Another cloudless morning with beautiful sunrise outside of Nice as we sail right into the old Port area of Nice. Yay. No Villefranche for us! Small ships are the best in that respect. Our plan today is an art day – Matisse and Chagall – then just wander around Nice the rest of the day.

All goes according to plan, taking off fairly early, ordering an Uber up to the Monastery at Cimiez, way up high on the mountain (thus the Uber!). While we love to walk, Uber was absolutely the right decision as it is uphill all the way. We’d be exhausted once we got there if we had tried to hoof it. An absolutely gorgeous location, the Monastery is perched on one of the highest points in the city with views across the valleys and out to the water. However, seeing as it is Sunday, the church is only open for parishioners as services are being held. Eh, that’s ok, we’re happy outside, wandering through the lovely gardens that were once used by the 19^th century Franciscan monks as a vegetable garden, an orchard and a place for medicinal plant cultivation.

Another draw to this place, beyond the beauty, is that the cemetery is where Matisse’s grave is located.  Moving here hoping to help his bronchitis, Matisse fell in love with Nice and ended up staying here for long periods of time over 37 years, producing most of his work here up until his death. The grave is fairly unassuming, a stark cement tomb with admirer’s gifts of stones and rocks fanned out in the shape of a cross, along with cards and other respectful items.

As it is still too early to go to the Musee Matisse, we wander through the Jardin des Arenes de Cimiez, situated in between the Monastery and Museum, stopping at a kiosk for cappuccino and getting into this entire French discussion with another customer standing there. Obviously, we understood nothing, until he realized we only spoke English, laughed, and said something about some bizarre ladder that was attached to the stone wall behind us. Don’t know, but it was a sweet encounter!

Even after taking our time and sitting people watching, we still arrive at the museum before opening time, patiently waiting by the door, which a guard comes and opens, but never says we can come in. So, we wait until another guard takes pity on us and tells us we can enter. We’re just trying to be polite! Inside we are immersed in Matisse, learning that the 23 paintings, 455 drawings and engravings, 57 sculptures, cut-outs and other objects were bequeathed to the museum by Matisse himself and his family. A lovely legacy.

There are some interesting pieces, and fascinating to look at, but I’ve decided I’m not really a big Matisse fan.  His style just doesn’t appeal to me – art is in the eye of the beholder of course. One thing, though, that was quite interesting was an entire wing of the museum filled with Matisse’s Stations of the Cross mural. The exhibit takes you through how he started sketching it out, what went into his thinking on each station – and the most interesting thing to us was that he wasn’t religious at all, didn’t know the first thing about the Stations and had to do all this research just to begin to even think about creating the artwork. A fascinating study not just in his art, but into his mind. Good thing? Bad thing?

The other cool thing is called The Backs: 4 reliefs created over 20 years showing the different developmental stages he used to create his final piece.

Completing our Matisse explorations, we head outside for the Chagall museum, first getting a little sidetracked by the ruins of an old Roman amphitheater from the 2^nd century BC, right outside the Matisse museum. There is also a fairly large archeological museum with more ruins from the city of Cemenelum – the Roman predecessor to Nice – but we decide against visiting there, instead heading to Chagall as planned.

On the way to the Chagall museum, we pass the former Regina Hotel (now a residential building) where Matisse bought a flat, living there until the war, then returning in 1948 until his death in 1954. Also along the way are more wonderful (and huge) Belle Epoque style buildings, lining virtually every street we walk. A beautiful 20 minute stroll through old Nice – made even better as it is all downhill!

Arriving at Chagall, the exhibits are much more interesting, not only for his style of art, which is so bold and colorful, but also because he always includes a goat in virtually all his paintings (the goat is used in Jewish folklore on the Day of Atonement to make amends for people’s sins and because it reminds him of his rural childhood). So not only was all the artwork great to look at and try to decipher, we also had a blast trying to find the goat in every painting! Very fun. Oh, and love the painted piano.

Now it is on to lunch. We had selected a restaurant halfway between Chagall and the ship, figuring that would be the best bet. But remember, it is Sunday, and well, everywhere we look is busy. And, as we expected when we arrive at La Gauloise, they are fully booked – not willing to fit us in like the sweet carbonara restaurant guy in Orvieto. Pooh. Looking around, there are scant other choices up here, way up in the shopping district, so in a completely unusual-unlike-us move, we decided to go back to the ship and have a quick lunch onboard because a) we’re not that big on French food, and b) we have the steakhouse tonight, so eating a big filling French lunch would not have been the best tactic.

It is at least a lovely walk back down to the port area and lunch works out great as we just have salad, then hopped off the ship again to visit this little museum right here in the port. The building used to be a jail back in the 1800s, now a museum with different traveling exhibits – it was Dali now! Perfect! We love Dali! And double bonus – it was free! We meandered around 2 floors of exhibits, with tons and tons of sketches and paintings and sculptures – none of which we’d seen before. All with in depth explanations into how Dali thought and why he chose the subject matter he did. After today we’ll probably be as looney as all these artists, getting into their head space so much!

A totally unexpected surprise and an excellent way to finish our day in Nice.

Back onboard for the evening, we hit the gym, freshen up and then head to the Living Room for the Destination Showcase – a local acoustic duo who perform French songs. Due to our previous experiences on Quest, we weren’t expecting much, but au contraire Pierre! This Destination celebration, showcase, whatever, in a word? Awesome. Not only are singers great, there is also a huge locally sourced charcuterie buffet. OMG! The chefs literally came into the Living Room, dumped a huge shopping bag on the bar and started sorting through it, putting cheeses and sausages and tons of other goodies out on the buffet table.

Fabulous, except, we have Prime C for dinner tonight. Argh! So, ok, we do end up sampling a bunch of everything – and then grab a plate to go so we can take it back to the room and save for our lunch tomorrow. No dummies us.

Off to Prime C we go for what was, as usual, an excellent dinner at a lovely table in the back looking out over the lights of the city. Absolutely great day.