Giverny and Fete De La Musique

Our second-to-last Friday in Paris, the IES Abroad staff had a trip to Giverny planned for us.  We had an early morning rendezvous like we did for Reims.  An hour-long bus-ride later, we were at Monet’s house and garden.  Monet is well known for his water lily painting, but his garden is filled with amazing flowers of all different colors, shapes, and sizes.

After the house and gardens, we ate a very fulfilling meal at Les Nympheas.  I am glad to say they actually knew how to make a meal work for a vegetarian.

After lunch, we visited the Giverny Impressionist Museum, which featured American Impressionists.  The guide did a great job of talking about interesting parts of the artists’ lives.  We learned about the different styles of impressionism as well as about some of the drama that went down between different artists.  After the museum, we returned home to spend the rest of the weekend as we wished.

That weekend was also the weekend of the Fete de la Musique, a musical festival that happens once a year, on June 21st, which is usually the day of the summer solstice.  Anybody is allowed to go out onto the streets and play their instruments and sing, starting from around 6 PM until 5 AM the next morning.  We were lucky the festival happened on a Saturday so that we could stay out however long we wanted to without having to worry about the repercussions the next day.  We saw all sorts of craziness, from 5 rock bands in a row playing “Sunday Bloody Sunday” in the Latin Quarter to a small percussion group near Victor Hugo’s House to techno Yiddish music Jewish Quarter.  Also, the metro was packed; there was a group of 20 year-olds that chanted something at every metro stop.  I found it highly amusing, but I imagine there were quite a few people on the metro that did not.  Even though I was having a ton of fun, by about 12:30, I was burned out and had to return home.