Giverny

Architecture Tours

Visit Monet’s Giverny estate and the Palace of Versailles on this day tour from Paris by air-conditioned coach. Stop at the Monet Foundation for a short introduction to the estate. Take a walk around the lily pad pond and visit the artist’s ivy-clad house. Take a lunch break in town before the short drive to Versailles, a perfectly preserved example of French royal extravagance. Skip the lines at Versailles on your guided tour of the rooms where Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette threw lavish soirées. Visit the private royal chambers. Enjoy a short tour of the gardens and then explore at your leisure. Depending on the day, you may experience the Fountain Show or the Musical Gardens.

Leave Paris behind for a scenic drive to Normandy with your knowledgeable driver-guide to discover the beautiful home of the "Father of Impressionism" – Claude Monet. Experience the famous gardens that fill Monet's paintings. View the water garden shaded by weeping willows, with the famous Japanese bridge, wisterias, azaleas, and the well-known lily ponds. Enjoy the quaint charm of Monet's home as you admire the precious collection of Japanese engravings on display. Stop at the Nympheas studio, home to the Foundation's Shop, where you can choose to pick up a souvenir. See the Clos Normand with its archways of climbing plants entwined around brilliantly colored shrubs, offering the perfect palette from spring to autumn. Wander around the village that attracted large numbers of American artists between 1883 and 1920. These men and women soon formed an important artist's colony in the village of Giverny.

Discover the unparalleled beauty in the Clos Normand and Japanese Water gardens of Claude Monet, in Giverny. You’ll feel as though you’ve stepped into one of his Impressionist paintings as you walk among the willow trees and cross the little green bridge over his pond of water lilies. Then you’ll explore the inside of his colorful family home, getting some unique access to whether the artists actually lived and worked. After your visit of Claude Monet’s home and gardens you’ll stop at his tomb to pay your respects to this great man in person. Afterwards, you’ll be off to visit the town of Auvers-sur-Oise where you’ll focus on the troubled life and amazing Post Impressionist art of Vincent Van Gogh. You’ll visit the boarding house where Vincent lived the last 3-months of his life. Next, explore the little town and surrounding area which inspired 77 of his paintings. You’ll visit the gothic “Church of Auvers” and walk in the actual “Wheat Field with Crows”. Seeing these places with your own eyes will help you to understand why Vincent Van Gogh found so much inspiration in Auvers-sur-Oise. You’ll also visit Van Gogh’s final resting place; a humble ivy covered grave site.

The departure will be at 7:45 AM from a centrally located agency. It will take about 1 hour and 15 minutes to reach the idyllic location, the lovely Norman village of Giverny. Discover the place of inspiration where Claude Monet, master of the Impressionist movement, created his most beautiful works. By visiting the artist's house and gardens, still in its original look, you will let yourself be carried away in Monet's imagination. The house, pink and green outside and full of color inside, and the two gardens, covered in flowers from spring to autumn, are themselves an exceptional work of art. When crossing the Japanese bridge inside the water garden, you won’t miss the famous water lilies and the majestic weeping willows decorating the charming pond. In the paths of the Clos Normand (the Norman enclosed plot), the flower beds will dazzle your eyes with their endlessly varied colors and will lead you to daydream and romanticize. Stride along the streets of this charming little village, and stroll through the painters' and sculptors' galleries. Complete your day by visiting the museum of impressionism which has one of the most beautiful collections of Impressionist works.

A day of unforgettable impressions awaits you outside Paris at legendary Versailles and the home of Claude Monet. Select the private option, and you'll be whisked straight from your lobby or doorstep in downtown Paris to Giverny, the village where Monet produced some of the world's most beautiful landscape paintings. See the gardens the so-called Father of Impressionism magically recreated on canvas, with their trademark water lilies and Japanese bridge. A complimentary 3-course lunch at the renowned Moulin de Fourges restaurant will provide the perfect opportunity to rest and savor what you saw along with fine gourmet food. The second part of the day takes you to Versailles, where reality might exceed your idea of how kings and queens once lived. Spend an hour wandering about the Grand Apartments of the king and queen, and the famous Hall of Mirrors. Outside discover the famous palace gardens, the marble Grand Trianon palace retreat and Marie Antoinette's Hamlet.

Get insight into some of the most famous figures in French history, their lives and how they liked to live. Giverny and Versailles are less than a 1 hour drive west of Paris, so combining them both into one day trip is easy and relaxed. This tour starts with the calm and almost other worldly beauty of Claude Monet’s Home and Gardens in Giverny. Learn about the famous Impressionist artist and then enjoy free time to explore inside his vibrantly colored home, stroll along the charming paths of his flower garden, and admire the water garden with the little green bridge and lake full of his famous water lilies. In the afternoon the guide will share the scandals surrounding the French Revolution and Marie-Antoinette during your visit to the Royal Domain of Versailles. You will enjoy Skip-the-line access into the Palace itself and have free time to explore inside with an audio-guide. Visit the Royal Apartments, the stunning Hall of Mirrors, and then wander through the famously organized French Gardens. When the Palace tour is finished, enjoy an easy transfer back into Paris, having accomplished the country side. 

After a meeting point with your guide in Paris, board the minivan for the drive (roughly 1.5 hours) to Giverny where you will then walk in the footsteps of Claude Monet. When you arrive at Claude Monet's house and gardens, you are free to wander through the rows of vibrant flowers in front of the home and stroll over to the water lily pond and Japanese bridge, which you'll recognize from some of Monet's most famous paintings. Take in a variety of vegetation, including cherry trees, tulips, roses, wisteria, weeping willows and irises. Inside the house, you can see the kitchen, dining room, living spaces and bedrooms and admire his collection of Japanese prints on the walls. The leader of the Impressionist movement of the 19th century, Monet introduced more perception, emotion and light into art of his age, and he spent almost 40 years developing his Giverny property. You can also take a look at his workshop. After Giverny, take a midday break for lunch at the Moulin de Fourges, an 18th-century mill on the Epte River outside Giverny that has been transformed into a restaurant and inn. From there, continue your tour to Versailles. The opulent Palace of Versailles was once the home of King Louis XIV and Marie Antoinette. On a tour of their extravagant apartments, try to imagine daily life for the royal family. Walk through the famous Hall of Mirrors, the Grand Apartments, the Queen's Apartments and more as your guide helps bring history to life for you. Enjoy some free time to wander through the expansive gardens behind the palace at Versailles before your day trip concludes and you travel back to Paris.