Day 2: Musées Matisse, Chagall, et les plaisirs de Nice

Note: photos will be added as soon as the slow internet connection can upload them! For now, here is the posting and photos can still be viewed at my Instagram page: mlle.louie

Jetlag. Most of us suffered from this to some extent last night and it was not the most pleasant experience of our otherwise wonderful trip abroad.  Adjusting to a 9 hour time difference meant waking up once, twice, or three times last night. Mme Yeo woke up at 2, 3, and 4: 30 am. I woke up at 3:30, and again at 4:30 am, and couldn’t fully go back to sleep so I stayed up thinking about the day and minor logistics of the trip.

After our buffet breakfast (we had a choice of croissants, toasts avec de la confiture, fruits, jambon, yaourt, chocolat chaud, jus d’argrumes [citrus], oeufs, et café), students went upstairs to grab their things for a day in and around Nice. We met downstairs around 9 am, and our courier, Marc, explained our agenda for Day 2:

1.       Walk to the open-air marché at the Cours Saleya in Vieux Nice
2.       A visit to the Musée Matisse which is located in an 18^th century Italian-style house.
3.       A visit to the Musée Chagall, French painter born in Poland who has works of art all over France (l’Opéra Garnier in Paris, la Cathédrale de Metz in the Lorraine region of France)
4.       Grocery shopping at the Monoprix on Nice’s main avenue, Jean-Medecin
5.       Picnic lunch at the beach
6.       Some free time to shop and explore Nice

Travelers discovered les délices du sud at the outdoor market, and we saw many Mediterranean fruits, vegetables, spices imported from north Africa, soaps, artisanal crafts, and nicoise specialties. It was a neat place to stop for souvenirs that one may not necessarily find in the typical tourist shop.

After that we caught the No. 15 bus for the Musée Matisse. When we got off we explored the Gallo-Romaine ruins right outside the ochre-colored 18^th century Italian house with trompe-l’oeil balconies painted on the exterior. It was a neat experience, being in something that felt so old with a story to tell about the beginnings of France.

The Matisse museum was interesting in that it showed the progression of his earlier paintings to his more abstract, Fauvisme style that included bright, shocking colors (for his time period). We then headed to the Chagall museum which I think most of the kids enjoyed. The work on exposition included large, fluid, colorful paintings—many of which depicted religious themes. We saw un essai of his stained-glass work that was later incorporated into 2 panels of the Metz cathedrale, which my French “maman” introduced me to last summer. Without her, I would not have experienced and learned half the things I know about French culture that I know now! Merci, Patricia.

After our museum visits, we headed back into town for some grocery shopping at the busy Monoprix, just off of the Place Massena. Some of the travelers ventured outside of their comfort zones and tried some new things they saw at the store (Zach ordered a feuilleté au fromage), and some opted for the traditional French picnic lunch of baguette, fromage, & jambon. We walked down to the plage where we found a nice spot (though pebbly—the pebbles are called galets) facing la Mediterranée.

After lunch the travelers went off in their groups to do some shopping on the Avenue Jean-Medecin or explore the narrow, criss-crossing alleys of Vieux Nice. We finished the day with dinner at a restaurant off of the main street, where we had soupe à l’oignon, lasagnes au saumon, and moelleux au chocolat (warm chocolate cake with a soft center, surrounded by a drizzle of crème anglaise). Not a bad ending!