I was listening to NPR the other morning and heard a feature on Claude Monet.  It was an interesting story about his home in Giverny and how he made it into what he wanted to paint.  He needed water for his waterlily pond, so (without official permission) he brought one arm of the Epte River through his garden.  This water garden was very high maintenance.... he had one gardener whose sole responsibility was to fish out dry leaves and prevent the water rats (gross!) from eating the waterlily bulbs.  He was a rather interesting fellow & Giverny was/is pretty amazing.

This story took me on trip down memory lane & a bit of regret....

I was probably around 12 or 13 when my mom planned a day trip to the big city (Atlanta) to see Monet's paintings at the High.  We were really excited to see his masterpieces in person and waited in line for hours.  HOURS.  As we made our way up the spiral ramp we realized that we weren't going to see the beautiful garden paintings we had expected.  It hadn't occurred to us that Monet had a bazillion other masterpieces before the lilies.  But he did... and they were of a foggy bridge in London.  Don't get me wrong, they were really amazing, but when you expect to see this  and instead see this 

... you never want to see Charing Cross Bridge again.

On to the regret part... I have actually been to Normandy & didn't go to Giverny.  What in the world?  I was 23 and just wanted to do the Europe thing with no particular agenda.  My travel buddy had a thing with World War II, so we went to Normandy (and Dachau) while there, but I didn't have enough sense to request Giverny.  We literally could have walked there from where we were.  Maybe one day.  *sigh*