Giverny

Eva,
There is lots of advice on this forum. Enter Giverny in the above search bar, filter for forum, 1 year or less. Also, R/S guidebook has info re train and shuttle.

Thanks so much,I was having trouble finding it

The search here is a bit of a dinosaur --- try Googling on Rick Steves travel forum Giverny and see what you get.

We went to Giverny just a day or two after it opened in the spring --- huge empty parking lot, wonderful flowers and house.

Thanks that sounds perfect!

Did you find any great lunch options nearby?
I see Nympheas….

When we were there in 2017 we ate lunch at a little cafe on site. If it'sstill there,we were very satisfied with it. It fortified us for our drive to Rouen that afternoon.

We have eaten lunch both times we visited and just wandered afterwards and found something. Last year we ate at the little restaurant attached to the Monet Museum in Giverny. WE didn't go into the museum. The lunch was good although we were there at the very end of their service and they kept emphasizing that they were out of hamburgers LOL. We wouldn't have ordered one anyway. I can't recall what we had but it was fine.

I did not see a restaurant on site when we were there a year ago. I may well have overlooked it -- but we did the house and the gift shop and didn't notice it.

I enjoyed Les Nympheas last October. I went with a friend and thought the food and service was good. The were also willing to have us pay separately which is always helpful to me. They don't take reservations but we were seated quickly. It is the closest restaurant to the entry to Monet's home BUT if you have a pre-paid entrance you have to backtrack a bit down the main street to follow the signs for entry for "Group Tours".

The train is very easy. It leaves from Gare Saint-Lazare. I have the SNCF-Connect app dowloaded and just bought on that. My friend bought from a machine in the station. Look carefully at the schedule as when we went there were some trains that were non-stop to Vernon and took under an hour while some had a change of train and took a little longer. I wound up taking the 10:11 outbound and caught the 16:51 back home which worked out perfectly. I had entry tickets to Monet's home and garden for 130 which gave us plenty of time to eat lunch first then tour the gardens and house.

There is a shuttle bus that runs from the Vernon station to Giverny. My train was delayed leaving out of the station and I think for that reason there was only 1 bus there when we arrived. Wound up using the Bolt app to go to and from Giverny which was VERY easy and fairly inexpensive.

This is one of my favorite day trips. You do need to buy your Monet house ticket ahead of time BUT you should be able to wait long enough that you can tell if it will be a pleasant day. Be sure to buy directly from the official website.