Handpicked experience · Giverny
Giverny, FranceInstant Confirmation
Monet's lily pond is filled from the Epte, the river granted as Normandy's frontier in 911 and fought over for three centuries — and you cross it on the way to lunch.
A painter's garden walked at your own speed
A guided passage through the palace state rooms
Priority entry rather than the main queue
A seated three-course meal in a working mill
A frontier valley crossed twice in one day
Road travel and timings handled throughout
Just under ten hours from Paris covering Monet's house and gardens at Giverny, a three-course lunch at a watermill in the Epte valley, and a guided visit to the State Apartments and Hall of Mirrors at Versailles with priority entry.
The mill you eat at stands on the Epte, and the Epte is not an ordinary river.
In 911 a Frankish king, unable to stop Viking raiding up the Seine, made a bargain with a Norse leader called Rollo: land in exchange for defending the river against other Northmen. The agreement was made at Saint-Clair-sur-Epte, a few kilometres from where you will be sitting, and the little river became the eastern boundary of the territory it granted. That territory is Normandy — the name records the men who were given it.
A frontier that narrow was never going to be quiet. The Epte valley was fortified, raided and re-fortified for the better part of three hundred years, and the castles along this line were built for one job: to hold the border against whichever side currently held the other bank.
The most famous of them went up in the 1190s on a cliff above the Seine, a short drive from here, thrown together at extraordinary speed by an English king who ruled Normandy and wanted the frontier closed. It fell after a siege in 1204, and Normandy passed to the French crown. The border stopped mattering, the castles were left, and the Epte reverted to being a stream with mills on it.
The pond with the lily pads is not natural. Monet bought the marshy ground across the road and applied for permission to divert water from a small arm of the Epte to fill it.
So the water in the most-painted pond in modern art comes off the frontier river of the Dukes of Normandy, and you will cross it twice before lunch without being told.
At Versailles you have a guide through the State Apartments and the Hall of Mirrors, with priority entry so the arrival is not a queue.
At Giverny you do not. The gardens and the house are self-paced, which most people prefer there — a painter's garden rewards standing still, and a group moving as one cannot do that.
Getting to and from the Paris departure point is your own arrangement; there is no collection from your accommodation.
Giverny closes over the winter, so this pairing runs seasonally. Check the date you are booking.
Wine or cider with lunch is available on request rather than automatic — say so when you sit down.
Open it to pick a date and work out the price.
What the fare covers, and what to budget for separately.
The practical detail, and the answers people actually ask for.
A Frankish king granted land to a Norse leader in return for holding the Seine against other raiders.
At Saint-Clair-sur-Epte, only a few kilometres from where the lunch stop sits.
From the Northmen it was handed to — the name is a record of who received the grant.
It became the eastern boundary of the new territory, and therefore a frontier worth fortifying.
Close to three centuries of building, raiding and rebuilding along a valley you could throw a stone across.
A cliff-top castle above the Seine fell after a siege in 1204, and the duchy passed to the French crown.
No. The ground was marshy and had to be flooded deliberately once permission was obtained.
A small arm of the same river that was made the frontier a thousand years earlier.