More Adventures with Another Visitor or Marcia Tours the Cote d'Azur

Wednesday November 6
My friend Marcia arrived right on time, and I was there to meet her! (Marcia lives in the first house I bought in Weston.) While she had not had much sleep on the plane, she was game to stay awake as long as possible, so I introduced her to Nice via walk along the Promenade and the Old Town and over to the Port.

Thursday November 7
The next morning (Marcia had had great night's sleep!) we got an early start to go up to Vence so we could enjoy Matisse's Rosaire Chapel in the morning sunlight! It was a delightfully sunny morning, so we fully enjoyed the chapel with the light singing brilliantly through the stained glass windows. We could even see the green and blue hues reflected on the floor, but only because it was pointed out to us! (Why didn't the yellow in the stained glass show up?) The same nun was there there, but there were only three of us, so she only talked with Marcia. Our timing was perfect, as a busload of German tourists arrived just as it was time for us to leave.
The seven minute bus trip took us to St. Paul de Vence, where Marcia could enjoy the small Chagall

museum over the TI. We had a leisurely walk up to the top of the town for a panoramic view of the country, and down to the sea! We stopped for lunch at a small restaurant overlooking the country side from another direction to end a very pleasant stop in this 12th century town.
The well-known, small modern art Fondation Maeght "one of the world's finest" museums is just down the hill from St. Paul de Vence, and that was our next stop. However, the signage was confusing, so we asked a woman from Syracuse, NY, exactly where it was, and she was kind enough to drive us up there! The Maeghts had been Cannes art dealers and knew Chagall, Matisse, Miro, etc. as both clients and friends. There was only a temporary display, "Les aventures de la verite: Peinture et philosophie"(freetranslation.com translated this as "The Adventures of the truth: Painting and philosophy". It was curated by Bernard-Henri Levy, a prominent French philosopher, wrote American Vertigo: Traveling America in the Footsteps of Tocqueville in 2006. The show was really a mixed bag, divided into seven sections, all focused on-quite esoterically-the relationship between art and philosophy-Plato and the cave. Levy wrote the exhibition guide, which was quite really ALL over the place!!! Some bizarre commentary!

Sculpture outside Maeght

Sculpture at Guy Pieters Gallery

Another Guy Pieters Sculpture

Looking up at St. Paul de Vence from the bus stop

For example, this painting is Joan Miro's "Les Philosophes II", 1956. Levy's comment was "Scenes of daily life in the bowels of the cave."????????????


WHEW! THEN it was time to leave!

Michael and Tim were coming for wine and cheese before we went out to dinner. After drinks on the balcony, we had a delicious dinner at L'Ecurie-again just around the corner in the Old Town! It was great fun to hear about their eight years living in Paris and the interesting lives they have had traveling everywhere, as Michael had been in the Peace Corps. They were off to Paris for a photography show where Michael will be meeting with many different people-publishers, other photographers, etc.

Friday November 8th
Before we started out, I wanted to buy the beef for the daube (Provencale beef stew) I was going to make for dinner Sunday night when Regine and Caroline came. So I made my first meat purchase in the market in the Old Town! Luckily Mary had told me about the butcher, so I knew where to go and what to buy! (I like to think that I could have figured out what to buy....)
At the top of Marcia's list was the Matisse Museum, so that was our first stop on our Around Nice day! There were several school groups around, so they were learning about Matisse too! We stopped for a light lunch of onion tart in the park before we headed up to the Monastery. This was closed until three, so we walked through the gardens-the roses still looked lovely!-and down at Nice. We visited the cemetery and walked down to Matisse's Sepulchre/tomb.

We took the bus to visit St. Nicolas Russian Orthodox Cathedral, the largest outside of Russia. Built in the early 1900's for the many Russians coming to Nice, it is a fascinating building, although very dark, so it was very difficult to see much inside! (No wonder the girl at the desk had her head down-napping?)
We walked down to the Promenade with the thought of perhaps having a cup of tea or glass of wine at the high-end Negresco, a two Michelin star hotel whose top restaurant has meals of 90 euros. It was very grand, and we enjoyed our tour there, but opted out of the tea or wine! We enjoyed the walk along the promenade and through the Old Town to the flat.
The City of Nice sponsored a full weekend schedule of  concerts with the title of "It's Not Classical". Caroline, Marcia, and I went to one Friday night. We tried to get into one based on the Four Seasons, but it was full. The only other concert was four violinists who were "clowning". It was certainly nothing Marcia or I understood, and it was Caroline who suggested we leave. Good try!


