Culture Vultures

On our second full day in Nice we had a culture day. We visited the Chagall museum, which had a temporary exhibition up focusing on his self portraits. Although the museum itself is not beautiful, the exhibition, along with the rest of the museum, was a joy to wander round. It was intelligently laid out and there was just enough that you could take it all in and not be overwhelmed. 

We had peace and quiet for most of our visit, which was relatively early in the morning,but a tour group turned up right at the end so we made a hasty exit! I wholeheartedly recommend you visit if you're ever in the area. It's a bit of a trek up hill from the centre of town, but there is a bus you can get, and if you go first thing you'll almost have the exhibitions to yourself.

We then continued up the hill to a park where there are two museums, one dedicated to Matisse, and the archaeology museum.

The Matisse museum is in a lovely building, but it's not quite so well laid out as Chagall, and it was a lot busier by the time we got there, so I didn't enjoy it quite as much. A lot of the museums in Nice had a section linked to Matisse (however tenuously... looking at you Archaeology museum...) as part of the Matisse 2013 celebrations, and some of their small exhibitions were more interesting than the main museum.

The archaeology museum has some interesting ruins outside, but there's no English translation of any of the labels inside the museum. I speak a little French, I can order my dinner and ask where the train station is, but the museum text was way beyond what I could manage.

We walked back to the centre of Nice for lunch, and had one of the best meals we had over the whole holiday. There was a chicken kebab with a delicious fresh salad and feta cheese balls.

And salmon with a poached egg and salad, along with a side of wedges to share.

We carried on to the Contemporary Art museum, where I left my camera in the locker, which annoys me more than I can say. I'm not a huge fan of modern art, in general I don't really "get" it. But we had a good laugh wandering round, and from the very top there are fantastic views of Nice. There was a particularly good exhibition focusing on artists who had been inspired by Matisse, as part of the Matisse 2013 series.

We also went to a photography museum, where the display was dedicated to female muses.