Menton

Although we've never spent any great time in Menton, it figures in quite a few of our blogposts: on so many of our trips it marks a departure from France and an entry into Italy; or vice versa. Both are favorite places. We took the #600 bus over to Menton on April 29th--the bus is on the lower corniche pretty much the whole way and the vistas are great--and spent the day walking the town and its seaside boardwalk...all the way into Italy (next post) and back.

Before getting to the beach we had to work our way through a market; almost
all of it Italian fare

Lamborghini Service...

Older downtown buildings

A food hall sort of market

Where Vicki bought some of the famous Menton lemons

Now by the beach looking up to the city center...you can see we're
very close to Italy (laundry on the balconies...)

Harbor at Menton...none of the super yachts; thousands of little boats

Menton is famous for its 300+ days of sun per year, and the (gravel, not
pebble) beach had a few early season visitors

Similar to if smaller than Paris' great Viaduc des Arts (why a duck?)

Lunch at a beach-side restaurant...the frites were the only
non-seafood offering; the oysters were from Cancale

Now walking past the harbor toward the frontier

See the white camper parked there...pretty much where we parked for
lunch in both 2013 and 2017

Sail in, tie up, and rent a bicycle, scooter, or small car...

There's a super yacht shipyard, but few super yachts

One smaller cruise ship out beyond the harbor

Looking up to where the Grand Corniche becomes the Auto Strada,
the frontier, miles and miles of tunnels and high bridges...

Thus

Below, sun-bleached driftwood and the clear Mediterranean

Old French villa and above an Italian villa and fortress
tower

Looking back to Menton

The frontier...a few gendarmes stopping occasional trucks and vans,
no Italian presence at all

Looking up to some high pinnacles after our brief excursion
into Italy (next post)

Welcome back to Menton

Most Beautiful Public High School Ever, So Far...

The Lycee Massena.... Our apartment building is on the Rue du Lycee, and, a block away, fronting on the Avenue Felix Faure, is the regional high school, the building dating from 1929, the school itself from Napoleon I, who decreed that every town should provide for the education of its citizens. We walk past the Lycee almost daily, marveling at it...sort of a Mediterranean art deco, we think, with ample artistic flourishes and local references, unlike anything else we've ever seen here or elsewhere, and just beautiful. Someone wrote somewhere that, paraphrasing, we build our buildings, and then they build us. One hopes the young people attending this institution appreciate its extraordinary history, art, and architecture. Security issues being what they are these days, with guards at every entrance checking IDs, we didn't even think about trying to go inside. There are various websites about the school, the most comprehensive (and in English, too) at Wikipedia. Click to enlarge and see more of the tile work, mosaics, painting, and sculpture.

Covers an entire large city block; no way to get even a full frontal shot

At the southeast corner is the clock tower and a large inscription

Giving the date and place and some words of wisdom

Moving north along Avenue Felix Faure

Near the central portal, a plaque with the same sad reminder of fascism
one sees all over Europe...here of the Jewish children taken from this school
and murdered

Along the east side on Faure Ave.

Moving on around to the north side of the complex

Now along the west side

Typical of the ornamentation all over the buildings and
their highest bits

Dozens of sculptures...beautiful place!

La Turbie And The Alpine Trophy

La Turbie is probably not on many bucket lists, but if we had such a list, it probably would have been there. It is the site of the Alpine Trophy--the monument given by the Senate and People of Rome (SPQR) to the Emperor Augustus, celebrating his subjugation of the (count 'em) 49 Alpine tribes, early in the first century, thus improving travel between Cisalpine and Transalpine Gaul. It became a bit of a semi-obsession with us as we drove by it several times over the years, never able to find a parking place for our camping-car rigs, vowing some day to return and see it. That day came finally on April 25th, as we took Tram #1 to the Nice Vauban bus station and then bus #603 up to La Turbie, a mountain-side town overlooking Monaco and the Mediterranean. Mountain-side towns, we have learned, often have traffic-flow and parking issues, especially if they are a millennium or two old. But we made it to La Turbie and saw the Trophy that day, and had a nice lunch, too, and here is our story.

After a half hour's ride (depending on Nice traffic) the bus lets you out
right at the La Turbie Mairie (city offices)

A block or so downhill and one of the town's several overlooks reveals a great
view of Cap Ferrat, indeed the bit of it we hiked earlier in the week 

To get to the Trophy, we wandered through the oldest remaining
bits of the town

Literary and other quotes on many of the houses; the hostel in town
only gets 2 stars, according to travel writer Dante Alighieri

Vicki exploring

Interpretive signage...we must be getting warm

Although easily distracted by parapentes in the sky above

Now we are at the overlook right by the Trophy; but the view of Monte Carlo
is pretty compelling

The twin-towered Casino right there in the middle

Even Monaco gets cruisified

Toward Menton and then the formidable Italian Riviera...

And there's the Trophy, or what remains of it

Model of what the Trophy looked like back in the day...

In the Middle Ages, the Trophy became a quarry for the building of this
church as well as, probably, many of La Turbie's other older buildings

Interior of said church, a St. Michael's brand

Interesting largely for this model Roman soldier thrusting
at an imaginary Christian...rather, probably, it's St. Michael
thrusting at the (imaginary) dragon*; in one of the little side
chapels

Undoubtedly it's all explained in the town's annual Easter dress-up
as Roman soldiers, persecuting dress-up Christians, maybe even 
crucifying a couple or three...or maybe just some dress-up dragons

Now back up on La Turbie's main drag, which is actually the
Roman Via Julia Augusta, later improved and renamed la
Grand Corniche by Napoleon I...admiring the bicycle route
map on the wall of a building...the Tour de France undoubtedly
comes this way...

We had a fine lunch at this Michelin-red resto Vicki had found

Remains of a leek and cheese tarte we shared

My mussels

Her steak

Remains of the shared caramelized apple tarte

After lunch, we wandered a little more of the Via Julia Augusta/
Grand Corniche, noting again the verticality of the place

And noting some of the humongous plants the Mediterranean climate affords

And having a last look at the great Alpine Trophy...J'y suis alle;
j'ai fait ca...veni, vidi, imagines cepi...**

Beautiful tile map of La Turbie in the Mairie...which we had occasion
to visit more than once to inquire where TF the 2:50 bus was...

Very much to our inconvenience and chagrin, the 2:50 bus never did show...but riding the 4:50 back

to Nice at least afforded us this view of the high snow-covered Alps in the distance

*yes, there is a St. Michael and the dragon story...look it up

**been there, done that; I came, I saw, I took pictures