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At 6:00 p.m. on day 2 or our cruise, our ship set sail down the Seine for the city of Vernon. We arrived sometime in the night and woke up in a beautiful, quaint, small town.
After a delicious breakfast, we left for our first excursion of the day to the French village of Giverny where the artist Claude Monet lived and had his beautiful gardens.
First stop, Monet home and gardens:
I don’t know very much about “art.” However, I have always loved Monet’s work. The brush strokes and the colors he chose make me feel like I can fall into one of his paintings. To be able to literally walk around in a Monet painting was a great thrill.
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| Lilly pond |
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| I wore my brightest outfit in honor of Monet!! |
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| No words to describe the beauty. |
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| Dr. T and my son. They were good sports. I think they enjoyed it!! |
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| The painting |
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| Walking inside the painting. |
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| Love!! |
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| The painting |
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| Walking inside the painting. |
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| Inside Monet’s home |
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| Perfect French village |
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| Field of poppies outside the Monet museum |
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| Me and my beautiful daughter!! |
We made it back to the ship for lunch and were back out for a short walking tour of Vernon by 2:30. There was an optional painting class on board as well as a lecture on “Painters Along The Seine” while we went on our walking tour.
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| The coziest little town of Vernon. |
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| Cobblestone streets |
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| Amazing to still see shrapnel marks from WWII on this church. |
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| Although they had a supermarket, there was still a butcher shop, fromage shop, liquor store, and a chocolate store. Very European!!! I loved it. |
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| One of the oldest buildings in town. |
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| Great story behind this woman. Our guide told us to watch for her and while we waited for her to appear, she told us this story. This woman always appears waving an American flag for tourists. One day, our guide asked her age. She only knows that she is in her 90’s. Our guide also reminded her that the USA didn’t liberate Vernon during WWII. The woman told her that she knows that. However, the USA did liberate the town she and her family lived in during WWII. Her family even rescued a US serviceman and kept him for two weeks until help could get him. She waves our flag proudly to let all Americans know that she has never forgotten what the USA did for her!! We were all wiping tears at the end of this great story!! |
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| Beautiful flowers everywhere we looked. It made me want to go home and get to gardening!! |
We loved the town of Vernon. It was here that we started seeing plaques around depicting WWII battles and explaining what happened on that spot!!
To give you an idea of the attention to detail that goes on with a Viking Cruise. I will share what happened while in Vernon. After our walking tour, Dr. T and I went to the supermarket. I bought two bottles of Bordeaux wine. I didn’t put them in our refrigerator. I left them on the counter in our room. When we got back to our room that night, we had our usual turndown service, and right in front of my bottles of wine sat two wine glasses. Viking knows how to spoil!!
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