Saturday November 9th
We had talked about going to Grasse, where perfume had been made long ago. (Now it is more about the history of the process.) Luckily Tim had told Marcia about Antibes, which is west of Nice on the way to Cannes. Roughly an hour from here by bus, it was longer with all the Saturday traffic! However, it was a pleasant trip with many new sights along the coast. It was not like a trip Melissa and I had once taken to Cannes in an August past (!) when the traffic was terrible, and the bus' air-conditioning was broken! Unfortunately we did not have the name of the bus stop, and the helpful lady on the bus had us get off maybe four stops past Antibes center, where we could have walked to see the Picasso museum!
But everything works for the best-usually! In this case, a dad and his eleven year old son were parking their car, when I asked them where the Picasso museum was. He told us where it was-clearly far away, but then said if we could wait forty-five minutes, he would give us a ride. He said they were going to have lunch at Coco's Fritterie, a Belgian restaurant, which his son Matthew really liked! That sounded good to us, as we were very hungry by then! I had never eaten Belgian food before, so it was a new experience! I don't know the name of what I had, but it was hamburg, tomato, onions wrapped in dough and fried. Marcia had chicken, which looked to be four chicken wings. All the food-except for the fries- was in the display case, ready to be fried. She had pre-fried the potatoes, and they were ready to be re-fried. Delicious! Christian, the dad, also told us she had very good Belgian beer, so that went well with this interesting eating experience! (Later that night when we told Caroline and Regine, they both exclaimed how "awful" they thought Belgian food is!)
Christian showed us a very good place to walk in Antibes (probably Cap d'Antibes) and even offered to pick us up when were through, but we really just wanted to see the Picasso Museum, situated in the 14th century Chateau Grimaldi. Picasso had worked there from July-December 1946. His Joie de vivre painting (Joy of Life) is displayed there.


 It is as you can imagine a spectacular location!

No pictures inside, but some of his sculptures were outside.

That night Marcia treated us to dinner at Le Comptoir de la Marche, touted in Lonely Planet. We both had scallops(St. Jacques on the menu) with small filet of pork. It was their version of "surf and turf" I guess. It was delicious!

...and desserts to die for!

 



























Sunday November 10th
Marcia loves music and has been playing the piano since she was young, so I really thought she would like the instrument display at the Lascaris Palace, our first stop Sunday morning. Then we stopped in to the Meetups coffee, which was busy as usual! We walked around the flower market in Cours Saleya, before we went up to the Castle Rock for probably the best view of Nice!
I had been working on the daube for dinner that night. It is slightly labor-intensive, and was I presumptuous to be serving two Nicoise women one of their native regional dishes? There is no oven here-only three burners on stove-top and a microwave, so I thought this would be as close as I can get to my favortie crockpot cooking!:)) (Some of you might remember that when I returned from my last trip, I realized that I missed having friends for dinner!)
Ingredients for the daube include pound of beef, carrots, bouquet garni (I substituted Herbes de Provence), 1 liter of "full-bodied wine", 5 tomatoes (I substituted a can of chopped up tomatoes and 2 fresh tomatoes), black olives, 3 garlic cloves. I did add about a can of water. I had gotten the recipe at the Marseille Pavillion. Everyone said they liked it! Regine and Caroline said they never make it, because it takes too long!
They arrived at 7:30; Regine brought a dessert, and Caroline brought wine and cheese. (That was good, as I didn't have much cheese for a cheese course!) I had bought two loaves of bread, so we had plenty to go with the daube and the cheese! Plus I served brussel sprouts in lieu of a salad. (I served them al dente,which didn't work for Caroline, but the microwave took care of that!)
Regine's dessert was delicious! It was not too different from our brownies, but much richer, as it called for eight eggs! (She actually added a ninth!) We had a nice visit, as always, and I was glad that Marcia could meet them!

Monday November 11th

Nautilius

November 11th is called Remembrance Day and a national holiday in France, but not in Monaco, so we headed there. The Palace is closed now until April. It was another sun-sparkly day, so perfect to be out along the sea! We went to Musee Oceanographique de Monaco, founded by Prince Albert I. Opened in 1910, it has 450 different Mediterranean and tropical species. Because it was a holiday in France, more and more families were arriving as it was time for us to leave!

After we got home, we walked around the Promenade and then to the Port, where we came upon the end of a big Remembrance Day celebration with veterans and civilians alike. Unfortunately we could not see too well to know who all was participating.








And in a flash, Marcia's time in Nice was over, and she headed back to the US Tuesday morning. Thanks for coming!

And, if you got this far in this post-probably my second longest- I want to share an interesting article about how travel makes you healthier! But for many of you, it is a bit like "preaching to the choir"! Or maybe it just validates the lure of travel?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/09/travel-makes-you-healthier_n_4233742.html

PS. That family who was in court lost the case, so ultimately they may be sent back to Chechnya. So now they are living with family.

Thanks again for coming along with me on this journey!