Art Colony Giverny

Meet artist and teacher Caroline Homes Nuckolls.

 

Caroline found me through my ParisBreakfast posts on Giverny. And invited me for a very special week of painting in Monet's gardens with her Art Colony Giverny.

 

Caroline has been painting here since 2001 with Gale Bennett, then as his assistant. And now Caroline is leading the group every September. We entered through the gardener’s entrance. You won't see this view unless you go with Caroline.

 

Name the flower 🌺 please...Zinnias?

 

We got to paint after hours either and have the gardens mostly to ourselves from 5 - 8 pm.

 

Try to imagine entering with the gardeners at 7 am.

 

The visitors come in at 9 am. Then they open the house shutters.

 

Name this flower please 🙏 

Along with getting the cheese book I better get a flower guide.

 

Yesterday Caroline led us on an introductory tour of Monet's gardens. She knows it like the back of her hand ✋

 

"Part of this trellis is authentic...this part was remade to match". There isn't a pebble here Caroline doesn't have an petite histoire to tell.

 

So many secrets were revealed. Caroline PLEASE write a book telling all.

 

Learn to mix colors using "Observation with imagination" the Gale Bennett way with Caroline. Photographers are welcome too in the group. You can just inhale the fresh perfumes of the flowers and still have the time of your life.

 

We stay at an old mill 5 minutes walk from the gardens.

 

Tomorrow I'll share my early morning walk in the gardens. Watching the light change is mind altering blowing.

Does your pet want to go to Giverny or somewhere else in France? Do let me know.

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Day Tripping to Fontainebleau

Why not try do a day trip outside of Paris?
 

This was my 5th trip this summer but what the heck. Just 35 minutes away from Gare de Lyon and the train is free on the weekends if you have a carte Navigo.
 

Naturally first stop was the historic patisserie Frederic Cassel. Might as well start off on a high.

Next stop - the Sunday marché in Place Republic. This was pure chance and a lucky break.

Gorgeous looking possibly local vegetables direct from the ferme.
 

As well as fabulous repro garden furniture selling for a song (I thought). This bench made us long for a place to munch our desserts.
 

The perfect park awaits just across from the merry-go-round. 

I'm holding a dessert from Cassel - a vanilla pudding with cinnamon and caramel topped with late summer fruits, raspberries and figs.
 

I got Cassel's winning fraisier again. I wanted to see how it tasted without traveling on a bus, a train, an RER and the Metro. It tasted WONDERFUL. And there were whole berries inside! How do they do that? Unfortunately my water bottle fell on top of the fraisier an 'occupational hazard' for us travel bloggers.

We were so happy post-dessert we could have departed then and there. But since it was the 1st Sunday of the month the chateau was free.

I do have ICE CREAM OF THE DAY, but that has nothing to do with being organized ahem.
 

Neither of us has Fiacre of the day or month but this was a pretty way to see Fontainebleau.

Richard is mad for lanterns and can not pass one without shooting.
 

When we got back to Gare de Lyon the thought of having an apero  at Le Train Bleu in the station. Why not?
 

Simply divine and beautifully kept up.

We just had bubbly water - well worth the 12€ bill to visit this historic Paris institution. A fitting end to our visit to the chateau.
You could send your cats to Le Train Blue in Paris. Why not?

C'est La Rentree!

C'est la RENTRÉE! All the desserts are back in the vitrines to tempt us again. No rest for the weary.

Lots of chocolatey gateaux for Fall.

Fall fruit tartes are taking front row in the windows.

The train stations are full of returning vacationers with their perfect tans.

So sad they've had to give up all that R and R...

And face up to their ABCs. School starts today!

Though it does make you wish you were a kid again.

 The clothes are just gorge for students.

Plenty of appealing cashmeres in the windows too...

But I am not ready for boots yet I can tell you that!

What about all the delish ice creams of Summer?

Isn't this the saddest sight?

At least the bistro dogs are back in town.

Speaking of which, does your pet ask to go to Paris?

We're still painting original watercolors of pets in Paris.

Do contact us (Bear and myself) for more information.

BONNE RENTREE!

Centrifugal French

I had another one of my epiphanies the other day while gazing at a strawberry tarte in a patisserie vitrine. Along with loving stripes madly and lining things up in rows and polka-dots, the French are crazy mad for things that twirl. i.e. centrifugal force activities and edibles. And don't forget stacking things!

Centrifugal force (from Latin centrum, meaning "center", and fugere, meaning "to flee"^[1][2]) is the apparent force that draws a rotating body away from the center of rotation. It is caused by the inertia of the body as the body's path is continually redirected. In Newtonian mechanics, the term centrifugal force is used to refer to one of two distinct concepts: an inertial force (also called a "fictitious" force) observed in a non-inertial reference frame, and a reaction force corresponding to a centripetal force.

The term is also sometimes used in Lagrangian mechanics to describe certain terms in the generalized force that depend on the choice of generalized coordinates.

The concept of centrifugal force is applied in rotating devices such as centrifuges, centrifugal pumps, centrifugal governors, centrifugal clutches, etc., as well as in centrifugal railways, planetary orbits, banked curves, etc. These devices and situations can be analyzed either in terms of the fictitious force in the rotating coordinate system of the motion relative to a center, or in terms of the centripetal andreactive centrifugal forces seen from a non-rotating frame of reference; these different forces are equal in magnitude, but centrifugal and reactive centrifugal forces are opposite in direction to the centripetal force. (Thank you Wikipedia)

Pictures tell us so much more don't they? Why ever do the French love to ride around in circles high up in the air? You tell me. This is a strictly French obsession IMHO.

The twirling obsession comes down to earth in this strawberry tarte thank goodness for the rest of us.

Whoops. Here we go again at Jardin d'Acclimation. I'm telling you these things are everywhere. I kid you not.

Mean while i'll take Pierre Herme's twirler of a box of macarons thank you very much.

If you could have seen the line of Frenchies patiently waiting for a chance to climb up in this twirly tree house at the Grand Palais your jaw would have dropped to the ground too.

I'll take this any day of the week instead, but then I'm not French.

Did you ever twirl your umbrella? This level of centrifugal force I can deal with.

But hey! Look at this...hmmm

Ever notice the twirls going up that spire in Place Vendome?

Give me a twirly tarte citron at Patisserie des Reves svp...

Here's a sort of exploding twirl and a mere cabbage no less!? Who'd a thunk it?

I wonder do we have to want to go up in twirling carnival park gizmos to be truly able to appreciate a gorgeous mess of squiggly whipped cream? You tell me.