The weather predictions for this week forecasted rain for most days, so we made the best of Monday, the sunniest day, and took the train and a bus to the perched village of Saint-Paul de Vence.
Saint-Paul is called a village perché and that term describes it very well: it's a fortified village that is quite literally "perched" atop a cliff or promontory. These medieval villages are found throughout France and typically have walled ramparts and narrow pedestrian streets. The idea was that if you made your village extremely hard to get to, then you would be less vulnerable to attacks by your enemies.
From what I understand this little town is a zoo during the summer months when it is packed with tourists. We were here on a Monday in October and it was much easier to walk the narrow cobblestone paths with fewer tourists. The village is full of art galleries of all types, so it was interesting to peek inside the little shops and see one full of pastel impressionist paintings right next to another one full of inventive modern sculpture.
Saint-Paul's reputation as an artistic haven is well-deserved. One of its most famous residents was Marc Chagall, who lived in this area in his final years. He is buried, along with his wife Vava, in the town cemetery. In the Jewish tradition, small stones have been placed on the grave as an act of remembrance by visitors.
After spending the afternoon in Saint-Paul de Vence, we made a quick stop at the nearby town of Vence (they should call it "Regular-Old-Vence" to better distinguish it from the fancy Saint-Paul). Vence was very quiet on a Monday and there wasn't much to see, although its Cathedral Notre-Dame-de-la-Nativité has the claim to fame as being the smallest cathedral in France. It also has a very lovely Marc Chagall mosaic called "Moses Saved From The Waters".
The weather in Nice became even cloudier and more ominous on Tuesday, so we took a 15-minute walk to the nearby St Nicholas Orthodox Cathedral.
Beginning in the 1860s, Nice became the winter home for the Russian Tsars and nobility. By the early 1900s there was a large Russian population living in Nice year-round, and Tsar Nicholas II funded the construction of this cathedral so that they would have a place to worship.
On Wednesday we started receiving weather alerts warning of "soaking rain" during the coming couple of days. Because we knew we'd be spending the next few days indoors, we decided to pick up a 4-day Museum Pass. It was a pretty good deal -- 15 Euros for access to 10 museums. We started with the Villa Massena Museum, which is housed in a Belle Epoque mansion right on the Promenade Anglaise. It was a small museum but very beautiful inside.
Then on Thursday we ambitiously visited four more museums, starting with the Musée Matisse which has one of the world's largest collections of the artist's works.
During his last decade, Matisse was very ill from cancer and no longer had the stamina to paint and sculpt. He changed his preferred medium to using brightly colored paper cutouts which could then be arranged into the compositions he had envisioned. It was a unique way for him to continue making art despite his limited mobility.
On to the next museum: the Archaeology Museum of Cimiez, which was just next door to the Musée Matisse. We had already walked around the exterior site of the former Roman Arena and Bath complex. But displayed inside the museum building were all of the smaller treasures that had been dug up from sites all around Nice, including this bronze mask of the god Silenus excavated from a ship that was wrecked off the coast of Antibes during the 1st century B.C.
Our third museum of the day was the Palais Lascaris. This 17th century palace was once the home to an ancient noble family. It is now a musical instrument museum, but the baroque-style palace's rooms are very well-preserved, including the former family chapel.
Our fourth and final museum on Thursday was the Musée de la Photographie Charles Nègre which was holding a temporary exhibit of the photography of Robert Doisneau.
Doisneau was a 20th century freelance photographer whose work appeared in Life and Vogue magazines in the 1940s and 1950s. Probably his most famous photograph is Le Baiser de l'Hôtel de Ville ("The Kiss by the City Hall"). Although it was taken in 1950, this photograph had a second life as a very popular poster and postcard in the 1980s -- in fact, if I recall correctly my best friend had this poster hanging from her wall back in those days!
During our marathon museum day we did take a break for lunch near the Cours Saleya market -- and what a lunch! When I ordered what I thought was a slice of lasagna at La Favola, I did not realize I would be getting an entire casserole dish of it! It was delicious and there was more than enough for both of us. If you are ever in Nice and dining with a crowd, don't make the same mistake I did -- I'd recommend that you order this dish to partager ("share").
The "soaking rain" definitely came out in force on Friday! It was a true deluge, with the skies just inundating the city and surrounding countryside with sheets of rain. During a break where the rain let up a tiny bit, we put on our heavy duty raincoats and used our travel umbrellas to walk to the nearby Musée des Beaux-Arts.
This small but interesting fine arts museum had sculptures by Auguste Rodin and many large-scale paintings including some Art Nouveau works by Jules Cheret, the "father of the modern poster". His smiling Belle Epoque ladies with colorfully draped dresses influenced other artists of his time such as Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec.
Another artist that was on exhibit at the Beaux-Arts museum was Raoul Dufy, a French fauvist painter whose bright and eye-catching works included this one, called "May in Nice".
Well, goodness! After six museums in just three days we were exhausted and more than a little "museum-ed out", as I'm sure you are also after reading this post! (Aren't you glad we didn't attempt all ten museums on the Museum Pass?) Well hopefully we have some sunny weather for our next adventure, no art museums allowed!
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