My apolgies to those who speak and read French, but this blog does not recognize nor allow me to enter accents.
lundi 1er november (November 1-All Saints Day)
Deluge de Toussaint (I don't think this requires transaltion)
mardi 2 november (November 2-All Souls Day)
Trois longues journees de deluge (Three long days of deluge) and
my personal favorite Tourisme: un week-end cauchemardesque (Tourism: A nightmarish weekend)
Yep. It poured all day on Sunday and when it looked like Monday might see some sun, it poured again. Which caught me off-guard as I decided that I sould honor All Soul Days by visiting the Nice Cimetiere (Cemetary). So to be able to take my photographs unencumbered, I left mon parapluie a la maison (my umbrella at the house). Not only was the day gray, so were the monuments, and day-light savings ended on this day which meant that it was dark gray and wet by 1700 (5pm).
I love the peace and quiet of European cemetaries (not US cemetaries as they have always be rather frightening to me since I was a child). I love looking at the tomb sculptures and in Nice there is a great selection dating back to the 19eme siecle (19th century). They may not be great art but I find they display the love and emotions of those who erected them in honor of their departed.
Not everything is gray though, there is plenty of green in the park-like settings, but in addition there is a wide range of colors from the flowers left in memory by the family survivors.
Many graves are lacking flowers as the families have died off or moved away. This monument of the Grosso family is said to be the most photographed in the Nice cemetary. I found it dificult to get a good picture as it is so large, but this distance shot caught other visitors with une parapluie that was almost as colorful as the flowers.
I'm sure these visitors are viewing these two beautiful portraits of the departed Grosso children.
Grosso sounds Italian to me, no? So many people ask me why I like Nice so much. Well there is a strong Italian heritage here as well as French. Just in this alley of the cemetary I noted the following names:
Bruno
Casiglia
Chrubini
Beringeri
Tagliafico
Pasquale
Pellegrino
Magnani
So when I come to Nice, I can have my French and my Italian too! The best of both!
I should mention my French lessons. I'm up to level 2 of Rosetta Stone (RS), but after one month of living in Nice, RS has determined that I cannot pronounce Merci (Thanks) or Salut (Hello)! How do you say DUH!!! in French?
Yet RS passed my pronunciation of this word...quincaillerie (hardware store)! Like anyone uses that word here as all they say is Bricarama which is a store much like our Home Depot! So spending a day in a cemetary wasn't so bad. No one was correcting my pronunciation.
With that said, hopefully you too will find this grave art to be as pleasing as I do.
In honor of the these souls I offer these photographs in silence.
By the time I took this photograph I was as wet and cold as the marble.
In my earlier post I mentioned that the cemtary in St. Paul de Vence had a view, well so does Nice. It is perched well above the Bay of Angels.
