Saint Paul de Vence

view from our balcony

When we signed up for our Hotel de la Darse in Villefranche, the marina-view rooms with balcony were not available for our first two nights, but were for the second part of our visit.  So this morning we made the switch and are enjoying the view.  Thanks to Rick Steves and Rob for zeroing in on this excellent choice.  After riding through the Nice traffic today we are even more appreciative of this quiet town and hotel.

We intended to spend just a couple of hours in Nice, visiting the Matisse Museum, before heading inland to the touristy hilltop town of Saint Paul de Vence.  The museum sits in a park next to a Roman archaeological site.  We spent almost an hour viewing Matisse, but the museum was a bit of a disappointment.  It includes some sculpture and later cut-outs and a few of his early paintings, but only a couple of the later vibrant paintings. Matisse lived in Nice from 1917 to 1954.

Matisse Museum cut-outs

As we prepared to ride on, we realized (from a bus destination) that the Monastery Gardens of Cimiez were nearby.  Just what we needed, and a nearby cafe provided a quick lunch.  Then it was off to the Fondation Maeght Museum in Saint Paul de Vence.  Again we were a bit disappointed since most of the interior space was given over to special exhibition of Jorg Immendorff whose paintings were not really to our taste.  Only one room with 6 paintings displayed the permanent collection.  Outside however the Museum proved successful with many notable sculptures at various levels and terraces.

Saint-Paul-de-Vence

Our final stop (planned to be late in the day after the tour buses had departed) was the town itself, full of charm and art galleries and descriptive plaques on the town’s connection to the French movie industry.  On our return via Nice to Villefranche we made one more stop to purchase another GPS unit (heading out of Nice this afternoon we had purchased one also), to replace the TWO existing ones that continue to give Rob problems.  Perhaps this is due to vibrations from the bike, though the units are cushioned with foam.  We’ll see if these two new units behave properly.