July 15 - Musée Matisse

Immediately when the festivities ended last night the clean-up crews were out in force and today you’d never know anything happened.  First on our agenda this morning is to purchase our train tickets to Paris for Wednesday.  The station is only a ten minute walk from the apartment so this shouldn’t take too long.  The best laid plans etc. etc...

We figure out which line to queue up in & select a mid-morning departure.  We hand over our credit card and...DECLINED!  I had called the company before we left & gave them our travel dates and I know the balance is paid so I can’t imagine what the problem is.  We use the cell phone to call the international # on the back of the card for assistance.  (and by-the-way, we neglected to get an international plan befor leaving so no telling what this is going to cost :(  )  Apparently there has been a lot of fraud in this area & they were just making sure it was us using the card.  I am assured that now there will be no problem.  So we get back in the (now longer) line & inch our way up to the window and...DECLINED AGAIN! 

Now don’t get me wrong, we brought cash but you get a better exchange rate with the card.  The unfavorable Dollar-Euro conversion combined with the cost of things here cuts you dollars by about a third in my estimation.  For example: a Coke in a restaurant is about 3.50-4.00 Euro and one Euro is about $1.30 so...CRAZY RIGHT?  Anyway we decide to cash in some dollars to pay for the tix.  Just for shits & giggles we make one last attempt with the card first, no-go, before plunking down 220 Euro.  I am now concerned.  If we are operating on cash from here on out this vacation is now on an austerity plan.  We call the credit card company once more from the apartment & again they assure us there is no problem?!  So we decide to go out for an inexpensive lunch to see if it works.  It does, yay!!  Now I’m wondering if it was some issue with the train station rather than the card.

Now that that's settled we decide to head to the Musée Matisse and we hop on the appropriate bus.  It’s pretty crowded and each time we stop more people cram on & none seem to get off.  The locals start howling at the driver every time he opens the door.  And still people squish themselves in.  Each time we take on more passengers we get pushed further & further back.  I am getting real irritated until I hit a spot where the a/c is blowing.  Finally we reach our destination & the bus belches us out on the sidewalk.

The Musée Matisse is in an area with many museums and a large shady park filled with men & women playing what we call Bocce & the French call Petanque.  We stop for a moment to watch a group of men play who clearly are old buddies.  

We make our way to the museum entrance & purchase our tickets (card still working, yay). The price covers admission to ten museums with in a week’s time but I don’t think we will have the chance to see others, unfortunately. 

 The small museum has a wonderful permanent collection built on donations from the artist & his family.  We have seen many posters around town celebrating L’Ete Matisse.  I love some of the costumes for ballet & garments designed for the clergy.  Also there is a recreation in tile of a painting Mssr. Matisse had done in his apartment.  It is a swimming pool done in blue in his inimitable style.  It surrounds the entire room just above eye level.  He painted it to combat the winter blues so he would always have a summer scene to cheer him up.

We decide to walk back home rather than take the bus and we wind our way through beautiful neighborhoods.  Before we get back we stop for a treat at a place specializing in Italian gellato creations on the pedestrian boulevard. 

 Once back in the apartment we discuss what we’d like to do tomorrow, our last day in Nice.  Nathalie has provided a little book with brochures for different attractions. We opt for a guided tour of Monaco, Monte Carlo & Eze.  Monaco Is just a little further down the beach than Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat, technically not to far to reach by bicycle but we’d be a sweaty mess once we got there.  So a guided tour from an air-conditioned Mercedes van sound like just the thing, merci beaucoup!