The Ham Nomads

20 Mar 2015. <FR> Nice, & Villefranche-sur-Mer, Alpes Maritimes —

A nice day for Nice! And today is the solar eclipse, although we are too far away from the path of totality to even notice it! Basically, all we want to do is to catch the train to Nice-Ville, walk down to La Promenade des Anglais (along the beachfront), then walk back to the station via a different route. Once we get back to Villefranche, a bit of poking around there!

We got to Nice-Ville station at about 9.30. We'd seen the station from the tollway a couple of days ago. It's an old-style station, under two huge steel and glass barrel vaults. The station is getting very tired, and is in need of a little sprucing up. Anyway, we went outside to find a tourist office — nothing doing! But we knew the direction to Promenade des Anglais, so off we went, walking down Avenue Jean Médecin (a major pedestrian precinct), through Place Masséna to Jardin Albert 1er, which has an unusual water vapour fountain — we watched a little dog frisking about amid the 'steam'. We also found a rather graceful (pun intended) fountain, which we later (in Villefranche) found was a statue by Volti (Voltigerno Antoniucci) called Les Trois Grãces — in the fountain in Nice it is a version in marble, in the Volti Musem in Villefranche there is a bronze of the same subject, There is also a monument to Nice and France in this area which is very nineteenth century in feel — it commemorates various time spans from 1793 through to 1960, but we suspect some of these dates may have been added to the monument after its erection!

Turning onto La Promenade des Anglais we found a Macca's and so, with caffeine levels adjusted, we continued our promenade. By this time the eclipse had been and gone, and we were oblivious of it! A few doors down we found a tourist office, picked up a city plan, and continued on our way. We walked quite a few blocks westward on La Promenade des Anglais, then turned round, walked back to where we met the beachfront and eastwards along Quai des États-Unies (where there is a miniature Statue of Liberty - La Liberté éclairant le monde, only placed there in 2014) and round to the Port de Nice, where we dropped into an Irish pub, Ma Nolan's, for lunch. Then we wandered back via Rue Barla to the station, on the way passing the Bibliothèque Louis Nucéra, which has above it the most incredible statue of a head — or is it a statue? Perhaps it's part of the ventilation system. The French have a certain style! Then we reached the station where we embarked for Villefranche.

In Villefranche, we wandered into the village, enjoying the back streets. We walked up to the citadel, and found a few delights in there. There is a Musée Volti in some of the old cellars of the citadel, where there is an impressive collection of his sculpture. Volti was renowned for his depictions of the female figure. It was here that we found the bronze of Les Trois Grâces, and many more statues which put us in mind of a cross between Henry Moore and Pablo Picasso in style. Delightful.

Then we found another museum, of Henri Goetz and Christine Boumeester, a husband and wife team of artists who worked in the figurative, surrealist and non-figurative styles from the 1930s through to the 1980s. Must say that the works, although interesting, didn't really strike a chord with us.

Then we found the Musée Roux, which houses a collection of ceramic figurines depicting medieval people and scenes, mostly based on paintings of the time.

But then we went on to the Chapelle St-Elme, also within the Citadel. Here there was an exhibition of the works of George — that's the name she goes by — which were at once idiosyncratic, whimsical, and just fascinating! There was a statue outside called Daphné, ou les Secrets d'une Muse which caught our imagination before we even went inside! She has also created a series of almost African fetish dolls, in bronze, from 2013 onwards, which she calls Les Doodles or "Ready-Made Myself".

We explored the citadel itself — the walls must be at least 6 metres thick at the base, they're massive. We then walked slowly back to the van, on the way going down into the Rue Obscure, a street completely enclosed by buildings to form a tunnel, and dating from the 13th century. We believe it's been used in a few movies filmed in Villefranche-sur-Mer!

Then we made our way back to the van and settled in for the night — tomorrow we must move on!

Distance driven — today, nil; to date, 16,259 miles ( 26,167 km )