Workshops

Monday, September 20, 2010

Nice (pronounced Niece) is Nice


Monday was our day to visit Nice. We had originally planned to visit Monaco on Sunday, then changed our mind and spent it at the beach. Our backup plan was to visit Monaco on Monday, until I remembered to look in my book about flea markets in France and happily realized that Nice holds a huge flea market all day on Monday (about 200 vendors). Plan C immediately went into effect. Since we no longer have our car, Navigator Howard got us from Antibes to Nice quite easily on the local train (about a 30 minute ride).



After getting off the train, we headed for the Flea Market (insert the Hallelujah Chorus here).














After spending a couple of hours at the flea market, we allowed ourselves time to wander the city and enjoy some of the sights. We were surprised to learn that Nice is the fifth largest city in France! The city had a great vibe (and surprise surprise! some Roman ruins).








We visited two museums while in Nice. The first, the Matisse Museum (Musee Matisse), didn't allow photos and the outside of the building wasn't even photo worthy. But the second, the Musee National Marc Chagall (Chagall Museum), did allow photos so I've included a few here. On a side note, we had taken the bus up the hill to the Musee Matisse and planned to walk the 30 minutes down to the Musee Chagall. Well, we set off on the wrong street and after walking for at least 30 minutes with no sign of Musee Chagall, we began to ask the locals how to get to the museum. Everyone was helpful, although they did gasp when we told them where we were headed - we were on the other side of the hill competely. Our dogs were tired that night.






Okay, this post wouldn't be complete without photos of my purchases from the flea market. And for my artist friends, your eyes are not deceiving you. There are piles and piles of watch and clock parts. When I was first going through the booth with all of these parts, I was sort of hyperventillating and Howard had to remind me to breathe and to take my time . . . we were so impressed with all the treasures from that one booth, that Howard asked the young couple if he could snap a photo.









6 comments:

Suzanne Reynolds said...

What fun to see your flea market finds, Dayna! That, and the Chagall Museum would make the whole trip for me. Thanks for sharing your adventures; love all the photos and commentary!

Tory Brokenshire said...

How did Howard ever get you out of there? I love the funny little metal dolls sitting on the cutlery. And all the religious memorabilia, lovely

Melissa said...

Hello again. Third grade class here..."I liked the paintings by Chagall. I liked the shadows on the beach. I liked seeing the sunset. I liked all the creepy dolls."

Questions:
Can you video tape any of your travels for us?
What do you do with all the junk you bought at the flea market?


We can't wait to hear back from you!
xoxox,
Melissa and class

Dayna Collins said...

Ms. Staley and kids,

We don't have a video camera with us so we're not able to do any kind of movies of our adventures.

And what I do with all the junk, I mean stuff, I buy at flea markets is the million dollar question! For the most part, I use it in my art. Just today I was working in my travel journal and I glued in a couple of the watch parts that I bought yesterday at the market. I also like to pick up rusty, flattened bottle caps and several of those have already been glued into my travel journal (I'll share photos of my journal later on the blog and with all of you--in fact, when I come up to do an art project with you, I'll bring my travel journal so you can see it in person!). The paper stuff I buy at markets is often incorporated into collages or into my visual journals. If Ms. Staley looks on my blog, you can see some of the art work I have done in the past.

Thanks for reading my blog so faithfully!

Dayna

Karen D said...

looks like so much fun.. love reading about your journies through France.

gl. said...

wow! nice IS nice! when i saw your photos of the chagall museum i realized that one of the things lost with the typical "no pictures" policy is any sense of what the actual museum looks like. it's so great to see pictures of people inside a museum!