Lilies and a Frog

Monet’s Garden in Giverny (Les Jardins et la Maison de Claude Monet) leads to an exit near the gate from a back lane. The exit is a flight of steps leading down a tunnel crossing the paved road D5 between Vernon and Sainte-Genevieve-les-Gasny. The famous pond in the Japanese inspired water garden with its water lilies lies on the other side of the road.

Where there is a pond; there is a frog. No matter how much these frogs tried, Monet is never known to have painted even one.

As Rick Steeve mentions in his website on Monet’s Gardens in Giverny, the true subject is not really the famous water lilies, but the changing reflections on the pond’s surface — the blue sky, white clouds, and green trees that line the shore.