Field Trip

Today we didn't have class, we had a field trip. This morning, we had a crazy storm right before we left, it hailed. It was pretty rainy for most of the morning, but then it cleared up and became a beautiful day. We went to three different small, old villages.

First, we went to a small town and I'm a total loser because I've already forgotten the name. It's well known for having lots of artists there. I think it's called St. Jean. There is a beautiful restaurant there that would let artists who couldn't afford to pay for their meals to produce art for the restaurant and it's gorgeous. We went to a museum there that had beautiful gardens and statues outside and interesting art inside. I'm such a loser, I can't remember the name at all.

After that, we went to Vence where we saw a Dominican chapel designed by Henri Matisse. The woman at the chapel described the whole thing in French which was very exciting to understand. The chapel is very beautiful and simple. Apparantly, he spent 2 years designing the stations of the cross and only spent 4 hours on the actual painting of them on the wall. He didn't sign his name on any of it, because he wanted it to be a church, not a museum. I think it's a museum, though. I don't know, it's possible that the Dominicans still practice there. (I really sound like an idiot in this posting. Since everything is in French, there's a lot that goes over my head.)

The last stop on the trip was Tourettes Sur Loup. It is a tiny village that is known for producing leather by hand. It is located right next to the the village of Grasse, which is famous for perfume. Supposedly, perfume was first produced in Grasse because the leather gloves that were made in Tourettes made a person's hands smell badly, so the people in the towns started to make perfume. The whole tour today was in French - I'm pretty sure that was the story, but I could have gotten it wrong.

I took a lot of pictures and will post them soon.