{"id":14372,"date":"2026-07-23T22:38:04","date_gmt":"2026-07-24T02:38:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/?p=14372"},"modified":"2026-07-23T22:38:04","modified_gmt":"2026-07-24T02:38:04","slug":"epic-france-trip-monets-house-and-garden-day-7","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/?p=14372","title":{"rendered":"Epic France Trip – Monet’s House and Garden – Day 7"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Well, the first<\/em> half of my France trip was epic.<\/p>\n

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These were my favorite flowers in our yard when we lived in Germany. I was happy to see them in Giverny.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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[Note: This post was written the evening of the day described, but I’m adding the pictures later. I don’t say a whole lot about Monet’s House in the text because it was really, really hot. But it was<\/em> beautiful, so I will insert pictures throughout the text.]<\/p>\n

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I’m glad that I dropped into Giverny on my first day in France<\/a> to orient myself and enjoy the gardens. I was glad I slowly browsed the Impressionists’ Museum and learned about Monet’s time in Giverny. And I’m glad I spent the previous Friday at a lovely cool garden in Brittany<\/a>. Because today was HOT. Monet’s garden was lovely, but crowded and hot. Monet’s house, no surprise, did not have air conditioning, though they’d set up fans in most rooms. And it was very crowded. And I was dripping sweat. And my feet hurt. A lot.<\/p>\n

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But I did enjoy the gardens and seeing the water lilies blooming in real life.<\/p>\n

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I did enjoy seeing Monet’s house, which is much larger than I’d realized. Both the yellow room and the blue room reminded me of kitchens in two homes my mother had decorated. (The colors felt like an exact match, not the decorations.)<\/p>\n

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So I am glad I went, but I did the outing, got the idea, then spent some time in the air-conditioned gift shop, then stopped for a sandwich, then drove back to the hotel with the air conditioner blaring, then bought ice cream at the hotel, then went back to my room, took off my shoes, and took a nap. And declared today’s afternoon and evening as a Rest Day.<\/p>\n

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Let me explain a little bit. About a week before I left, I checked the forecast, and it showed all the way through my trip as never getting hotter than 83 degrees Fahrenheit, and mostly upper 70s. Perfect! And that matched what happened two years ago when I visited Germany. And that matched my ten years experience of living in Germany. I think I checked right up to the day before my trip, and the forecast still said the same thing. So I brought jeans and knit tops, but nothing for especially hot weather except the shorts for the Mont Saint-Michel adventures in the bay.<\/p>\n

Well, the forecast changed. High of 100 degrees today. 103 tomorrow. 105 Wednesday – when I leave this air-conditioned hotel. 105 Thursday. Finally down to 95 on Friday, the day I leave.<\/p>\n

In my ten years living in Germany, there was only ONE heat wave where it got hotter than 100 degrees. The thing is, there’s not much air conditioning – because they don’t normally need it. So this is going to be challenging.<\/p>\n

And then there’s my feet. I do still have blisters on the bottoms, the worst one being my right big toe where the blister broke and the skin on the bottom of the toe tore off. The rest is mostly better, at least in comparison to the sunburn on the tops. Today, there were blisters on my right foot. So it’s indeed a second-degree sunburn. I’ve had a lot of experience with those – Hey, I’m fair-skinned and grew up in Southern California before the super strong sunscreens were invented – and this felt that bad. I’m only glad it didn’t come with heat stroke like most of my second-degree sunburns did – probably because it’s really a small area.<\/p>\n

But it really does hurt. It feels like the skin on the tops of my feet has been drawn tight. And then any movement of my feet – like taking a step – feels like it will tear the skin apart. I really hope it will turn the corner soon. I don’t like that it seemed worse today on the second day after the burn.<\/p>\n

Wearing shoes helps the skin not stretch as much when I take a step, so I was okay in Giverny. But it was pretty painful to put on the shoes and socks, so once I took them off, I’m not putting them on again today. Instead, I’m sitting around with my feet up, periodically reapplying cortisone cream.<\/p>\n

Tomorrow I will probably brave going to \u00c9tretat. The clincher is that the temperature there is “only” supposed to be 95. And I can always look around a little and then duck back into my air-conditioned car.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Well, the first half of my France trip was epic. [Note: This post was written the evening of the day described, but I’m adding the pictures later. I don’t say a whole lot about Monet’s House in the text because it was really, really hot. But it was beautiful, so I will insert pictures throughout […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[73],"class_list":["post-14372","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-travel","tag-france2026"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14372","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14372"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14372\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14716,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14372\/revisions\/14716"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14372"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14372"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14372"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}