Giverny

We had been talking about taking an overnight trip to somewhere close to Paris for a while when I read this article about Giverny in the New York Times.  We decided to take the train up to Vernon (a neighboring town) and spend the night in Giverny before heading to the Maison de Claude Monet, where the painter lived from 1883 to 1926.

While we were excited about seeing the gardens that inspired so many of the paintings that we love, we did not expect to be so charmed by Giverny.  It is a very small town and was filled with color from the flowers lining the sides of the roads and spilling out of gardens around every corner.

(this house was for sale, but we resisted the temptation to buy it)

After spending a peaceful night in Giverny, we enjoyed breakfast outside on our room's patio before heading over to Monet's gardens.  

Though we walked right in when we arrived, the garden was already fairly crowded.  We spent a few hours wandering around the garden and found a long line of people waiting to get in when we left shortly after noon.  Giverny is an easy day trip from Paris, so it is not surprising that the middle of the day is the peak time for visitors.      

We walked up and down the main street of the town, looking at restaurant menus to find a place to have lunch before returning to Paris.  We ended up at Hôtel Baudy, where our lunches were very good, but the rose garden behind the restaurant was spectacular.  We were a little jaded after Monet's garden but this garden was almost empty, which was a pleasant counterpoint to our experience earlier in the day.

Monet's Garden in Giverny

Scenes from the weekend

Now that the days are (finally) warmer and the sun is setting later, it feels like we can fit just a little more into each weekend.

Like watching a dog politely sit in the booth next to his owner at a restaurant. . .

Finding a peaceful oasis in the middle of the crowded Marais neighborhood. . .

Walking along the Canal Saint-Martin in the evening. . .

And enjoying a gorgeous sunset at 10:30 at night.

Chicago

We were back in Chicago for a short visit last week.  I was able to spend some time playing tourist, something I did not do nearly enough during twelve years of living there.

Porto

We took advantage of a holiday-packed early May to spend some time in Portugal.  After a day filled with a two-and-a-half hour flight, a fraught 40 minutes getting from the airport to the train station in Lisbon, a two-and-a-half hour train ride up to Porto, and a hilly walk to our hotel, we found ourselves on our balcony enjoying this view of the city:

Sadly, the weather was gray and rainy most of our days in Porto and we did not get to enjoy the pool at the hotel.  Our hotel was located in the middle of the cellars and tasting rooms of a number of port wine houses.  We did tours and tastings of two different houses as well as a tasting of red, white and port wines from the Douro region at our hotel.  

As always, I loved the technical aspects of the tours.  One of the houses we visited told us that the grapes are crushed by foot!  The people stomping on the grapes sing traditional songs so they all maintain the same rhythm and the grapes are crushed uniformly.  We did not make it out to the Douro wine region, where the grapes for port wine are grown, but I would love to do that on a future trip.

We spent most of our time exploring the city despite the dreary weather.  We even made it out to the coast to see the Atlantic Ocean.  The waves were huge and it was a cool day, so I just dipped a hand into the water and J observed from a safe distance.