If it’s Friday, It Must Be France …

One of my favourite buildings in Nice is where the artist Henri Matisse lived for many years beginning in the 1920’s. There is no plaque marking this history  of the building and the space is not open for viewing. It was after a number of years of visiting this fabulous city that I learned about it. But I had always loved the building. It’s right at the end of Cours Saleya, the market street in the old town, and can’t be missed. Most tourists probably have a photo of it in their vacation collection because it literally hollers at you to take it’s picture.

I spent today wandering around Nice with a BFF who is visiting us for a week from the States. If you’ve read my novel, The Bridge Club, she’s the character Cass and we were in Nice together 44 (yikes!) years ago when we were 21. We shared a lot of memories today and laughed way too much! It was so much fun.

She’s a photographer too and we took a lot of window shots as we wandered. You can’t help yourself!

 

The colour combinations of buildings and shutters are striking. Old, restored, peeling, pristine.  Don’t ask how many photos I have of  them … it’s crazy …

These shots fall in the restored and pristine category. I’m saving the old and peeling for another day.

 

 

I often wonder who looks out the windows I photograph.

 

Sometimes I see faces in the windows as my shutter clicks away and I hope they don’t mind.

But as we wandered and reminisced and laughed and photographed and appreciated the beauty around us, we became increasingly aware of a very strong police presence throughout the city.  Unusual.

We speculated as to the cause and realized that Sunday is September 11. Everything that day symbolizes remains strong and clear ten years later and we wondered if that was the reason for the seeming increase in security visibility. We thought about the windows in the Twin Towers. How life can change in a fraction of a second.

We reminded each other that none of the horror or heroism of that day will ever be forgotten. We wondered if the world will ever truly be at peace. Everyone, every day, must work towards that goal.