Dinan, France

Dinan is a beautiful town in Brittany with a history going back prior to the 12th century. It is a walled city with over a mile of ramparts to be explored and a great selection of half-timbered houses that set a fairyland ambience to walk through.

The surrounding countryside is a beautiful farming area that was alive with blooming mustard as we drove through. It is located above the River Rance with a great location relative to other sites in Brittany,

Our hotel happened to be in the historic home of Auguste Pavie a French explorer and diplomat whose bust is displayed in the nearby English Garden with its access directly to the ramparts.

The city located well above the river has been connected by a steep commercial byway since the 12th century called Jerzual Street.

We were totally entertained by the ancient town and fine food but while we were there a media event was going on with live music, runway fashion shows and multiple functions for International Young Fashion Designers.

Old meets new meets fine food.

 

 

The Orangery, Paris

The Louvre is most famous, the Muse d’Orsay is widely know for a spectacular collection and the Orangery ticket is offered at a package discount when you enter the Orsay. It is as if they can’t get traffic to this quiet building in the far corner of the Tuileries. But to go there is to experience two well defined, all consuming experiences.

Paul Monet donated a series of oversize works to the people of France as his hope to supply a quiet place of reflection for those needing it after a stressful day in the city. These two rooms are wrapped by various reflective impressions of the lily ponds at different times of the day exhibiting difference in light and color. They are almost too expansive to appreciate until you spend more time drifting into their galaxy.

But there is a second experience waiting on the lower floor. A magnificent collection of Impressionist paintings and Impressionist complimentary paintings.

Henri Rousseau

Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Paul Cezanne

Pablo Picasso

Henri Matisse

Amedeo Modigliani

Andre Derain

Marie Laurencin

Chaim Soutine

 

Giverny

This is the home Claude Monet lived in for 43 years and designed the home and gardens for his family and art. The gardens are world famous especially for the lily ponds represented in many of his paintings. They do not disappoint and are a place that should be visited multiple times through the season to witness the evolving beauty of the blooms.

The true surprise is the home itself and the wealth of art inside. The rooms are painted in bright colors expressing different emotions in each section. The home is still as it was when he lived there. Monet’s studio is a gallery of priceless paintings of his as well as examples from Pissarro, Gauguin, Sisley, Manet and others.

One small anteroom has eight Cezanne paintings in it alone.

We visited the second week of April when the upper gardens were at full bloom for bulbs and early spring colors. The garden will be completely different and magnificent in another way in three weeks.

You pass through a tunnel under the road and enter a countryside setting with a cross track stream that opens into the most famous pond in Europe. Even though the lily pads have not yet grown the subtle colors and early Spring blooms make a lovely and relaxing ambiance.

There is so much beauty it becomes crowded and distracted if you forget to focus in on particular plants, sections or bursts.

 

Courtauld Collection, Somerset House, London

We came here for the art but the complex itself has a very interesting history. Wikipedia tells us; In 1539 Edward Seymour, 1st Earl of Hertford (d.1552), obtained a grant of land at “Chester Place, outside Temple Bar, London” from his brother-in-law King Henry VIII. When his nephew the boy-king Edward VI came to the throne in 1547, Seymour became Duke of Somerset and Lord Protector. ( He began to build his palatial mansion but before it could be finished,) the Duke of Somerset was overthrown, attainted by Parliament and in 1552 was executed on Tower Hill.^[6] “Somerset Place” then came into the possession of the Crown. His royal nephew’s half-sister the future Queen Elizabeth I lived there during the reign of her half-sister Queen Mary I (1553–1558).

Since that time the complex has been used for many government purposes and now houses a variety of galleries including the Courtauld Institute of Art and the current Courtauld Collection.

The Collection has been enhanced by several large contributions but the original Courtauld pieces included extensive Impressionist and Post-Impressionist pieces. His collection included Manet‘s A Bar at the Folies-Bergère and a version of the Déjeuner sur l’Herbe, Renoir‘s La Loge, landscapes by Claude Monet and Camille Pissarro, a ballet scene by Edgar Degas, and a group of eight major works by Cézanne. Other paintings include Vincent van Gogh‘s Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear and Peach Blossoms in the Crau, Gauguin‘s Nevermore and Te Rerioa, and important works by Seurat, Henri “le Douanier” Rousseau, Toulouse-Lautrec and Modigliani.

Van Gogh

Monet