Late Summer at Giverny

Road Trip Day 1 – Giverny and Rouen

My best friend Natalie and I decided to take a quick 4-day road trip through France, more specifically, Normandy.  What follows is an account of the events, sights, and stories that took place.  This is just part 1, you can read day 2 here and day 3 HERE.


Day 1 technically began with an extremely early wake-up alarm, a bus ride, lengthy walk to the car rental office, and subsequent loss of direction.  Somehow, we ended up on the wrong motorway about 20 minutes into the trip, but with a bit of spontaneous redirection, we were able to get back on track.  It seemed this first mishap would set the tone for the rest of the trip, as we became lost – without fail – every single time we turned the car engine on.  More on that later…

Our first real stop (if you don’t count a McDonald’s egg McMuffin pitstop), was Giverny!  It was my second time there, and it was just as beautiful as the first.  Last time, it was early spring, the garden overflowing with multicolored tulips.  This time around, it was late summer, so the greenery was much taller, much more overgrown, and the dominant flower was the Dahlia.  Dahlias as big as your head, no joke.  Here I have inserted Natalie’s hand for reference.

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Wandering Wednesday Parisian Street Photography

Wandering Wednesdays

Long time, no post!  For the past two weeks I’ve been traveling around Paris and Normandy with my best friend, so I’ve pressed pause on the blog.  However, I’m back and ready to share my travels with you!  While I sort, edit, and write these new posts, I’ll leave you with another Wednesday wander through Parisian streets.  I should be back with a recap of our first road-trip day later this week!

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Artist Studios

I decided to have a proper wander through Paris yesterday.  I started near Rue du Bac (7th arrondissement), made my way through little alleyways in Saint Germain des Près, stopped in at the Medieval Museum, and ended up on Rue de Rivoli, just a block away from the Louvre.  But more on those explorations later…

What I was NOT expecting was to find an entire building FULL to the brim with art studios.  The front door itself stands out like a neon sign on a dark night.  Painted in every imaginable color, the door wide open, beckoning curious passerby inside.  I think most people are a bit taken aback to see such a kitschy/ostentatious façade nestled among the monotonous trail of international-chain shopping stores that a huge chunk of Rue de Rivoli is (H&M, Forever 21, Zara, Mango, etc.).  I was feeling the adventurous vibe, so I went in.  Rainbow colors and open doors seem friendly enough.

I didn’t get a picture of the front door for some reason, but I did get many others from inside.

First off – the staircase was painted in a mismatched, haphazard way all the way up to the top floor.  The text below reads “follow the dragon. ”

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Visual Diary: French Summer

How does one have a quintessential French summer?  The biggest requirement is to abandon all work and responsibilities and head for the beaches of Greece or the Côte d’Azure for the entirety of August – my version of a getaway will come later in the month.  What is also typically Parisian is attending an awesome music festival, and sipping cold rosé, which I also have not done yet, since I’m a hopeless home-body. What I have been doing, however, is enjoying the pleasant weather in the form of picnics, sunbathing, and lounging on the terrasse of bars and restaurants with friends.

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Claude Monet

Springtime in Monet’s Garden

Being a girl who took started French lessons in high school and studied Art in college, I’ve always had a soft spot in my heart for Impressionism, or any artwork during that time period actually. Degas’ cropped Ballerina scenes, Van Gogh’s vibrating and tortuous genre scenes, and Monet’s expansive waterlily canvases. It’s all so fascinating, the history behind these artistic revolutions; and what makes it even more fascinating, more so than seeing the canvases in a museum, is seeing the source of inspiration itself. I had the privilege of seeing Claude Monet’s private gardens last Saturday, as well as his home, and took a crazy amount of flower pictures.

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