# Menton, the Gardens and the Lemon — The South of France
> The last town before Italy, warm enough to grow citrus in the open, with terraced gardens, a baroque old town and a festival built from lemons. Menton, on the Côte d’Azur.

*Source : https://the-south-of-france.com/en/french-riviera/menton-gardens-lemon/*

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By **The Editors** — _Menton, Alpes-Maritimes_

Spring 20268 min read Share LinkMail

Menton is the last French town before Italy, and it knows it — the houses warm to ochre and rose, the cooking edges toward Liguria, and the air is a degree or two milder than anywhere else on the coast. That softness is the town’s whole fortune: it is warm enough to grow **lemons** in the open ground, which no other corner of France can quite manage.

## I. The old town and the sea

The old town climbs in tiers to the **Basilique Saint-Michel-Archange**, a baroque church whose parvis of black-and-white pebbles looks straight out to sea. Below, the long pebble beach and the covered **market hall** keep the town in oranges, anchovies and olive oil; above, the old cemetery holds a view that is almost indecent for the dead.

“The one town in France warm enough to grow its own lemons in the open.”

From the notebook

![A baroque church above a pebble seafront](https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1607001516094-d2568b288f1f?fm=jpg&q=74&w=1400&auto=format&fit=crop)

Saint-Michel above the shore — the parvis laid in black and white pebbles.

## II. A town of gardens

The mild air made Menton a town of gardens, planted by the wintering English and Russians and still kept. The **Serre de la Madone**, laid out by Lawrence Johnston of Hidcote, terraces rare plants up a sheltered valley; **Val Rahmeh** is a botanical garden of the tropics; the **Jardin de la Fontana Rosa** was the writer Blasco Ibáñez’s tiled dream of Spain. Each is a small world, and the season for them is long.

![A terraced Mediterranean garden above the coast](https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1503696967350-ad1874122058?fm=jpg&q=76&w=2400&auto=format&fit=crop)

A garden above Menton — rare plants on sheltered terraces, the sea beyond.

## III. Cocteau, and the lemons

Menton kept **Jean Cocteau**, who decorated the seafront **Bastion** and the town hall’s wedding room; his work is the thread through the centre. And every February the **Fête du Citron** fills the gardens with giant figures built entirely from lemons and oranges — a carnival peculiar to this one warm town, and the surest sign of what grows here.

The Practical Carnet · Carnet pratique

### Plan the _visit_

Getting there

The last stop on the coastal train from Nice, about 35 min; the Italian border is a walk away.

When to go

February for the Fête du Citron; spring and autumn for the gardens in their best light.

Where to stay

In the old town for the church and the market; the gardens are spread across the slopes above.

Read next

[The Riviera in three days, Nice to Menton](https://the-south-of-france.com/en/french-riviera/riviera-in-three-days/)

E

About the Author · L’auteur

#### Élise Marchand

Travel Editor — based in Marseille

Élise has been driving the back roads of the Midi for the journal since its first issue. She pays for her own rooms and her own lunches — and only writes about the places she would return to.

[More by Élise Marchand — voir ses articles](https://the-south-of-france.com/en/journal/)

Continue reading · À lire ensuite

### More from the _South_

[

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#### The Riviera in three days, Nice to Menton

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#### Where to stay on the Côte d’Azur

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