While I was watching the Grand Prix Porsche race on Sunday, before the main F1 race in Monaco (a race of cars that, even when it is not a race, are driven on the streets of Monte Carlo), one comment of the presenter while the shot above Monte Carlo, overlooking the sea, caught my attention.
"Someone had the opportunity to see such shots in previous years at the Monaco races, and someone saw these shots live, if they were lucky."
I was lucky enough to visit Monte Carlo and several cities on the Cote d'Azur, and one of the most interesting views I had was in Menton.
And in order to get to the position where such a view is offered, it was necessary to overcome several hundred steps🙂
You can reach the stairs by walking along the promenade along the coast, when you pass by restaurant gardens, buildings with beautiful facades, and by beautiful parks and tree-lined streets.
When it breaks out on the beautiful and wide beach, which I wrote about in the previous post, where I immortalized myself next to the name of the city and a big yellow lemon, in the background you can see those steps leading to the top.
There are no elevators or escalators (or we didn't find them), so we walked slowly up the hill, through the gate, step by step.
We stopped at each level of stairs, not only to take a break, but to enjoy the view that unfolded before our eyes.
At the top of the stairs is a small square, in front of the entrance to the two cathedrals.
Basilique Saint-Michel Archange de Menton, built in the period 1619-1675, with two towers, a 53-meter high belfry that dominates the city and a lower clock tower that is 35 meters high.
Like the Chapelle des Pénitents-Blancs, built in the period 1680-1689, it was the home of the White Penitents, a brotherhood founded in Menton for the care of the elderly, sick persons and abandoned children, who were responsible for the proper burial of the deceased. The brotherhood of penitents was dissolved in 1970 because the last member of the brotherhood died in 1969. This chapel was built in a luxurious baroque style with a tower and beautiful statues on the facade.
We didn't manage to enter those two places of worship, but we took a break on the steps in front of one of them and then enjoyed the view from the plateau.
The view is beautiful, but it is a little narrower because of the buildings that frame it, so we started to climb a little more. Passing through the so-called donkey steps, a narrow passage that leads from the plateau in front of the chapel to the upper town (they were called donkey steps because they used to supply the upper town with food on donkeys).
The history of the old town of Menton can easily be checked on wikipedia: founded at the end of the 12th century by the rulers of Genoa, in the 14th century taken over by the Grimaldi family, until the middle of the 19th century, when the town was annexed to France.
An interesting thing that I discovered only after visiting the old, upper town of Menton, was discovering that the mosaic in the square in front of the cathedral (a combination of 250,000 stones of different colors) represents the coat of arms of the city of Menton and the Grimaldi family.
But, if we ignore the historical facts, the interesting story is the one written on the board next to the entrance to the upper town.
Founded by three pirates from the island of Lampedusa, the upper town was built as a fortress with low houses that were built over time. For this reason, it is not surprising that the houses are narrow but tall.
There was also a castle in the upper town that was demolished over the centuries and from the remains of which a cemetery was formed on the very top of the hill, perhaps the most beautiful in all of France (about that in the next post 🙂 ).
Walking through the narrow picturesque streets, with a very steep ascent, I passed a fountain from the end of the 19th century with drinking water, where I refreshed myself a bit and continued the ascent.
Ascending as if through a labyrinth (following the road signs to get to where I was headed), I understood parts of the story that the upper town with the houses was built in such a way that it resembled a labyrinth, so that the attackers of the town would be as confused as possible and that the residents would be able to defend themselves as easily as possible.
And the view, when I passed through all these beautiful narrow streets, was worth every step.
At first I was surprised when I saw cyclists pushing their bikes along these narrow streets.
But when I saw the road where cars and cyclists go at the entrance to the cemetery, it was clearer to me, maybe I could have reached this point by transport. I feel like this, a pawn in the ascent. was much more authentic.
The top of the stairs and the square in front of the cathedral can be reached from the lower town, also through very narrow streets, but we passed them in the opposite direction, going down the same to the lower part of the old town, when we came out on the beach again.
After we arrived in the lower town and found the ice cream fridge, our Menton adventure ended there.
