Cimiez is the name of neighborhood in Nice North, about 2-3 km from Massena. It includes Chagalls Museum, Matisse Museum, a park, Universite Valrose with beautiful Chateu d'eau. It is easily accessible from Massena (for instance busses 15,17, 20). We stopped at the very north part of Cimiez, next to Matisse Museum, very famous according to my friend (I haven't heard much about it). The museum is located in the heart of a park, just in front of the Archeologycal Museum and a few minutes walk from the Monastery. This composition all toghether looks absolutely amazing. You have the ancient stones from 1st century B.C., the park, and Matisse's house in the same frame. The building itself stands out the park, it gives the impression of magical mish-mash.
The museum inside is however slightly disappointing, I must admit. Free entrance for students, 10 euros regular ticket. It's quite small with no significant pieces of art, no stunning paintings, no enormous sculptures, which is funny cause the museum itself adversites as one of the main museums about Matisse. They also want to 'give visitor a chance to enter Matisse's world of inspiration.' Didn't work on me. At all. Before I was instructed absolutely no photos were permitted, I managed to take two.
Completely under-inspired we went for a walk through park in the direction of Monastery. This is were I found my true inspiration. Petanque! A traditional French game, still quite popular among elderly people in South France. This is the first time I saw people playing in Nice, I used to see them a lot more when I lived in Nimes. What is petanque? Boules game, the same family as bowling. The easiest explanation probably would be: throwing the boules as close to Jack as possible. Doesn't sound like complicated at all and looks really fun, I'll have to try it before leaving Frane for good.
The Monastery, a bit up the hill, looks quite normal from the outside, the facade is a bit oriental for me, but the inside is really interesting. As my friend said, really dark and overwhelming. Definitely worth entering. One of the best parts of the Monastery is the garden. The orange trees with fruit look just amazing. Quite a nice place for lunch, a few benches to sit on them and breathtaking panoramas of Nice guaranted. To the right from the garden, there is the Cementary of Cimiez, where Matisse and a few notable nicoise citizens are burried. The cementary is really, really old, quite alienated with basically no turists. Thera are lots of those crazy little paths leading to another crazy little paths which for me equals getting lost a thousand times. I'm really happy I was with my friends, definitely don't recommend going there alone. The cementary reminds me a bit of the one in Glasgow, maybe because it's up the hill, but I feel also that the scupltures and style are quite similar and completely opposite to the famous cementaries in Warsaw or in Lviv. We had hard time finding Matisse's memorial, it's separated from the others, you have to follow the signs and then take the stairs down, basically almost leaving the cementary.
On our way out we stopped by the Archologycal Museum, which is just behind Musee de Matisse. IT has the same ticket prices. The exposition is no great piece of art, just a bunch of stones, one could say, but again, it is just a great place for a walk, it looks funny how ancient arenas from 1st century B.C. are juxtaposted with modern buildings or even the Matisse Museum. It looks like they're building a bridge so that it would be possible to walk over the ruins. This is such a part of history.
Overall, Cimiez is really worth dropping by, and it's a shame it's such an underestimated part of the town. Maybe the museums are not true pices of art, but just going there for a walk or lunch would be a really nice way to spend early afternoon. I really regret not having visited it earlier. I will definitely be back, for a lazy afternoon with a book.
