2 Best Sights in The French Riviera, France

This solemn cluster of white tombs looms prominently over the city below, providing a serene or macabre detail of daily life, depending on your mood. Under Nice's blue skies, the gleaming white marble and Italian mix of melodrama and exuberance in the decorations, dedications, photo portraits, and sculptures are somehow oddly life-affirming. Founded in 1783, there are 2,800 graves here—with prominent names like Jellinek-Mercedes and Leroux—in three sections, to this day segregating Catholics, Protestants, and Jews.

High above the Parvis St-Michel, the Cimetière du Vieux-Château lies on the terraced plateau where once stood a medieval castle. The Victorian graves here are arranged by nationality, with an entire section dedicated to Russian royalty. The birth and death dates often attest to the ugly truth: even Menton's balmy climate couldn't reverse the ravages of tuberculosis.