24 A tale of two French gardens
While you can immerse yourself in Claude Monet’s epic Water Lilies series in a museum within the Jardin des Tuileries, the actual garden that inspired it is only 50 miles outside Paris, so it's perfectly possible to visit both within a weekend. Spend your first morning at the Musee de l'Orangerie (musee-orangerie.fr http://musee-orangerie.fr), contemplating Monet's enthralling murals spread across two oval rooms. Break for lunch at La Palette, a turn-of-the-century Left Bank cafe popular with students, artists and art dealers and hung with reproduction canvases (cafelapaletteparis.comhttp://cafelapaletteparis.com;). Next, head for the Musee Marmottan Monet, where more than 100 of Monet's paintings are on display (marmottan.fr http://marmottan.fr). On day two, head for Gare Saint-Lazare in the eighth arrondissement, the station immortalised in Monet's painting of the same name, and take a train to Vernon (from £6; one hour) in order to reach Monet's Garden at Giverny (fondation-monet.comhttp://monet.com;). Standing on the Japanese-style bridge to admire the water-lily pond, you may feel as though you've strayed into a painting.
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February 2019
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