Giverny, Château de Versailles and Barbizon

Leave for a 3-day trip organized by our volunteers located in Nevers and Moulins, to discover Giverny, Versailles and Barbizon. Between Impressionist gardens, royal splendor and artists' villages, this getaway invites you to explore the places that inspired Claude Monet and the landscape painters of the XIXᵉ century, while enjoying the elegance and richness of France's heritage.

Your stay begins in Giverny, a haven of peace dear to Claude Monet, where nature and artistic creation are one and the same. Here you'll discover the gardens that inspired the famous Water Lilies: the Clos Normand, bursting with color, and the Water Garden, with its Japanese bridge and water lily pond. The Impressionist master's house, restored to its period charm, offers an intimate plunge into the daily life of a visionary artist. Giverny is the perfect alliance between mastered nature and pictorial inspiration.

The journey continues to Versailles, the absolute symbol of French monarchy. You explore the Saint-Louis district, an authentic vestige of the XVIIIᵉ century, with its harmonious alleyways and elegant ironwork. Then come the Grands Appartements du Château: gilt, marble, royal pomp and the unmissable Galerie des Glaces, a masterpiece of magnificence. As evening falls, Le Nôtre's Gardens light up for the Grandes Eaux Nocturnes: animated pools, baroque music, fairy lights and a final fireworks display offer an unforgettable spectacle in an exceptional historical setting.

Your escapade ends in Barbizon, a mythical village nestled on the edge of the Fontainebleau forest. A land of inspiration for the painters of the Barbizon School, this place saw the birth of the works of Millet, Corot and so many other pioneers of naturalist landscape painting. The Musée des Peintres, housed in the former Ganne inn, plunges you into the atmosphere of the XIXᵉ century: reconstructed workshops, period settings and evidence of the daily lives of the artists who revolutionized painting before Impressionism.

This three-day stay invites you to travel through the ages: from the flowery poetry of Monet to the grandiose court of Louis XIV, to the artists' village that shook the codes of academic painting. A well-balanced itinerary, rich in cultural discoveries, inspiring landscapes and visual emotions. An ideal trip for lovers of art, history, gardens and French elegance, where each stop reveals a new facet of our heritage.