Flowers -- Lots!

First thing this morning Dad and I caught a train that took us out of Paris and into the much smaller town of Vernon. From there we went to Giverny to see Monet's garden.

I don't think that I'll ever forget that moment when I caught my very first glimpse of Monet's botanical masterpiece. There were flowers everywhere! My excitement became even greater when I found my first purple section. After seeing that I began noticing the way that single-colored patches gracefully blended into other single-colored patches, and what a large but subtle role that plays in giving the garden such an artistic and magical feel.

The garden is divided into two main parts: the part in front of Monet's house and the part surrounding his famous water lily pond. Both areas were exquisite, but Dad and I both slightly favored the pond area.

Monet's house is really neat too, but we chose to spend most of our time in the garden.

It's  not really a huge garden, but we spent three hours looking at it. I had no idea that seeing this garden would touch me so deeply, and I didn't know that gardens like this could be found on earth. Today was definitely my favorite day in France, and one of my favorite days ever.

As if seeing Monet's garden and exploring the beautiful town of Giverny wasn't enough, we had an excellent dinner after returning to Paris. We ate pizza in a cool little pizza place. We sat by a window with a view of the street, but if we looked the other way we could see the chef preparing our pizzas and baking them in the fiery brick oven. Best of all, there was a cat that lives in the restaurant. They offered to get it away from us, but we told them that we liked the cat.

Dad's favorite part of today: Taking pictures of the part of Monet's garden with the pond.

My favorite part of today: Seeing the way that the garden's different color sections blended together.