just outside of paris are various sites that you can visit in a day. i went to two places in recent months: giverny and versailles.
lat month my roommates kathryn, natalie and i went to giverny to see monet's house and gardens. the photos are of me sitting in front of monet's house and the other is his famous water lily pond. i'm barely dressed because it was one of the hottest, most humid days of summer. it must have been in the mid- to upper-nineties with at least 60% humidity. i didn't realize i had tan lines until i saw this photo. they are just from walking around paris in my tank tops.
giverny is a short train ride from paris. i really enjoyed seeing the gardens that inspired so many of monet's paintings. there isn't much to do there except look at all the plants and flowers, plus you can take a tour of his house as well. there are other things to see in the town of giverny: many souvenir shops, local artists selling their works, and places to eat. it's quite touristy, so we didn't participate in any of those activities.
another local venue is versailles. the last time i went to visit the chateau was about fifteen years ago. this summer they offered a special "water show" just on saturday evenings and just for five weeks during the summer. since it is a special show, i decided to go last weekend with my english friend chris. canned classical music played as you strolled around the gardens starting at 8:30 p.m. the "water show" wasn't a show at all; they just turned the fountains on. then at 11:05 they had a fireworks show (as i mentioned in an earlier post, the french do know how to put on a great fireworks show). and that was it. not a lot of show for kind of a lot of dough (23EU was the normal price, but luckily lola came to my rescue and offered discount tickets...merci lola!).
i hope to go back to versailles soon to see the interior of the chateau again. i am also planning a trip in a couple of weeks to another fairly local chateau, vaux le vicomte. lucky me.
