Bits About Us Together: Paris Day 3

First up for today was a train ride to Gare Saint-Lazare which is Paris's 2nd busiest train station and has approx 450 000 passengers a day! We had to meet on Platform 22 (there are 27). Strangely for us we were a little early but soon other people turned up as did our tour guide for the day Kit. We all got on this huge 2 storey train and sat together in a carriage up the back. Kit was a very passionate young artist who had studied art history. Soooooooooo for the whole 40min trip out to the lovely village of Vernon he talked art. His voice was very monotone and I just couldn't share all his enthusiasm for impressionists! I just wanted to look out the window and enjoy the scenery but we were good and pretended to be interested!

Once we arrived in Vernon we went to the shed where the "Fat Tyre Bike co" bikes were stored and all got one and did all the seat adjusting etc. We then walked into the village and bought our supplies for lunch. It was a very pretty place with many tudor styled buildings...

Even the toilets were tudor style...

Toilet expert explaining the finer details with Kit and a "customer".

With our lunch supplies we hopped on the bikes and rode through the village to a spot along the River Seine and had a nice picnic with some very pretty scenery...

With full bellies we rode the 5km to Giverny, parked our bikes and then Kit gave us another talk...

Finally we were free to go and explore the beautiful Monets Garden by ourselves...

As with all tourist attractions in and around Paris it was very busy and hard trying to get some photos without people in but I did manage to get on the bridge without too many (in the middle in the white jacket)...

Photography by Peter...

After enjoying the stunning garden we went inside Claude Monets restored house...

We weren't allowed to take photos inside but I took some from the inside looking out onto the garden which was his inspiration for his artwork...

After buying a few souvenirs we had a quick look at the Hotel Baudy...

As the female toilet queue was enormous at Monets Garden I ran out the back to use the Hotels toilet and the garden setting out there was stunning...

Back on our bikes we stopped off to look at Claude Monet's and his families grave...

Over the River Seine and back into Vernon to drop the bikes back...

Back on the high speed train to Paris - yes Kit started talking again but about half way back someone offered him a wine and he sat chatting to them - bliss...