we went to europe: giverny & chartres cathedral

Because we had rented a car, we were able to adventure out to some places that are harder to get to by train. We started with Monet's garden in Giverny, which is like an hour outside of Paris. Oh, wow. No wonder that man painted pictures of his yard all day. While there we even ran into Monet himself (the cute, old bearded man). And Baby Girl even took a little bit of the garden with her, as we discovered flower pedals wedged into her neck rolls and in between her teeth. Nice.


We then went to Chartres, one of the greatest Gothic cathedrals in history. Okay, I've always walked into cathedrals thinking they were dark and gloomy and basically a reflection of the Dark Ages when they were built. WRONG! They are currently restoring Chartres and cleaning off like 1,000 years of candle soot and the difference is absolutely incredible! I mean, it's like black and white. Now I totally understand what it was meant to look like and the feelings it was intended to invoke. It reminded me a lot of the LDS temples. Anyway, it was an awesome day trip and I'm pretty sure a rental car is the way to go if you want to see the sites off the beaten path.