Monastery

In Nice in June, I took the bus up a tall hill to the Matisse museum. A tiny old woman sitting near me on the bus spoke only French, but she advised me on the proper bus stop for the museum, then added that the Cimiez monastary nearby had magnificent stained glass windows created by Chagall. At least, that's what I thought she said.

At Cimiez, the church had only small windows, which predated Chagall by a few centuries. I walked up to the second floor of the monastary, where a small crowded Franciscan museum showed the way of life for monks in the 17th century. Gregorian chant played softly in the background. In one small stone room, a woman stood weeping quietly with her back to the door.

Outside in the formal Italianate garden, brightly colored flowers like cockscombs, marigolds and petunias were mixed together and framed by tidy strips of grass. It was hot in the midday sun and I found an old bench under an olive tree that offered views of the hills of Nice below and beyond that, the sea. An elderly woman walked over and I invited her to share my bench. She spoke to me in French for a long time, although I could not understand or reply.