Well, all good things have to come to an end. Here we are, the last tour of the last day of vacation.  Nothing but travel scheduled for tomorrow. 

Over there across the street from the Louvre, just to the left of the Hotel Regina, just beyond the gold statue, beneath the arches, in the dark -- that's the headquarters of the Cityrama/Gray Line tour company.  That's where I started all these Paris tours.

The buses line up to take the tourists to the tourist traps.

And now we're out in the French countryside, on our way to Giverny.

There it is back there behind the trees.  Claude Monet's house.

He said he knew how to do only two things well -- paint and garden. 

After he died, his son Michael came into possession of the house.  But Michael didn't like the place, and he let it fall into ruin.  When he died in the 1960's, the French government took possession and restored the house and grounds to the condition they were in when Monet and his family lived there.

Our guide handled duties in English and Italian.

Monet built his Japanese garden across the highway from his house.  By the 1960's the famous bridge had fallen into disrepair, so the French government rebuilt it and restored Monet's pond to its former glory.

If you've seen many of Monet's paintings, this place looks awfully familiar.

Water lilies.

More water lilies.

The stream that feeds the pond has a pretty swift current.  It looked cool and very inviting.

There was never a chance to get a picture of that bridge when nobody was standing on it.

Well, actually I did spot it once when nobody was there.  This picture is from the Orsay collection.  There are no original Monets in the house at Giverny, just reproductions.

I tried, but I think I didn't capture the beauty of the place quite as well as M. Monet.

Close, though.

By this time in the trip I had a pretty limited wardrobe of semi-clean clothes.  (I spent two weeks in Europe living out of only carry-on bags.)  But I did save a fresh outfit for the final day of travel.  Nobody complained on the bus, though, so I guess the clothes were still clean enough to go out in public.

Freshening up the water lilies.

OK, that's enough of the water lilies.

Back across the street to the house.  Actually, UNDER the street -- there was an underground walkway.  Here's a gardener keeping the flowers fresh.

This is Monet's view from his bedroom window.

The guy really knew how to garden, didn't he?

Now we can all enjoy the place.  For a fee.

They warned us not to take pictures inside the house.  But nobody was looking, so ....

Those Japanese prints are authentic, and so is the paint scheme -- this is how Monet decorated his home.

View from the kitchen.  I wish I'd risked a picture in the dining room, which was painted bright yellow.

I can imagine this home filled with the sound of Monet's many children, food bubbling on the wood stove, the scent of flowers wafting in from the garden, etc. etc.  A nice place.  I wonder why Michael didn't like it?

  Monet's wife had died and he had children, and he moved here with a woman named Alice who also had children -- so the place had to be big.

That's Monet's bedroom up there.

I could live in a place like this.

The artist liked his home to be colorful.

His garden too.

I was wandering around and found an open gate and inside there were chickens.  So I took a picture.  And then a nice man said, "Monsieur, monsieur!" and hurried me out.  I guess these are secret French chickens.

There's something suspicious about this plaque too.  Somebody has adjusted those dates.

A last look at the place from the road.

Bye bye, Giverny.