Abi Summers

Yerres

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I recently went to Yerres a town 18km to the south east of Paris. It gets it’s name from the river Yerres that runs through it.

Yerres is known because Gustave Caillebotte, a French impressionist painter, lived and worked there. From 1860, his family spent summer in their property there.

Getting there

Getting there from Paris is pretty straightforward, you can take the RER D to the station Yerres which takes around 30 minutes. The RER runs approximately every 30 minutes (this can change depending on the time of day and season). It’s then a 15 minute walk to maision Caillebotte.

Rather than taking the RER D, I cycled to Yerres with my partner because it was the easiest way for us to get there. The cycle from where we live is (mostly) nice plus the weather was good. There wasn’t a designated bike parking nearby (or not that we could see), but we left out bikes just opposite Cafe Gustave in the corner of the courtyard where they were out of the way.

cycling into Yerres

The trip

On the way into Yerres, we stopped by a small park, Parc du Clos Renaudin, which had a variety of different trees. I love sitting in parks, and it was nice to be in a quiet green space.

Another green space that I like is the Île Panchout (which I didn’t visit this time). They even have highland cows there that you can sometimes see. It’s a nice place to have a picnic, there’s some big open green areas with shade from the trees.

Before going into maison Caillebotte, we went to the bakery La pat’de flo to get a dessert. I always get hungry when cycling and I knew that I wouldn’t be able to focus in the museum without something to eat first. I get seriously grumpy when I’m hungry. We had a lemon tart and an eclair to share.

We then went to the maison Caillebotte. The tickets are 12€ each with the exhibitions and 8€ when there are no exhibitions on. They currently have three different exhibitions on, all of them are included in this price.

The house is split over three floors. On the downstairs, you have the dinning room, billiards room, a library and a music room.

The second floor has the bedrooms, in each of the bedrooms there’s information about different members of the family. The bedroom of Caillebotte’s parents is decorated in the style of Napoleon Ier. They had a room that displayed videos including ones about the owners of the house and a film about Caillebotte - I didn’t watch all of the videos because they’re long. There was also a périssoire (a traditional french boat) next to a larger print of one of his famous paintings, Périssoires sur l’Yerres.

bedroom

And the third floor was the atelier of Caillebotte. It was interesting to see the space where he would have worked.

The exhibition 150 years of impressionism was held in the atelier, and honestly it was small and a little disappointing. The exhibition was meant to have some loaned works by Monet but they had already been returned because I visited after the initial closing date. They had two spaces that would have held these paintings, but they hasn’t replaced it with a print so it was hard to compare the differences in view point and interpretation between Monet and Caillebotte.

In the house, the information about the rooms and people was only available in French (except the parent’s ).

We then went into L’Orangerie which had an exhibition from the artist Ofer Josef, an artist that does ink drawings. Some of the pieces on display where from this year which I don’t see often. The door was closed - almost as if you shouldn’t be going in since you don’t see any of the lights from the outside. We spent around 10 minutes visiting this. I like this exhibition, a lot of the drawings had dark undertones to them.

Before starting on the final exhibition we went for a walk around the park. We went on the first day of summer holidays, so there was a lot of people playing in the park. Inside the park, there’s a small chapel - you can see inside but you’re not allowed in, and a ice house (glacière) that you can visit. There’s a platform that you can walk onto to look down into the ice house. You can really feel the change in temperature between the ice house and the outdoor temperature.

At the end of the park, there’s a garden that’s ran by volunteers. They grow different fruits and vegetables along with flowers, almost all of them with the name of the plant written next to it. There were volunteers working in the garden that were able to answer any questions. At the front, they had a small basket with some things that you were allowed to take from.

garden

And then we went to the final exhibition, Présences, held in the A La Ferme Ornée. This exhibition displays 140 photographs from the collection of Gilman and Gonzalez-Falla. We spent about 30 minutes visiting the exhibition.

Before cycling home, we went to Cafe Gustave and sat in the terrace at the back. Cafe Gustave is a restaurant which turns into a tea room between lunch and dinner. They had a small selection of desserts to chose from - we had a cookie and a chocolate cake with our drinks (tea for me, espresso for my partner). Most people sat on the terrance were drinking alcohol - and maybe I would have if I wasn’t cycling.

I’m pleased this day trip worked out this time. I planned a day trip to Yerres back in May but I was having a bad day (the type of day where everything frustrates me) so after having lunch we decided to go home. I’m not going to force myself to visit a museum, it needs to be something I enjoy.

Recommendations

Definitely visit on a nice sunny day, if it’s raining you’re not going to get the full experience of all the green spaces.

And like with most places, it’s best to check opening hours before visiting, maison Caillebotte is closed on mondays, and the volunteer ran garden is only open on weekends.

What I spent

Now it’s your turn

Are you planning on going to Yerres? Have you already been? If so, I’d love to hear your thoughts and experiences! You can reach me via email at contact@abisummers.com or via instagram at @abisummers

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