The most beautiful cemetery of the Côte d'Azur

When I make plans to visit a destination I'm headed to, I always do some research and look for recommendations from people who have already visited the region.
In this way, in some form, I prepare myself for what awaits me.

But in fact, the real research begins only when I find myself at that destination, at the moment when I think that I could see something else, which I did not find in the recommendations of others.
And so, after we walked along the Menton promenade by the sea and through the old town, climbed the stairs to the plateau in front of the cathedral, while my companions took a break and enjoyed the view of the Mediterranean Sea, I set out to explore and search for some more beauties of this place.
The beauty of the place?
So how beautiful can a cemetery be, I asked myself as I followed the road signs through the narrow streets and persistently climbed towards the hill where the cemetery is located.

Well, I believed that with each step and meter of altitude, the view of the Menton Bay would be more beautiful, but I could not have guessed that I would find myself in a cemetery, which has been declared one of the most beautiful French eternal houses of its inhabitants.

The cemetery is so beautiful, that is, the view from it, that I thought: "If I were to die today, I would not regret it, if I were to be buried here".

The last climb up ten steps led me to the cemetery gate where there is a plaque with verses by the French poet Paul Valeri, who wrote the most famous and one of the most beautiful poems of French poetry - "Marine Cemetery", published in 1920.
These verses were inspired by the seaside cemetery in Sete, but this cemetery in Menton is also like that, Maritime...

It is actually the cemetery of the old castle of Menton (Cimetière du Vieux Château), which is located at the very top of the hill above the old town, and is one of the most fascinating and picturesque cemeteries on the entire Cote d'Azur.

It was built on the foundations of the old fortress of the Grimaldi family, and it is specific for the structure and pedigree of the deceased who were buried here.

In the 19th and early 20th centuries, rich European aristocrats, artists and patients who sought a cure for tuberculosis in the mild climate came en masse to Menton.
Many of them remained there, so today the cemetery is divided into sectors - Catholic, Protestant and Russian Orthodox.

Since I found myself at the cemetery as a passing tourist, without time to look more closely at the monuments and look for some famous people who are buried here (William Webb Ellis, dying of rugby, the tomb of the Russian aristocratic Trubetskaya family, to which the chapel with a golden dome belongs, Admiral Ivan Grigorovich, the last minister of the Imperial Navy of the Russian Empire, Ernesta Stern, a French-Italian writer, John Richard Green, an English historian, Hans-Georg Tersling, a Danish architect and many others from the art and politics of the 19th and 20th centuries.) I liked the most the break I took on a small stone bench in the shadow of these tall marble monuments.

And one perhaps not so well-known person, the Polish princess Janina Jelowickich Lewandowska, was buried in the mausoleum, which is considered the most architecturally beautiful and emotional monument in the cemetery.
This Polish princess died of tuberculosis at the age of 27.

On her tomb there is a marble statue of a girl who, symbolizing the liberation of the soul, rises from her own coffin, with a view that stretches towards Garavan Bay.
A truly beautiful eternal home...

Re-reading some of the lines of the poem, I leave the cemetery and set off, full of energy to explore some new beautiful locations.
The wind is rising!... One should try to live!
Endless air opens and closes my book,
A wave of powder dares to burst from the rocks!
Fly away, pages completely dazzled!
Break, waves! Break with joyful waters
that peaceful roof where the sail-birds pecked!'