Mon. Apr. 4: Today was the day to visit Museums for us. Following Rick Steves’ directions we actually hiked uphill all the way to the Chagall Museum, which was a pretty amazing climb! But the museum is wonderful and highlights especially his “Song of Songs” series of paintings and his 17 Old Testament paintings. He was instrumental in setting up the museum and is fairly unique in having seen it completed while he was alive. Our admission included individual audio guides in English which were very helpful in our enjoyment and appreciation of what we were seeing. When we were finished we continued hiking uphill until we got to the site of an ancient Roman city called Cemenelum. In a large park atop a hill there is an archeological museum and a Matisse Museum, which is housed in a 16th century villa. In the park there are the ruins of the Roman Arena for the city, a monastery, an orchard of olive trees, and a large green area. Groups of older people were playing bocce ball and we found it a delightful place to enjoy a small lunch from the vendor set up there. We went through the Matisse Museum, which wasn’t nearly as satisfying as the Chagall, partly because there was very little English interpretation to help us. We had a similar problem at the Archeological Museum; however we could wander the extensive ruins of the Roman baths and look at the many artifacts inside and gained some understanding of the ancient culture. After all our climbing and walking through museums we all welcomed the chance to take the bus back to the hotel. We had a recommendation of a restaurant to try down near the Market area but it was too crowded so we went to a nearby place where Marv and I shared a pizza and a Caprese salad, Heidi had lasagna and Kris had a pizza. Our feet were plenty tired as we trudged back and gratefully hit the sack that night.
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