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Monet's Garden

This watercolor painting is my impression of the gorgeous flowers in Monet's Garden situated in the quaint village of Giverny, France (near Paris). After enjoying the full April blooming of these luscious spring flowers, what else could I do but paint them! Monet said before he died that his greatest creative work was not in his paintings but in the creation of these beautiful gardens.

VIVA LA FRANCE

Here are some of my favorite stories, photos and watercolor sketches of La Belle France. What a wondrous country. I absolutely love it. We didn't meet one single French person we didn't like. You know how you keep hearing the French are rude and all that ... not to us. Everyone we met, and we encouraged conversations with the locals, showed themselves to be kind, helpful and SO French. Part of this likely happened because Jim and I wore our Australian holiday adventure hats much of the time and we surmised that the French tended to think of us as Aussies.

However, I think the main reason the locals were so kind to us was that all that French language we sweated to learn in the last year really paid off. We amazed ourselves at how much we could converse and especially in the hill towns of Provence, where most people spoke very little if any English. We could not have had nearly the fun we had if we couldn't speak the language a bit.

Scenes from Paris

Top Left: Notre Dame Cathedral
Top Right: River Seine with the Louvre Museum along far bank
Bottom Left: La Moulin Rouge
Bottom Right: Carousel and Sacred Coeur Church high in Montmatre, Paris

Noreen's Watercolor Sketch of Notre Dame Cathedral
at Cherry Blossom Time