Saturday 4 July 2009
Saturday 4 July 2009
Underground becoming all the rage.
Guiding you through the paperwork minefield.
Perpignan’s surreal smelly socks election saga.
Expat women in Belgium and France most satisfied.
A moving piece about a 'school refuser' son.
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It is one of the sadder chapters in art history.
Monet's masterpiece Water Lillies
For almost half a century, the last works of Impressionist master Claude Monet have been shown bereft of natural light in a cluttered, slightly down-at-heels Paris art-house. 
But currently, Paris's Orangerie museum, home to Monet's monumental Water Lillies, is closed while undergoing a major face-lift aimed at restoring the mammoth tableaux to their former glory — by bringing them light.
Set in an obscure corner of the Tuileries gardens by the Seine, the museum is to reopen in late 2004 with a newly refurbished glass roof and galleries for the Water Lillies, as well as a freshly-dug underground exhibition space for its other prestigious collections.
Monet was over 80 and losing his sight when he put the finishing touches to the Water Lillies in the early 1920s, works inspired by his legendary water garden at Giverny, outside Paris.
Hailed by critics as the culmination of his life's work, or "the Sistine Chapel of Impressionism", due to the passion and power streaming from the works, Monet donated the Water Lillies to the French state to celebrate the victory of World War I.
Paris Orangerie is undergoing refurbishment
The government in turn offered Monet a special museum to house them — the Orangerie — and an architect was brought in to remodel the 1852 building. 
Originally a hothouse for potted baby orange trees, L'Orangerie was also used for dog-shows, art-shows and theatre, before being turned into a barracks for conscripts and a weapons depot during the war years.
Monet died in 1926 and the following year his eight giant panels, almost a decade in the making, were unveiled to the public displayed in two spacious oval galleries opening onto the gardens, with natural light pouring through the glass dome overhead.
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Tax and estate planning figure prominently in the list of priorities of many financially secure expatriate residents of France.
From Gaelic clubs to Canadian Alumni organisations, there is bound to be an English-speaking club for you in France.
This is what you need to consider when making an early choice between purchasing or renting accommodation in France.
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