A Magical Realist: Backdated Post - More of Nice, France!

My first order of business for today was to buy a new, working phone cord. My second order of business was to buy everyone a breakfast of pastries from the local boulangerie. After succeeding in both, we all ventured forth for a day of sightseeing.

Me, getting rained on.

Me in front of a fountain.

And were caught in a torrential downpour.

Us taking shelter during the downpour.

Instead, we heeded the brilliant advice of Le Grand Monsieur and went to the Marc Chagall Museum instead.

The mural on the side of the Chagall museum was created by Chagall.

Chagall led a pretty fascinating life so it's totally worth it to look him up if you're into that sort of thing. Born Moishe Segal, he spent his early years in a shtetl in Russia where Jews were heavily discriminated against. His mother had to bribe the local high school to let him attend since they didn't accept Jews at that time. He eventually went to St. Petersburg using a temporary passport from a friend (because Jews weren't allowed in the city unless they had an internal passport). He did two years at art school, fell in love with a woman named Bella Rosenfeld and became engaged, and then moved to Paris without her to further his art and enrolled in a more avant-garde art school. He moved back to Russia to be with her just before WWI broke out and he was then unable to leave. He returned to France after the war and was there when WWII broke out. His artwork was burned as degenerate and the Nazis occupation of France began. Fortunately, he managed to get himself put on a list of artists the United States should try to extricate and his family was rescued by American journalist Varian Fry and the American Vice-Consul in Marseilles France Hiram Bingham IV who ran a rescue operation to smuggle artists and intellectuals out of Europe with forged visas to the USA. Bella died in the USA due to an infection that couldn't be treated because of wartime medication shortages. He eventually began a new relationship with Virginia Haggard which lasted for seven years. The two of them moved back to France when the war ended, and Chagall picked up where he'd left of making a prolific amount of art. Haggard left him for another man and he eventually met and married Valentina Brodsky, another Russian Jew. Chagall and Valentina spent the rest of their days in southern France, with some traveling for his art including an extended stay in Paris for him to paint the ceiling of the Paris Opera.

Here are my favorite pieces at the museum:

Cirque Bleu.

Moses Striking the Rock.

Triptych: Resistance, Resurrection, Liberation.

Because we were still soggy, we headed back to the air bnb for lunch and a change of clothes. We looked at the ferris wheel again and I snuck into a public garden and stole a few oranges to eat on the way.

Ferris and Le Grand Monsieur in front of the ferris wheel.

Terrible but funny picture of me with stolen oranges.

Once we'd changed we decided to walk to Castle Park, a pretty site including the vestiges of Chateau Nice and Tour Belanda, a waterfall (called - I kid you not - Cascade Dijon), spectacular views, and lots of neat mosaics. The only downside is that you have to climb 479 steps to get there.

We walked there along the ocean to get there:

Ocean.

View of the very rocky beach.

Me standing on a rock peninsula.

Ferris and Le Grand Monsieur walking on a pedestrian lane with lots of palm trees.

Man blowing large bubbles.

Picture of a bubble on the sidewalk.

Once we got there we snapped a couple "before" photos and started climbing stairs...

Ferris in front of our destination.

Look! It's pretty!

There were rather a lot of stairs...

Start of the stairs.

Me partway up the stairs.

Glancing back at some of the stairs.

When we finally made it to the top we were triumphant! And the view was incredible!

Le Grand Monsieur and Ferris are a cute couple in front of a pretty view!

Le Grand Monsieur points to the view in case you missed it.

View of the coast.

View of the harbor.

There was also, as promised, a tower:

Me with the tower.

Anchor window bars.

And a waterfall:

Waterfall.

Me in front of the waterfall.

And some ruins:

Tower.

Tunnel.

Ferris looking through a tiny window.

Active archeological dig.

There were also many mosaics, cool plants, and some additional pretty views:

Ferris and some mosaics.

Floor mosaic.

Isn't this pretty?

I try to make a fish face next to a fish mosaic.

Seahorse.

Octopus.

Helmeted person and sea creatures.

I climb a tree.

Tree against the sunset.

Pretty tree bark!

View of the cliff we were on.

After all of that wandering around we wanted ice cream. So we headed back into town and poked around until we stumbled upon Fenocchio's which is a family-owned business selling more flavors of homemade ice cream and sorbet than you can imagine.

More murals on the walk back.

Pretty ivy-colored walls.

Le Grand Monsieur and Ferris walk down a bunch of stairs.

More stairs. I think this is the theme of the trip so far.

Cool graffiti of a kid in a skirt reaching for butterflies.

Street view.

Yellow building with pretty balcony.

Le Grand Monsieur and Ferris walk down the street.

This was the plaza with the ice cream shop.

Mmmmmmm. Ice cream.

After ice cream, we walked to the coast for a non-existant sunset, another look at the R2D2 memorial, and a view of the lighthouse. Then we wandered back to the air bnb with a stop at the grocery store to pick up dinner and chickpea beer.