Medieval Giverny

To the Editor

Visitors to Giverny ("Monet's American Neighbors," April 7) will find their trip yet more rewarding if, after leaving the American Museum, they turn west on the Rue Claude Monet for 300 meters. There they will begin to discover medieval Giverny, about which there is no information either in the museum or Monet's home.

Among the sites to be admired are the very fine Romanesque St. Radegonde Church, with an 11th-century apse whose grotesque modillions have been well preserved ; the ancient Rue des Chandeliers with outstanding examples of late medieval stone houses, partly restored, and a yet more ancient Rue aux Juifs, or Street of the Jews, with several fully preserved half-timbered houses and a walled medieval monastery (now privately owned).

the sites of a great medieval tithe barn and of a leprosarium in the Rue du Bas where Louis IX (St. Louis) visited his mother, Blanche of Castille, as well as other places of interest, will obligingly be shown by the very courteous Eric Carrière, proprietor of the rustic Chambres d'Hôtes at 6 Rue aux Juifs.

Norman Golb, Chicago
THE NEW YORK TIMES
Sunday, June 2, 1996