When visiting a southern city in summer, it’s always a good idea to have some options of things to do in the afternoon, when it gets too hot to be outside. The Spanish have invented the siësta, which is something that I love to do, but if you want to do some more exploring of the city you’re in, visiting a museum in the hotter hours of the day is a great alternative. Or maybe even the better option. So when we had explored Vieux Nice and the sun was shining brightly, we decided to get lunch and then visit Palais Lascaris, a museum of musical instruments.

Our first day back in the city, we started by watching the sea again. It is so beautiful and magnificent, I can look at it for ages. Then we walked around Vieux Nice, the beautiful old part of the city, with numerous boutiques and restaurants. It is bustling and what the Dutch would call gezellig. We had a great time walking around, checking out shops and eating ice cream. When we felt like lunch, we headed over to Cours Saleya and sat down at Blast because we saw people eating nachos and they looked good. They were, though nothing too special.

After lunch we wanted to visit our first museum in the city, namely: Palais Lascaris.

Palais Lascaris is a museum that focuses on musical instruments from the 16th to the 20th century. The museum houses more than 500 instruments and is the second largest collection in France. The museum is set in a 17th century building that looked absolutely gorgeous. Tickets cost 5 euros but you can also opt for a 3-day museum pass that’s only €15,- and let’s you visit all of the museums in Nice.

I have to admit I wasn’t immediately interested when I heard about a museum for musical instruments. But when I saw the pictures online, it looked gorgeous and I decided that I did want to visit. And I’m glad I did, for it was very interesting and informative.

There were all kinds of instruments. I especially loved the harps, lutes and sitars. They all looked so beautiful and my hands ached to pluck some strings, but of course, that was prohibited.

It was interesting because the instruments told a lot about how inventive people were and how important music was to them. We saw a tiny fiddle that you could hold in the palm of your hand. I thought for sure it must have been for show, but the sign said the fiddle actually worked! People brought them to balls to be able to play some music, without having to carry a full-sized fiddle the entire time.

Other interesting instruments were combinations of sorts, such as a walking stick that was also a flute. How cool! Boyfriend was very impressed by this.

The palace itself was really beautiful and deserved some attention and picture-taking as well. It was a 17th century palace with not the best lighting for pictures, but it was perfect for the museum. I enjoyed myself more than I had originally thought. It’s not the kind of museum I would normally visit but I liked it nonetheless. It’s definitely worth a visit if you’re in the area!

After the museum, it was still really hot so we decided to head back to the hotel for a little siësta. We walked through Promenade du Paillon where we found a David statue and decided to swim and lounge a bit at the hotel before heading out again for dinner.

We had seen so many good-looking restaurants in Vieux Nice that we wanted to go there for dinner. We went to La Storia where I was craving pizza and boyfriend had the Boeuf Bourguignon with gnocchi. It’s a thing he likes to eat on vacation after he had the most delicious meal ever in Seville at l’Oca Giuliva. Since then, he never found any that were as good. Those at la storia weren’t that good either, but the boeuf bourguignon was the best I ever tried and I kept stealing bites of his plate. It was absolutely delicious. My pizza was also pretty good, but couldn’t really compare with the delicious beef stew.

We had some entertainment to watch as there was a street performer doing some tricks right next to our table. He did a couple of backflips, danced a bit and then did a backflip over a burning stick. It was good entertainment, though nothing really extraordinary. I kept saying he looked like Michael Jackson so he should have done the moonwalk, but alas!

After dinner we walked around for a bit and ran into a market. At Cours Selaya there’s an artisan market at night where they sell juwelry and such. It all looked pretty and there was some live music and it was the perfect ending to a great first day back in Nice.