Nice is Nice!

Time for another journal blog about my summer travels :)

After finally arriving in Nice I was very glad that I has spent the time in Lyon finding directions to the next hostel—I never would have found it on my own—no question about that! I did make it though and it is on a hill that overlooks the city. A bit hazy, but I think that the weather has broken so the visit should be Nice (sorry, couldn’t resist.)

The next day was time for exploring and it was a good day in Nice! The name of which, by the way, comes from the Greek original name of the settlement, Nike :-) OK, not original settlement—there were people here some 40,000 years ago, but we aren’t sure how to spell the town name in grunts! (OK, before people get mad—I am sure that they had better language at that time, but I don’t know what it was :-)) But anyway, back to the day—I headed out in the morning deciding not to take my car—easier on the environment and the budget and to go museuming—it seems that the 1^st and 3^rd Sundays of each month all of the museums are free—Cool! So, I headed first to the farthest—the Matisse Museum which is also near some Greco-Roman ruins. Seemed like a good place to start—only it was on a hill! I didn’t realize this place was so lousy with them. So, several hundred steps later I made it up to the top to a wonderful treat!!! Next to the Franciscan church (not too remarkable, but an interesting nativity scene) is a public garden—absolutely filled with roses!!

After sitting in the park enjoying a fair and a baguette sandwich lunch I headed down hill to the Musee d’Art Modern et Contemporain. Also free today. The best thing about the museum, I think, is the building. It is attached to the library and this huge (say 70 some foot) sculpture of a cube on a person’s head. As far as I can tell it houses the administrative offices of the library. The art museum itself is a good display space with a lot of room and very open, well light spaces—a good space for many of the works. Most of which I was not too impressed with. One nice thing though was that many of the galleries represented life’s works of some artists so it was interesting to see representations from much of a life’s work. It is interesting to look for themes and the like.

Then it was off to museum #3 (OK, should have been 4, but even with my map I didn’t find the natural history museum) which was the Theatre de la Photographie et de l’image. A surprising exhibit of photographs of American Indians from 1900-1915. Some truly beautiful images and wonderful faces—not what I expected to run across here in France, but beautiful none the less—my parents would have loved it!

Well, since I am on the French Rivera, I thought that a visit to the beach and harbor was in order—so I found a crepe filled with chocolate and went to the waterfront. It was almost 4 o’clock and the sun had been hazy for a while so it wasn’t overly crowded. I sat on the retaining wall and enjoyed my crepe and I have to tell you, the water here is a truly amazing blue color. Wow! I tried to take some pictures, but it just didn’t come out. And I was surprised that the beach is not at all sandy—it is all pebbles.

And off to one more hill! In the center of town in the hill that has over history been the castle and the center of various fortified towns—not much left as one of the King Louie’s had it all wiped out just after 1700, but it still has great views and a park with many happy, yelling kids.

This picture is from the harbor the first night I was in town. There were many a pretty boat tied up, but I was attracted to the simpler image of the blue water and orange cones. Actually, here is one more from the same harbor: