Rouen and Giverny on the road to Paris

Posted by Anura Samara, 21 September 2014

It seemed to make sense to use the drive back to Paris to stop in at a few other sights along the way.

Rouen

The only reason to stop in Rouen is that this is the place where Joan of Arc was burnt at the stake.

In reality, Rouen is a large French city. We enjoyed the break in the drive to wander the streets, eventually ending up at the spot where Joan was rumoured to have been killed. It’s marked by a simple, tall modern cross, part of a larger modern church.

Of course, there’s an old town with a central cathedral and lots of narrow streets running in different directions but we didn’t have much time to explore.

Monet’s Gardens

Claude Monet’s gardens are in Giverny, close to Paris. This is the place where Monet lived and used as the setting for many of his famous paintings.

You can tell that the place is set up for tourists, as the car parking is all located some distance way from the gardens themsevles. Once we arrived, there was already a long queue forming for entry. Despite it not being the peak tourist season, once we entered the gardens themselves we found it was pretty full. It meant we couldn’t really appreciate the gardens as there were people milling around everywhere. It was worse down by the pond where we wanted to be able to stop at particular spots to take advantage of the scenery but there were too many people jostling to do the same, including a number of tour groups.

And it was threatening rain while we were there, which made us rush more than we intended to.

It would be a lovely place to go back to if we could find a quieter time to just enjoy the gardens and find the right angles for some photos. The question is: is it ever truly quiet there?

Categories: France

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