Impressionist French painting on Elderhostel trip

The Impressionist School of French painting was the focus of a 10-day/12-night trip, Sept. 26-Oct. 8, ’05, with Elderhostel (11 Ave. de Lafayette, Boston, MA 02111; 800/454-5768, www.elderhostel.org), in conjunction with Experiment France (89 rue de Turbigo, Paris; phone +33 [0] 1 44 54 58 or visit www.experiment-france.org).

The land price of the program was $2,888 and the single supplement, $471.

There were 23 travelers in our group, and our tour guides and lecturers were articulate, well qualified and interesting.

We spent the first five nights in Paris, with the next three divided between Rouen and Honfleur and the last two back in Paris.

Our Paris hotel, Villa Modigliani, was in the Montparnasse district, within easy walking distance of the Métro, shopping, restaurants, Internet cafés and bus stops. The hotel was quiet, set back from the street around a courtyard and garden. My single room was as large as the doubles — unusual in European hotels. The bathroom was modern, and everything was very clean.

In Paris, in addition to the Louvre, the Musée d’Orsay and the Picasso Museum we visited the Musée Marmottan Monet, out by the Bois du Bologne. It has a very large collection of Monets and other Impressionists.

For some reason, I had never been there on previous trips, probably because it is one of the few museums not within easy walking distance of central Paris. It was a highlight of this trip and I recommend it to everyone interested in Impressionist paintings.

On our free afternoon, most of us went on our own to the Pompidou Museum (modern art).

One evening we attended a concert of Chopin’s piano music at St. Ephrem’s church, and I noticed that the following night there was going to be a concert of Bach unaccompanied cello suites. I decided to skip dinner and go to the concert instead, and that was another trip highlight.

En route to Rouen we stopped in Giverny for a visit to Monet’s home and gardens. The gardens, particularly the water gardens, were as lovely as his paintings of them led me to believe.

Our hotel in Rouen, the Mercure Rouen Centre, was located in the Old City right next to the flamboyant Gothic cathedral that was the subject of more than 30 of Monet’s paintings. Marie-Helene, our Rouen art lecturer-guide, presented a slide show, “Normandy and the Impressionists,” and after lunch we took a short walk to the Musée des Beaux-Arts.

The next day Marie-Helene took us on a walking tour of the city, including a stop at the ecumenical church commemorating the site of the martyrdom of Jeanne d’Arc. We were then free for the afternoon.

That evening we dined at the homes of local families. For this, those of us who were singles were each paired with another single. The hostess for my partner and me was a charming woman who took us to her home in the nearby suburb of Montigny. As her husband, the owner of an art gallery, was away on business, we dined with her, her mother and one of her close female friends.

It was a pleasant evening, but I would not mind if these home-hosted events were eliminated from the itineraries or made optional. Having been a tour guide and organizer myself, however, I recognize that for some these visits are the most enjoyable part of the trip.

Leaving Rouen, we traveled to the seaside village of Étretat, the subject of many paintings by Monet and Jongkind. We stopped briefly to look at the sandstone columns rising out of the sea, landmarks their paintings made famous, before continuing to the harbor village of Honfleur.

Our harborfront Hotel le Cheval Blanc was the most “authentic” of our hostelries, although, obviously old, it also obviously had been remodeled. Our rooms, in addition to lovely harbor views, had all the “mod cons.”

In Honfleur we lunched at a bistro before walking around the medieval city streets and visiting the Eugène Boudin Museum with our guide.

That evening we were free to dine as we wished, and I chose a seaside restaurant, Les Grenouilles (16, quai de la Quarantaine, 14600 Honfleur; phone 02 31 89 04 24 or visit www.absinthe.fr), where, instead of frog, I enjoyed lovely Normandy scallops. Dinner for one costs €20-€30 (near $25-$38).

Our homeward trip to Paris went through the village of Auvers-sur-Oise, where van Gogh lived for some months before his suicide. One stop was the Musée Daubigny, home of the painter Daubigny, whose garden was the subject of one of van Gogh’s last paintings.

On our last day in Paris, guide Louise lectured on Post- and Neo-Impressionism and in the afternoon took us on a guided tour of the Picasso Museum. On the way back to the Métro, guide Geraldine led a walking tour of some of the other interesting sites in this area of the Marais. Our farewell dinner was held at a rather upscale restaurant.

— PAT BLAKESLEE
Carpenteria, CA