Vieux Menton

On Sunday Emilie and I headed off on our own to explore Menton. We started off along the water and then walked towards the harbor. Unlike Manhattan Beach and its abundant sand, these beaches were entirely rocky, though in some areas the rocks were more like pebbles. As can be seen from the pictures, the water was a brilliant blue although it was a bit cold.

But it wasn't too cold for this guy...

Before heading up to vieux Menton, we stumbled upon the Musee Jean Cocteau. To be honest, I didn’t know who Cocteau was, but Emilie did so we decided to take a quick look inside. The location was very interesting – a bastion that was part of a maritime fort from the 1600s – and the art alone was well worth the visit.










Here's a nice picture of vieux Menton from the harbor...

The city itself is very nice, with narrow – almost entirely pedestrian – streets and beautiful views overlooking the coast and Italy in the distance. In particular I liked the basilica of Saint-Michel-Archange, which was built in 1619 and has a nice bell tower.



















Here are some pictures of the view towards Italy from the plaza in front of the church.










At the top of vieux Menton is the Cimetière du Vieux Chateau that also offers incredible views...











As we were walking up to the cemetery, there was a small dog that was following us. Perhaps it knew that dogs weren’t allowed in the cemetery (at least according to the sign -- see below), because it turned around right before the entrance. But on the way back down the hill I found were it had retreated to – a nice shady spot in the entryway to someone’s house.










Here are some pictures that I took during the walk back down towards the harbor. The majority of the "streets" were like those below.