In 1896 Claude Monet began his famous 'Mornings on the Seine' paintings by scouting out views on the Seine River, located along the Paris basin. He also painted from a boat he had converted into a floating studio.
If you always wanted to paint a masterpiece while floating down the Seine, AmaWaterways offers art river cruises to Paris and Normandy that lets you discover your inner Monet, Renoir or Gauguin. The last cruise of the year launches on October 14 and includes seven nights on the Seine River, and two nights in Paris.
The creative excursion actually begins in Paris, the City of Light. Your muse begins right where Monet started, in his home gardens in Giverny, where he worked on his paintings for 43 years. The cruise also stops in Honfleur, a city in northern France's Lower Normandy region that was a subject of many art works, including those by Monet.
After your tour, you'll return to the ship, hopefully filled with inspiration. Each cruise has a professional art instructor who guides you along the way in technique during your complimentary art lessons, complete with all painting materials. The expert for the upcoming October cruise, Tracie Broughton, is a fine art painter and art instructor.
Your trip also includes a tour of Normandy, where you'll visit its capital city, Rouen, and its famous beaches of WWII. Another stop on the tour is Les Andelys, home of Château Gaillard, a ruined medieval castle, which overlooks the River Seine.
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The art tours continue as you stop and take an artists' walk in Auvers-sur-Oise, a commune in Paris that is associated with many who have lived and worked in the area, including Paul Cézanne, Charles-François Daubigny, Camille Pissarro, Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot and Vincent van Gogh.
Once you return to the boat, relax with a massage after a day of exploring, or work out in the fitness room. Better yet, just sit on the sun deck and paint more of the beautiful scenery that's going by on the Seine. When Monet, the founder of French Impressionist painting, created his works, he did so by painting the same scene over and over again from different angles and in different time frames and seasons. This allowed the light and the colors to be different, depending on the time and the season. Your weeklong cruise provides ample opportunity to discover what Monet learned a long time ago.
A river cruise is a more intimate cruise setting, with no more than 164 guests on board. Your staterooms are larger and provide more amenities and when it comes to dining, nobody wants to be a starving artist. AmaWaterways is part of the La Chaîne des Rôtisseurs - a prestigious international culinary society that prepares locally-inspired cuisine as well as traditional Western offerings. There's a Chef's Table, an intimate specialty restaurant where you can watch the chef prepare a lavish dinner right in front of you.
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