Nice, 2017

We had spent several days in Nice in previous years and did not want to do anything much more than walk the old city...and thus the following assortment of scenes. It is a beautiful, wonderful place. (We parked two nights, October 25-26,  at an aire in St. Laurent du Var).

Candied fruit shoppe

Lemon shark

Onions on bread topped with an anchovy and an olive; pass the
breath mints, please

We were hoping it would be a theme
restaurant...

The shutters fold down to become tables and benches

Teas

Indian...like boss ribs, fry bread, pemmican,
maybe some fire water?!

Emotional support poodle

Does your neighborhood have a triperie?

Belvedere not visited

See below

A thing in Nice, on the boardwalk

Proper perspective

Proper perspective

Great art deco

Can we live here? Vicki asked

Frejus Cloister Paintings

The paintings are ceiling shingles, maybe a foot wide and 5 inches high, scores of them, hundreds originally, but many faded beyond recognition. They were done in the mid-14th century, not a good time in some places, but after the worst of the Plague was over. In any case, they are interesting, often amusing, and highly suggestive of what was on the artist's (artists'?) mind(s). I'll just post the best of them in one long e-pistle.

The double-decker cloister; paintings only on the ground floor ceilings

Thus

Taking in the educational video; we had the place to ourselves as usual; except
for a couple nuns

Fascinating place

Frejus Cathedral

We were attracted to Frejus, which is between Cannes and Nice, for its cathedral, said by a guidebook to be very early Gothic, for its octagonal baptistry, and for the paintings in the cathedral cloister. The cathedral is indeed old, started in the 11th, but hardly Gothic. The baptistry was a 5th century recycling of earlier Roman bits, as we saw in Aix. The cloister paintings, next post, are naif, as we say en Francaise, but yield a rich perspective on Medieval life and imagination. Also some mirth.

En pied, admiring the pretty town, eschewing the Roman bits

The cathedral complex

Interesting carvings thereupon

His and hers, evidently

Helpful map #1,140; I can read little French, but I can always find "Vous etes ici"

Up in perhaps the bishop's private chapel...

Helpful model #6,407; color-coded too

The Baptistry

Alas, unlike Aix, you can't go in and have a nosey

But you can see clearly this is not of Medieval origin

Full immersion...

In the newer (13th) nave of the cathedral

Lombard vaulting, not very high

"Oh Lord we beseech thee, Amen"

St. Broomhilde, patron saint of broomsweeps

Tiled steeple

But it was the cloister that really attracted us