Our French visit, 2011. Normandy - Monet's Garden, La Roche Guyon.

After a wonderful 9 days in Morocco, we flew from Casablanca to Paris. There's nothing like re-visiting favourite places, so after collecting our hire car at Orly Airport, we hit the road. One hour down the motorway we arrived at one of the prettiest villages in France in our opinion, La Roche Guyon, right on the border of Isle de France and Normandy. It's only a few minutes from Monet's Garden at the tiny village of Giverny which we'd vowed to revisit in summer (previously visited in winter.) It is a delight driving around this area with its picture-perfect farmlands growing apples and other produce.

Village of La Roche Guyon, all white cliffs and troglodytes. A right royal town in the past.

The wonderful restaurant at Les Bordes de Seine, the hotel we always stay. The best meals we've ever eaten in France are served here. Always full of Parisians on a day trip. Local produce is served, so we had plenty of duck and foie gras.

Sunset as seen from our hotel window overlooking La Seine. Pretty in pink.

That would be moi in the centre on Monet's steps.

In Monet's Garden, which looks just like his impressionist paintings.

Posing on Monet's famous bridge which appears in many of his paintings.

The Hotel Baudy, one of the oldest buildings in Giverny. Used to be a meeting place for many famous artists, Monet included. Once a brothel, now a restaurant. We ate our very first meal here - salmon rillettes.

The bucolic Normandy countryside. A picture in summer. We saw this scene many days as we drove towards the Normandy coast to see the D-Day Beaches.

• What do you think of the first couple of days of our French tour? Have you visited these villages, or Normandy?
• I'll have more on Normandy later...

All photos are taken by ourselves.