Monet was a founding member of the Impressionists, who captured the world by painting the essence of light instead of objects themselves. Scroll on to see some of his famous French scenes, then step through the frame and use the arrows to explore them in Street View...
The Impressionists defined themselves as painters of the modern world. Claude Monet's scene of Paris' Boulevard des Capucines captures the blurred motion of carriages and pedestrians, seeing as much beauty in a bustling commercial street as in the greatest myths and histories.
The same street looks quite different today, where cars have replaced horse-drawn carriages, and gas lamps have given way to electric lights. But Monet would undoubtedly recognise the same urbane, excitable atmosphere of the city.
But everyone needs to escape the city, and the Impressionists were no different. The seaside town of Trouville became a particular favourite for those seeking to take part in the growing bourgeois fashion for visiting the beach, and Monet was there to capture them in paint.
Trouville, and its neighbour Deauville, has retained its status as one of the most prestigious resorts in all of France. The marina today holds more yachts than trawlers, while the grand hotels and the beaches of the Côte Fleurie, 'Flowery Coast', are filled with tourists.
Further along the coast is the town of Étretat. Smaller and less built-up than nearby Trouville, it was nonetheless a popular spot for day trippers. Eugène Boudin, Gustave Courbet, and Monet were all drawn here by the rugged chalk cliffs that run straight down into the sea.
And people still visit today. Along the coast, the soft chalk has been eroded away to create a number of picturesque arches and stacks, such as the Porte d'Aval, as painted by Monet. The town is also famous for being the childhood home of the novelist Guy de Maupassant.
Our last stop along the Normandy coast is Varengeville-sur-Mer, 8km west of Dieppe. The beach here is pebbled, and much less accessible than that of other popular tourist spots, but its isolation made it perfect for painters seeking the fresh air.
From the beach, the cliffs make an imposing sight. But these cliffs are actually crumbling away. The church of St. Valery, which incidentally holds the tomb of artist Georges Braque, now sits precariously on the cliff edge. If you want to visit, you'd better be quick.
Winter scenes were popular with the Impressionists, as the white blanket of snow offered an opportunity to experiment with color effects. Look closely, and you'll see pink, blue, and hints of green, but barely any pure white.
While Monet's painting is dated 1881, it was probably made during the unusually cold and snowy winter of 1879, a year after he moved to Lavacourt. This is the same street today, now named the Promenade Claude Monet in his honour.
In April 1883, Monet was looking out of the window of a train when he spotted the village of Giverny in Eure. He soon moved there, set up a studio in a barn, and built himself a tranquil garden filled with ponds and water lilies.
In 1980, the garden was restored to Monet's exacting standards, and since then has been open to the public. It was these water lilies and the reflective ponds that inspired the vision behind his monumental canvases held in the Musée de l'Orangerie, Paris.
His house at Giverny lay at the confluence of the rivers Seine and Epte, and Monet often took boat trips to find places to paint. These poplar trees were a favourite subject of his, and in his hands the windswept leaves seem to merge seamlessly with the shimmering water itself.
Following the Epte, we find the Moulin des forges. This historic watermill is not far from Monet's house, and a sight he would have known. In his day it was still a working mill, grinding grain for bread. But since 1945, it's been run as a restaurant and hotel.
Our tour ends here, back in Paris, at the Musée de l'Orangerie, amidst what are undoubtedly Monet's masterpieces: his Water Lilies, donated to the nation as a celebration of the Armistice of 1919. Why not take a moment to relax amongst these magnificent monuments to peace.
In the mood for another art-guided tour? Discover Leonardo da Vinci's Florence.
In 1678, Louis XIV commissioned the Hall of Mirrors from Jules Hardouin-Mansart. The ornamentation is on a monumental scale: 17 windows, 17 mirror-ornamented arches, 8 busts of Roman Emperors, 8 statues of ancient divinities and a vaulted ceiling composed of 30 paintings.
The vault is a masterpiece by Charles Le Brun, illustrating the history of the first 18 years of Louis XIV’s reign. The Hall of Mirrors is both a concourse, a reception room and a place of royal splendour.
Louis XIV brought together at Versailles more than 100 vases in rare ornamental stone, of which the majority were in porphyry. In order to decorate the great space of the Hall of Mirrors, porphyry vases were ordered directly from the stone-cutting workshops in Rome.
In 1685, the production of antique vases in yellow marble was entrusted to Giovanni-Antonio Tedeschi. The twists that adorn their bellies are inspired by the usual decoration found on porphyry vases but the delicacy of their sculpting reflects the fine grain of the marble.
The Alliance of Germany and Spain with Holland, 1672, Charles Le Brun. Weapons are being forged on the left while troops are preparing on the right. Fleeing blacksmiths and scattered weapons may be seen in the symmetrical composition at the other end of the gallery.
The Dutch Republic accepts peace and breaks away from Germany and Spain, 1678, Charles le Brun. The two paintings at either end of the hall are linked: one shows the union of France’s enemy powers, while the other shows their disunity.
