Yesterday worked out so well that we decided that we would rinse and repeat today. We’re still having trouble brushing off this Spanish torpor. We don’t seem able to get finished with breakfast much before 10:00. And with the French custom of eating lunch between 12 and 2 we don’t have much of an appetite at the right time. So today we decided that we would just forego having a traditional French Sunday nosh and visit the Musee Matisse instead. A few blocks from us is a stop for the bus that runs up to the museum, which we took.
Also up there is an archeological site tied to the Roman Empire in the suburb of Cimiez. The site is quite extensive and contains the ruins of an amphitheater. This one was built around 68 ce and is among the smallest amphitheaters in the south of France. Cimiez was the Roman regional capital of the Rhône-Alps province. A fair amount of the structure still stands and the floor where the ‘entertainment’ took place is a clear flat surface. What seems rare about the site is that the public is free to wander around on the ruins. So there will be children playing tag on the walls or a group of people playing pétanque on the floor. Upon leaving the bus you can either walk around the perimeter of through the middle of the amphitheater to get to the entrance of the museum. The Matisse museum is located partly in a 17th century mansion built by a Genovese merchant and partly in a modern subterranean wing that is attached. The modern side is the main entrance
which has a large entry space containing a gigantic Matisse mural. Next to it is a room called the piscine (swimming pool) containing his very famous wall decorations of Mediterranean motifs. Above the entry hall is a gallery which gives introduction of work of Matisse. It includes many of his early student works as well as some of his work as a leading Fauvist. The works include drawings, paintings, prints, sculptures, and the cutouts for which he is well known. A stairway leads one up to the interior of the original palacio where there are two additional floors dedicated to his works. It is in the palacio that his focus on the scenes of southern France and the Mediterranean are featured. The upper floor is dedicated in part to his design and decoration of the Matisse Chapel in Vence. The last time we visited this floor had extensive works featuring his famous window paintings of the Mediterranean. Today the entire floor exhibited his design process for the ‘stations of the cross’ mural in the chapel. Literally no color which is one of his signature
features. But the lower floor showed many of his local paintings as well as a number of the props he used in those paintings. Things such as pottery, glassware, and furniture which can be seen in the paintings. An interesting exhibit which we had not seen before are the color studies for the murals he created for the interior of the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia. Albert Barned commissioned him to created them for a specific architectural feature in his mansion. We spent most of the afternoon in the museum and the sun was getting lower as we took the bus back down the hill to town.
It was after 4:00pm and we knew we could eat again at the apartment but we decided to chance it and eat at one of the ‘tourist trap’ places along the pedestrian promenade a few blocks inland. Deb had seen a pizza restaurant which interested her. A thing to remember is that Nice was a part of Italy until the unification of Italy in 1865. At that point Nice and the surrounding area voted to become a part of France. Due to this bifurcation there are very many, I mean very many, Italian cuisine restaurants in Nice. Some are total ripoffs, but many are really good as well. The trick is to ferret out the good ones and avoid… So we took a chance on the one right around the corner which she thought might be good. One advantage of tourist trap row is that they stay open all day and into the evening. So we got there and they gave us a table in the covered patio area. It has radiant heaters so it was pretty comfortable. We each ordered pizza, she a pepperoni and I a Neopolitana. Our biggest concern being that if they served Neopolitan style pizza then we would get the soggy crust ones that we detest. However they came through like Italian racehorses and the crust was crispy and thin. On their menu it stated that they served it as a half moon, instead of fully in the round. No problem. What we didn’t comprehend was that it was half of a 16” pizza on a 12” plate. And they don’t cut it into slices, so you’re fending for yourself when you try to accommodate it to a smaller plate. But we managed and had very good pizza. As we observed what almost everyone else was eating, it became clear that pasta is a specialty of the place too! So…
I’ll leave you with a little further Roman influence done in a French manner. Boules in place of gladiators.
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