ART & CULTURE
Culture
The Riviera is not only somewhere to tan, pichoun. Nobody is forcing you into a museum, but do not come back after three beach clubs claiming there is “nothing to see”.
The Riviera, where the walls occasionally have something to say
Foundations, villas, museums and a few places worth putting a shirt back on for. We start with ten addresses across Nice, Menton, Antibes, Cannes and Monaco. Not a directory. A selection.
6 museums worth a proper look
Matisse, Chagall, Lascaris, photography, Masséna and Fine Arts. The sea can wait two hours.
See the Nice selection
Fondation Maeght
If you do one major modern-art stop on the Riviera, start here. Yes, pichoun, even if it means leaving the sunbed.
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Villa Ephrussi de Rothschild
Pink, excessive and perfectly placed between two seas. It could have been vulgar. It isn’t. Annoying, isn’t it?
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Villa Kérylos
An archaeological recreation by the sea could have turned into a theme park for classicists. Mèfi, it is much more elegant than that.
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Musée Picasso Antibes
Picasso worked here in 1946. You can at least try to stay longer than twenty minutes.
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Musée national Fernand Léger
If your hotel has already exceeded your beige tolerance, come here. Léger has other plans for your eyes.
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Musée Bonnard
It is the only museum in the world dedicated to Bonnard. For once, a brochure sentence is genuinely useful, so we will keep it.
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Musée des explorations du monde
Cannes has a museum in a medieval castle on Le Suquet. Strangely, nobody shouts this at you at the airport.
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Musée Jean Cocteau, Le Bastion
The big Ricciotti museum is closed. The Bastion, meanwhile, keeps doing the job without taking up an entire block.
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Musée océanographique de Monaco
You can of course spend Monaco counting Ferraris. Or walk into a museum built into the cliff. Different ambitions.
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Musée Matisse
Matisse lived in Nice for nearly forty years. You may continue believing southern light is just a hashtag, but that would be a pity.
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