This painting was “the principal key to everything”. The King is in the centre, seated on his throne, holding the “tiller of the state” in his right hand. The three Graces around him symbolise the talents that Heaven has granted him.
In the 18th century, the word "prosperity" was used instead of "pride" but the original meaning of the composition was then lost: it was the pride of the Empire, Spain and Holland that justified France going to war.
In 1686, Versailles had an unprecedented visit from the ambassadors of Siam, now Thailand. On this extraordinary occasion, the Hall of Mirrors was adorned with sumptuous silver furnishings, which have since disappeared.
The courtiers stood on either side of the hall to welcome the ambassador of Siam and his suite. Once they had walked through the Hall of Mirrors, the ambassador and his party came to the nine steps at the top of which sat the Sun King on his solid silver throne.
Place of the silver throne during the reception of the Siamese embassy.
To see the reception of the Embassy of Siam in 1686 for yourself, take a look on Steam! Travel through time with “Experience Versailles”, a free virtual reality immersion in history.
28 June 1919. After four years of terrible war, the Treaty of Versailles brought an end to the first global conflict in history, in the Hall of Mirrors. For the occasion, 24 carpets were borrowed from the Mobilier National and laid out on the waxed floorboards.
In the centre was a long horseshoe-shaped table and some 200 chairs. Opposite, sitting symbolically under the painting “The King Governs by Himself”, was a Louis XV bureau, on which sat the Treaty, waiting to be signed.
Place where the Louis XV desk was put for all diplomatic stakeholder to sign the peace Treaty.
On June 28, 1919, the Treaty of Versailles is signed in the Hall of Mirrors. Get behind the scenes of the preparation of this historic day and discover, thanks to original archives, how the Palace of Versailles entered in History.
The dinosaurs were amongst the largest creatures ever to live on Earth. They dominated the land and the sea for three geological periods: the Triassic, Jurassic, and Cretaceous, a timespan of hundreds of millions of years. Experience them here in Street View and VR!
Did you know: there are fewer years between us and the last dinosaurs (65 million years), than the last dinosaurs and the first dinosaurs (approximately 178 million yeas).
Take a look the Brachiosaurus, or Giraffatitan as it's now known, at the Natural History Museum, Berlin.
Many people across the ages had found dinosaur bones, but it was only in the 19th Century, with the discoveries of William Buckland, that people began to think that they might be ancient lizards, rather than dragons or giants.
Buckland was the first to describe a dinosaur, which he named Megalosaurus. Before long, Iguanodon, was discovered by Mary Ann Mantell, who believed it resembled a modern iguana. This duck-billed Anatotitan was discovered in 1904 in central Montana by Oscar Hunter.
Discoveries were soon made across the world, and the fashion for all things prehistoric exploded. Dinosaurs play key roles in Jules Verne's 1864 novel Journey to the Center of the Earth, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's 1912 book The Lost World, and the iconic 1933 film King Kong.
Tyrannosaurus rex may be one of the best-known of all dinosaurs, and while you wouldn't want to be stuck in a room with one, it was by no means the largest. Behind this skeleton at the Naturmuseum Senckenberg is the giant leg of a Supersaurus, truly one of the largest to exist.
For decades, scientists couldn't agree on how the dinosaurs were wiped out. Some suggested a massive volcanic eruption, others that they died of an infectious disease, or that mammals simply outcompeted them.
It was only in the 1980s, when the Chicxulub impact crater was discovered, that the theory of an asteroid impact became widely accepted. But today we know that not all were killed, some of their descendents live among us, having evolved over millennia into birds.
Ok, these aren't real, and by modern standards they aren't very accurate. But these concrete sculptures were the first dinosaurs many people saw, and they started the craze for these 'terrible lizards'.
They were made in 1854 for the Crystal Palace in Bromley, London. Since then, they've inhabited a small group of islands in Crystal Palace Park, and while they may look a little shabby today, they're loved by many, and protected as historic monuments.
Thanks for joining this journey of discovery. But before you go - what do you call a one-eyed dinosaur?
Do-you-think-he-saw-us?
Continue your dino deep-dive and Explore the Mysteries of Dinosaur Evolution with the National Museum of Nature and Science
The capital city of Bagan is an ancient city just off the eastern banks of the Ayeyarwady River. It thrived for 500 years under the rule of the Myanmar Kingdom (9 CE to 14 CE) and helped unify Burmese culture, which adopted the oldest surviving school of Buddhism – Theravada.
The Bagans built the Valley of a Thousand Temples – over 10,000 religious temples across 40 square miles. Only 2,500 of the original temples survived and today they can all be found in the Bagan Archaeological Area.
The temples are still admired for their extraordinary craftsmanship and unique architectural styles.
Some of the temples are covered in frescoes of Buddha, which have been remarkably preserved over the centuries.
Myanmar’s Ancient Buddhist Temple City was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2019, giving us one of the most precious, densest and largest concentrations of Buddhist temples in the world.
Bagan is often described as an “archeological” site but, in reality, it is still very much active. It has functioning temples that are visited regularly by both local and national Buddhist communities.