Paris to Giverny?

Buying tickets in advance will let you skip the purchase tickets line at Monet's House. This saves a few minutes on busy days.

Trains from Paris run to Vernon. From there you take a short tram or bus ride to the gardens. You can search for a number of posts and recommendations on this site regarding travel to Giverny.

An additional advantage of advance-purchase tickets is that you use a side entrance which is quite close to the lily pond and saves a fair amount of crowd-navigating in the garden. But early April shouldn't be the most crowded time. The house is the most annoying bit re. crowds, at least it was when I visited in September (for the first time this century ;) ).

We did the train way. Not difficult.

The gardens were great Paintings come to life. The street out front is old with inns and eateries…charming.

The house sort of disappointed me…reproductions.

But the gardens, I would go back in a minute.

I agree with the others, buy your ticket to the gardens ahead of time but you can buy your train ticket either the day before or the day of. When I went in 2024 I used the SNCF app and purchased my train ticket the evening before.

DO look at the train schedule on www.sncf-connect.com I have trouble with this website because even though I put in the time I want to travel it somehow computes that based on my time here at home (PDT) so will just give me afternoon trains. I just looked at it and had to put in a leaving time of 11PM the day before I plan to go to the gardens to get the morning trains. OF course if you are in France it is going to work fine for you. I just wanted to know what times were available for the direct train. DO look at the direct train times which range from 47-53 minutes. There are train journeys that require a change and show a time of 2h+ so just skip over those. Generally the direct trains leave around 10 after the hour...so 10:11, 11:12 etc. I don't see one at 9A.

Have a wonderful time! Be sure to walk down the Main Street to the small church where Monet is buried and pause a moment in front of the Memorial to the RAF Lancaster bomber crew that went down on the night of June 7-8 1944. I always forget that yes, Giverny is in Normandie and yes, there was fighting.

Thank you all very much for your replies! All good to know :)