Tiki in Nice, France - sort of

I have heard there is not much tiki in France, which is surprising since France has conquered and colonized so much of the Pacific. Here in Nice, one of my favorite cities, it is true, there is no true tiki, one of my favorite subjects. But there are some odds and ends that I've spotted in my search for finding tiki here in Nice. On Mondays the big open food and flower market here is dedicated to collector type items. I only spotted a couple of small glass floats with netting, but because of the size and thinness of the glass they did not look original. I found a Melanesian mask but with no verification of authenticity, not being unfamiliar with the style, and being surrounded by African masks, I passed on it. I did buy some items of the Pacific Isles in general, three old post cards from Tahiti, with original stamps still on them and a "From Here to Eternity " movie book in French with photos of the film set in Hawai'i.

As far as tiki bars or restaurants, there are none. There are a couple quasi establishments with photos below:
A big Maori bar with a modern tiki logo

but the only thing inside where these big Aztec statues. How disappointing. Sorry for the sideways picture.

Another bar was this Cuba themed bar with Florida style thatchings and colored, Asian made, bamboo tiki masks one could buy online.


Again sorry for the sideways photo.

Still a great city but disappointing tiki wise. BUT I did see on French TV a comedy titled "Rai et Mana" about two native Tahitian guys playing jokes on each other. I'll research the show more and include it in southseascinema.org

Tiki Movies & Tiki TV @ southseascinema.org

[ Edited by: creativenative 2017-04-27 03:41 ]

[ Edited by: Creativenative 2017-04-27 09:53 ]

Also went to the Matisse museum where I saw later in his cutout period, what looked like Pacific images of ferns, bread fruit leaves, coral and sea weed. Because of the language barrier I couldn't establish a connection. Lastly in the book store and later online research, I learned many of his cut out so-called abstract symbols were actually memories triggered from a South Seas visit 24 years earlier. I bought a Matisse print titled "Polynesian Sky" photo below. One day I'm going to have a very cultured tiki bar with Matisse, Gauguin, and Leetags hung up. Some day, ho hum.

I recently visited France and hit Dirty Dick in Paris while there. This my review of the tiki bar and others.

https://tikirepublic.wordpress.com/category/dirty-dick-paris-france/

On 2017-04-27 10:06, creativenative wrote:
Also went to the Matisse museum where I saw later in his cutout period, what looked like Pacific images of ferns, bread fruit leaves, coral and sea weed. Because of the language barrier I couldn't establish a connection. Lastly in the book store and later online research, I learned many of his cut out so-called abstract symbols were actually memories triggered from a South Seas visit 24 years earlier. I bought a Matisse print titled "Polynesian Sky" photo below. One day I'm going to have a very cultured tiki bar with Matisse, Gauguin, and Leetags hung up. Some day, ho hum.

Wow, I dig that Matisse print. I knew about Gauguin in Polynesia, but not Matisse. Thanks for sharing!

We were just in Nice and unfortunately no real Tiki to speak of... TikiLab is closed - not sure how long it was open for. There is a new bar by the Old Port called Luna Tiki - but it's more of a boom boom dance club that serves margaritas (we didn't stay). Found a rum shop called Antique Rhum that had a small but growing selection and had some cool items in his shop (a stated 'real' shrunken head was of interest!). Found a shop in Vielle Vieulle that sold Charlie Adams prints (very Shag like) and lastly a really cool shop at the East end of the Flower Market area that had fantastic and original Aboriginal and Papa New Guinea artifacts and art and some from other South Sea Islands - worth stopping in for sure. However... we went to some parties that friends were having and Tiki is cool - we heard of some tiki nights at bars (which ones???) and could see a good lounge getting launched there at some point. Bon Soir!