Menton is the last French city bordered with Italy. This afternoon we drove 40 minutes to get there from Nice. After passing Monaco, the next city is Menton. Have travelled some cities on the west sides of Nice, I did not expect big surprises from this boarder city. While as arriving, I got my first surprise by noticing a sign board wrote "La perle de la France". Pearl of France, why? I am going to discover the reason.
Later on I noticed that Menton is greener than Nice and air is fresher. we turned our car around the beach till arrived the port For searching a parking place,. I took a moment to walk out of the car and stood in the port to look back at the Menton on the hill besides the beach. The view is stunning beautiful! There are many typical Menton houses are in different size and different colors like yellow or orange. They are well located together in a certain unified way, like branch of grapes! After finding a parking place inside of old city, we finally started our visit. We walked around in the old town. In the top was a château in middle age and now is transferred into cemetery, where owns the the best sight view surrounding mountains and sea. Bacilica Saint- Michel is located in the middle height of the old town. We were quite lucky to meet the occasion that this church is open today. We walked inside, it is so gracious, and I think that it is one of the most beautiful church I have ever seen. Everywhere is hanging dark red curtain decoration around the main column and main interior structure; it is like a royal palace of the God. There are crystals lamps hang in the main corridor, they are just magnificent! Besides, there are many paintings and decorations in each chapel. It came to my mind to pray in front of a chapel of Jesus's birth. I prayed quietly for several minutes, each time I opened my eyes I felt more energy came inside of me, I felt the world are brighter in my eyes.
We took a very short time to visit the shopping street after the church and then went back to find the way of our car parked. On the way, I suddenly noticed two men were reading several big books on the street. It caught my attentions because the jewelry photos on the covers of these books. I walked closed to ask "what are these books? Are they about jewelry?" They were quite friendly to let me read, yes, they are all about jewelry! Actually, surprisingly, there were bunch of books about different subjects of jewelry and I could recognize that they are prestigious classic jewelry books which are difficult to collect now. I could not believe my eyes! These two men told me that was an old woman who had given them these books to throw in the garbage when they were cleaning the street. They got interested to these books and started to flap over. They saw that I like so much these books, they send all of them to me. Lucky me, today! I was so happy that I pick up so many jewelry books occasionally! They are very valuable as they could explain so many questions for me to know more about jewelry: the origins, treatment and identification of pearls; gemstones knowledge; jewelry history though 7000 years, the beauty of jewelry, and gold jewelry design, etc. These are what I need, thanks God!
