PARIS & BEYOND

IF YOU LOVE IT SO MUCH, WHY DID YOU LEAVE IT TODAY?

Because innocent obsessions can be indulged and my love for the spring garden knows no bounds.

I have always thought that Giverny (Monet’s garden, about an hour away by train from Paris) was overwhelming in its outrageous beauty. But I’d never seen it in spring. Now is my chance. And it follows well on the heels of Japan since, as I wrote earlier, Monet himself was fascinated by Japanese gardens and had them in mind in his design of the lily pond, the ‘second’ half of the Giverny garden.

I leave Paris very early, even before the cafés have poured their first café crème. (I am staying close to the Sorbonne and so the cafés have names with literary pretensions.)



It’s a bit of a hike from the train station in Vernon to the gardens in Giverny (most people take the bus), but I am up for it. The day is brilliant with sunshine and I pass old houses on the river Seine and blooming chestnuts.





But my hiking plans are foiled half-way through by the generosity of an older couple who take pity on me and pull over to offer a ride. I can’t resist such niceness. They take the time to drive me around and show a better route for my return walk later in the day. I sit in the back seat amidst clutter that includes a stack of baguettes. The smell is terrific! The older man tells me I have a good accent. I say that maybe it’s because I am French. He responds – absolutely impossible! Okay, okay, I wasn’t really serious. I can be fluent in one sentence and completely lost in another.

I am at the gates when the gardens open but it is still crowded. Tour groups are the wrost: they move slowly and block paths.

The garden is indeed splendid, really splendid, but I have come too late for the early spring flowers and too early for the later spring ones. I had thought that I would like this version of the garden better than the mid-summer brilliant spill of nasturtium, lavender and climbing roses, but I’m not sure I do. This garden (unlike mine!) seems to improve with each month. Still, it never disappoints. It remains in my mind the champion of all gardens.







And of course, there’s the part with the pond and the Japanese bridge, so favored by Monet in his paintings, even when he was already losing his sight.







Only after I finish walking through the gardens do I search out a place for the morning café and croissant. All good things have to have their right moment.



I have time before the noon train to Paris and so I walk along dirt roads up the hills behind Giverny. Wild poppies and buttercups are everywhere. I feel like I’m inside a Monet painting. The old village houses contribute to this.





Just outside Giverny I find a small house where a woman is displaying some of her own paintings. Her daughters come in and out, sometimes resting on her lap, other times talking to friends outside. I am tempted beyond temptation by one small painting. It is NOT expensive, really! I’m supporting local artists after all. And I’ll frame it when I get back to Madison. You are not allowed to say you don’t really like it!





Outside the little ‘gallery’ I run into my old village pal who gave me a ride this morning. He is out on his bicycle now and pauses to ask about my morning. We talk and then I tell him that I am on my way to find the secret path into town. He asks when my train is and expresses surprise when I say 50 minutes. “Better really hurry” he warns and pedals off.

Indeed, he is right. The path goes on forever. FOR FUTURE REFERENCE IT TAKES MORE THAN AN HOUR OF SPRINT WALKING TO GET FROM THE GRADENS TO THE STATION.

As I alternate between a jog and a sprint (with the painting, it’s really hard to jog), I begin to think that I cut it too close once again.

But no! At an intersection with the road there stands my village pal! He had gone back to his home, gotten his car and came back to find me and give me a lift to the station.

I AM SO TIRED OF PEOPLE SAYING THAT THE FRENCH ARE RUDE AND UNFRIENDLY!

I learn that he is a retired elementary school teacher. He tells me that a life of teaching in the village has been supremely agreeable. The parents tend to their children, classes are small, and when the weather is good, he’d take the kids for long walks in the woods. What could be easier? He has lived just outside Giverny all his life. His children and grandchildren live here as well. And is there a big family dinner each Sunday, I wonder? But of course! Ah, hence all those fresh baguettes in the car. I tell him it’s like straight out of a movie: time standing still in the village of Giverny.

In Paris, everyone, EVERYONE is flooding to the parks. The little children ride merry-go-rounds and sail boats, an older man feeds the birds. So much good spirit, all because of the gorgeous Sunday weather.







I pass my favorite bookstore. It’s ‘favorite’ status is entirely attributable to the fact that it is on a restaurant path and it stays open late into the night. I often buy a book or two with the resolve to get through it back home, to keep up the language. But I never do get to it and so this time I show great restraint and buy nothing. Even though I was tempted by this title:



It translates to “why don’t the French and Americans understand each other anymore.” It begins with an 1849 quote from Victor Hugo: “Un jour viendra ou l’on verra ces deux groupes immenses, les Etats-Unis d’Amerique et les Etats-Unis d’Europe, se tendre la main par-dessus les mers…” (which, correct me if I’m wrong, seems to mean: ‘A day will come when one will see two immense groups, the United States of America and the United States of Europe, extending a hand over the oceans’; okay, so he was a half visionary). There is a chapter on “la Francophobie Americaine” and “Antiamericanisme” as the author attempts to locate the hostilities each feels toward the other in a historical context. Yes, of course, it’s understandable. But I see the author speculating about a Bush reelection and I know that the vision of a stronger Europe building better relations with the US is suddenly very much in doubt.

I have to pause now. Excessively long posts are disconcerting –even to the writer. Besides, There are still blocks to be walked, cafés to be visited. I’ll end with a sight picture again. On a day like today, the Louvre is competiting with the parks to attract visitors.