Anchovies, gilato and chapels in Vence

Today I met up with the Canadian consultant (from Ontario) an we decided to take a trip to the "mountains". We ended up going to Vence (I almost felt like i was meant to go there because just before I left Ottawa I got a present from a friend and attached to the present was a postcard from Vence) which is really not very far from Nice and not really in the mountains, more like large hills. We took a local bus there and when there we found the tourist office and got a pamphlet on different walking trails in the area. After getting some lunch from a local Patisserie we went off in search of one of the described walking trails. The pamphlet we got from the tourist office lacked quite a few details (such as street names) so we ended up mostly walking along some roads and never got to see the ruins that were supposedly near by. It was a nice walk though because we got a wonderful view of the town and we got to see some amazing houses in the area........although i kept wishing that I could have walked up this one large rock face that was peering down on us all day.

After our self-organized walking trip we went to the Chapelle du Saint-Marie du Rosaire. This is a chapel designed by a famous french artist, Henri Matisse. It was amazingly simple yet somehow very bright and lively (which i guess is unlike most dark churches). The walls were white and there were a few paintings consisting of simple black strokes on simple white tiles. The stain glass was also designed in a way to cast a specific colour of light at specific times in the day. Very sharp contrast from the typical churches you would imagine in the 1950's.

Seeing as we saw the medieval part of Vence from a distance it only seemed appropriate to go have a closer look. The medieval part of town was just a maze of tiny cobblestone streets with very interesting old buildings decorated with flowers and art. There were tons of art shops with some real original stuff. The store that impressed me the most was basically a room just packed with what looked like disorganized piles of junk.......but if it is anything like the piles of stuff in my room there is a little method to the madness :)

After I had some gilato and an onion/anchovy pizza type thing (yes in that order) and we took the bus back to Nice.