Let me say it straight away, before you fall for the photographs: if you are reading this in late September or in October 2026, you are still in time, but not for much longer. The Fondation Claude Monet, Giverny’s house and gardens, closes on 1 November 2026, and the official site has not yet announced the 2027 reopening date. If your trip to Paris falls later than that, Giverny slips to the spring: in those months the gate stays shut, and there is no way round it.
About fifteen minutes by shuttle from Vernon, in Normandy, Giverny is the village where Claude Monet lived for forty-three years, from 1883 until his death in 1926, and where he painted his water lilies as he watched them grow in the pond he had dug in his garden. It is not a museum in the sense the Louvre or the Orsay are: it is the real house, with the real furniture, and a garden the gardeners keep tending to Monet’s own designs.
Let’s go through what the house and the two gardens hold, when to go to catch the water lilies in bloom, and how to get there from Paris, because Giverny is not served by any RER and the journey takes two legs.
Is there really a day of the week when Giverny stays shut?
Off we go!
A seasonal garden, not just any museum
Keep this in mind before you book anything else: Giverny only opens from 1 April to 1 November, every year, and for the rest of the months the gate stays shut. Unlike almost every museum in Paris, there is no weekly closing day here: open Google, search “Giverny Monday” and you will find sites that give it as closed, but the Fondation’s official site is clear, and on 30 September 2026 it still said so: it is open every day of the season, Mondays included.
If you want to catch the water lilies in bloom, it is not enough to arrive in season: the weeks matter. They flower from May to September, peaking between June and August; if you go in October you will still find the garden open, but the water lilies will largely have finished flowering.
The Clos Normand, the garden in front of the house
The garden you see as soon as you go in is called the Clos Normand, and it is the flower garden, not the water lily one: dense flower beds, deliberately a little disorderly, with dahlias, cosmos and nasturtiums climbing right into the central path, covered by arches of climbing roses that are still in flower at the end of summer. Monet wanted it this way, full to overflowing, in contrast with the water garden he would build later, quieter and more ordered.
Walk along the main path, under the arches, and notice how the colours are arranged in bands, not by chance: it is the same compositional logic you find in his paintings, applied to plants instead of canvas.
The water garden and the Japanese bridge
You cross a pedestrian underpass beneath the road that once split the property in two, and reach the second garden: the water lily pond, the weeping willows and the green Japanese bridge, the same one you recognise from dozens of paintings from Monet’s late years. The bridge is not a decorative afterthought: Monet had it built on purpose, inspired by the Japanese prints he collected, and he painted it repeatedly under different light.
If you go in April or May, you will also find wisteria in bloom on the bridge, purple and white: it is the moment when photographs of this garden look most like the paintings that made it famous.
Inside the house, the yellow dining room
Why is a dining room painted entirely in the same bright yellow?
The house is visited with the same ticket as the garden, and the room that strikes you most as soon as you go in is the dining room: walls, dressers and chairs are all painted the same intense yellow, a choice by Monet, who wanted a bright room even on Normandy’s grey days. The dressers still hold the blue and white porcelain he collected, and the table is laid as if it were waiting for guests.
Do not leave straight away: upstairs is the studio where Monet painted on rainy days, its walls covered with reproductions of his own paintings, because the originals are by now nearly all in museums.
How to get there from Paris
How do you reach a village that does not even have its own station?
In two legs: take an SNCF train from Gare Saint-Lazare to Vernon-Giverny, the nearest station, a journey of about forty-five minutes with hourly departures, then change transport. From Vernon station follow the signs for the shuttle, which takes another fifteen minutes to the Fondation’s entrance and costs 10 euros return, 5 euros one way; alternatively you will find taxis outside the station.
If you would rather not juggle two trains and a shuttle, here you will find a guided day trip from Paris that takes you right to the gate without having to plan it yourself. Keep in mind that Giverny is not part of the Paris Museum Pass: it is a private foundation, like the Marmottan Monet, so whichever ticket you choose, you pay for it separately.
Practical information
Details checked on 30 September 2026 on the official website of the Fondation Claude Monet. Prices and opening hours change: check again before you travel.
Opening. The Fondation opens from 1 April to 1 November every year. For 2027 a reopening date has not yet been announced. Tickets. Full price costs 13 euros. The reduced rate, for children aged 7 to 17 and for students (excluding those of fine art and art history), costs 7 euros. Visitors with reduced mobility pay 6 euros, while their companions pay full price. Under-7s enter free. Opening hours. Open every day of the season, with no weekly closing day, from 10:00 to 18:00. Last entry is at 17:30. Getting there. The train from Gare Saint-Lazare to Vernon-Giverny takes about forty-five minutes. From Vernon a shuttle reaches the Fondation’s entrance in fifteen minutes, for 10 euros return, 5 euros one way, or you will find a taxi outside the station. How much time it needs. The official site recommends an hour and a half, two hours to see the house and both gardens at a relaxed pace.
Before you go
If you are in Paris in late September or October, you still have a few weeks left: book online, because the Fondation explicitly recommends it and the time-slot places sell out. If your trip falls after 1 November, keep it on your list for next spring, once the 2027 dates are known.
And if Giverny’s green makes you want stone instead, you have two more destinations an hour away by train: the Palace of Versailles, where the Passeport also opens the Domaine de Trianon, and Chartres Cathedral, Gothic and free in the nave.
Photographs: Monet’s house and Clos Normand by Jean-Pierre Dalbéra, CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons; Japanese bridge at the Fondation Monet, CC BY-SA 3.0; dining room by Supercarwaar, CC BY-SA 4.0.
