Overview

The Photography Museum is named after Charles Nègre, a pioneering French photographer. The museum is housed in 2 separate buildings next to each other, one is a gallery which houses temporary exhibitions and the smaller building is the museum. When I visited in December 2019 the temporary exhibition was about Guy Bourdin, a French fashion and advertising photographer, and is on until 26th January 2020. It's a small but very accessible museum. I really enjoyed it. It one of the hidden gems of Nice.

Transport & Parking

The museum is just off the c, the main square in Vieux Nice (the Old Town). Buses and trams stop in the vicinity but it will involve a short walk. Approaching from the sea front is a level walk.

Access

The museum consists of 2 separate buildings. However you can only buy tickets from one of the buildings, although a ticket permits you to go into both parts of the museum. There is a café on the corner of Cours Saleya and Place Pierre Gautier and immediately next door is the museum building where you buy your admission ticket from. At the time of visiting (December 2019) the double entrance doors and surrounding wall was decorated with a photograph, see photo. The double manual doors were closed and were quite heavy to open. Immediately inside there is a counter, at standing height, and a small shop. Admission tickets can be purchased at the counter. This part of the museum, hosts the temporary exhibition. It is a small gallery. On the ground floor is a large open space and this leads through another large open space. The 2 ground floor gallery rooms had photographs on the wall and there was firm, padded bench seating, without back support of arms, in both rooms. In the first room there was a staircase with handrails on both sides leading to the upper floor. In addition, there was a lift between the 2 ground floor rooms which went to the first floor. This was a platform lift, see photo. I needed to press the button to call the lift and had to keep my hand on the button until the lift arrived. Then when I was in the lift I had to again keep my hand on the button to move the lift. On the first floor I exited from the lift into a small library area and then walked into the upper L shaped gallery on a Mezzanine floor. On this floor there were some comfortable chairs with backs and arms, see photo. The gallery is quite small, but is well laid out. I enjoyed the exhibition and captions are in French and English. There was a film show of art work but there was no sound or cometary with it, so I don't know if when there is if it is captioned or not. I then went next door to the other part of the museum. The double entrance doors were already open, see photo. There was a desk at standing height, where the receptionist checked my ticket. In this building is the museum part. It consists of a single room which had a dividing wall down the centre. On both areas were old photographs and at the far end was a collection of old cameras in glass cases, see photo. There was no seating in this part of the museum.

Toilets

In there larger building, on the ground floor in the first room just behind the stairs there was the entrance to the toilets. Once going through the door there was a sink and 2 toilets cubicles, both had an accessible toilet with single grab rail, small sink, spacious but no emergency cord. There were no toilets in the smaller building of the museum.

Staff

Staff were friendly and welcoming. There were 2 members of staff on at the ticket desk in the first building and 1 member of staff in the other building. Only 1 of the members of staff in the larger building spoke much English. In the smaller gallery I wondered the location of one of the photographs. I didn't speak good enough French to make myself understood. However, I went to my Kindle guide book and showed the member of staff where I thought the old photo had been taken by pointing to my guide book and she nodded back and smiled.

Anything else you wish to tell us?

The entire museum, both buildings, took me about 30 - 40 minutes to go round and this included some built in rest time. I think for people with just a passing interest would be able to see everything within 20 - 30 minutes. If you are into art or photography you will probably really enjoy it. However, I would suggest looking on their website if you're not sure, to see what the temporary exhibition is about before deciding whether or not to visit the museum, as there is an admission charge. At time of visiting (December 2019) the cost of admission was 10 euros per adult. However, Musee de la Photographie Charles Negre is just one of about 10 art galleries/ museums run by Nice municipality, and the 10 euros admission ticket lasts for 24 hours and during that time you can visit all the other museums. Alternatively you can pay 20 euros and the pass lasts for 7 days. I took this option and through it was good value for money. The museums are not ticketed off so I assume within the 24 hours/ 7 days ticket you can re-visit any of the museums. This is definitely a museum I would return to if when I next visit Nice if the temporary exhibition interests me, particularly as it's located in the Old Town, which is a place I always visit.

Photos