a visit, by seeing briefly through his eyes, by being immersed and touched by the beauty Claude Monet created.

IF YOU GO

Claude Monet's home in Giverny, France, is open 9:30 a.m.-6 p.m., every day except Monday, from April 1 through Oct. 31. Visit online at www.fondation-monet.fr/fr

Karen Kenyon is a freelance travel writer. To read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

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