At Belle Époque, European aristocracy fell on Menton, the last resort in France before Italy.
Queen Victoria stayed in 1882 and the Imperial Russian ex-pat community was so big they built their own church. There are still lots of hints about this past, from the cemetery with the tombs of the gentry on a roost high above the town, to a bewitching botanical garden adorning the slopes of the mountain that plunge to the sea. These ribs are made for citrus, and Menot has more oranges and lemons than it knows what to do with. So, every February there is the Lemon Festival, a public event even bigger than the Monaco Grand Prix. Discover the best things to do in Menton.
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1. Val Rahmeh Botanical Garden
You may be skeptical about a botanic garden being top of the things to do at a French Riviera resort. But Val Rahmeh is a small piece of heaven that has blessed the slopes above Menton for more than 100 years.
The garden is a living remnant of the days when only the aristocratic and extremely wealthy had the means to retreat to coastal France.
Val Rahmeh is the manual work of Lord Radcliffe, former Governor of Malta, and he exploited the Mentonith balmy microclimate to grow tropical and subtropical plants from Asia and South America.
He also has something for tropical fruits, so kiwi, avocado and bananas are plenty in Val Rahmeh. Among all the rarest species is the toromiro, an endemic species of Easter Island but now extinct in the wild.
2. Jean Cocteau Museum
We will soon see that the versatile Jean Cocteau spent a lot of time in Menton to the end of his life, and the city now has the first and largest public resource in its work in the world.
The museum was founded in 2011 after Cocteau expert Séverin Wunderman donated his million-dollar collection of artists' works to the city in 2003.
This huge collection of 1,800 works. make up most of the museum's exhibits, as you imagine Cocteau has all sorts of formats: They include graphic arts, movies, and photos, mostly taken while he was filming Orpheus's Will.
3. Salle des Mariages
In the late 50s, Jean Cocteau was given a two-year free handover to decorate the Menton Wedding Hall at the Hôtel de Ville. Everything was left to his discretion, from the faux-leopard rugs to the carved wooden doors, chairs and bronze candelabra.
But it’s the brightly-colored murals that will grab you, and these are suffused with rich symbolism inspired by ancient mythology.
4. Saint-Michel Basilica
Just by looking at buildings like this lavish baroque church, you will without a doubt, Menton be more Italian than French for much of its history.
A trip to the basilica is best done in the morning before things start to warm up, as you must climb a series of zigzag stairs from the Promenade de la Mer.
5. Old Château Cemetery
Even taller than the basilica is the place where the medieval Menton castle once stood. This is long gone but has been replaced by a cemetery with incredible views of the city, the port and the mountains that force Menton against the coast.
You'll at the resting place of many wealthy and noble British and Russian tourists during the Belle Époque period. One famous burial is William Webb Ellis, credited with inventing the game of Rugby in the early-19th century when he picked up the ball and ran with it during a football match.
6. Plage des Sablettes
Menton's best beach is a small bay below the city of the basilica. Les Sablettes is projected from the sea by the port of Menton and surrounded by long breakwaters. Relaxing on a mix of shingles and sand, you can look east to the mountain mansions and identify Mortola Point, where France becomes Italy.
At Les Sablettes, you can visit Palmes Beach, a watersports and scuba diving center, offering trips to 30-odd diving destinations in both French and Italian glass, including wrecks and drop-offs epic, or cove for newbies.
7. Musée de Préhistoire Régionale
Despite its name, the Museum of Prehistoric Menton is related to many different eras of the French Riviera before.
For instance, there’s a new and absorbing exhibition, “Trésors d’épaves”, about the history of shipwrecks on this coast, with pottery, glassware, and weapons plucked from their watery graves.
But the main man at the museum is “l’Homme de Menton”, the fossilized body of an upper Palaeolithic (between 10k and 50k years old) cave- dweller, discovered in the Cave of Cavillon in 1872.
And finally, there are models, artifacts, and reconstructions of local historic trades like olive pressing, lemon cultivating and fishing.
8. Plage du Fossan
For convenience, you can beat the beach next to the ancient town of Menton heat on the Quai Général Leclerc de Hautecloque. Plage du Fossan unfurls gently for almost half a kilometer on the Baie de Soleil, has both sand and pebbles and a strict no smoking policy.
The sea shares a nice Nice Nice melody, and Fossan Plage is completely free to the public. If there's a catch, it's that if you like shade, you'll need to bring your own parasol. But then, once again, when the sun gets too much, you can always escape to the shelter of the swaying palm trees in the park following the beach in the east.
9. Jardin Serre de la Madone
The park is over nine hectares wide on sloping terrain, right from the coast, blending terraced subtropical gardens around the reflective pool and the Mediterranean forest with pine trees.
The Serre de la Madone was conspired by wealthy American Lawrence Johnston, who was established with a French garden at Hicote in Gloucestershire, England. In the Gorbio Valley, in the wind and the sun, Johnston chose the perfect patch for the thriving exotic plants.
10. Musée des Beaux-Arts
The lavish 18th-century Palais de Carnolès is the former summer residence of Princes of Monaco and has a significant art repository for such a small city.
One thanks to these are Charles Wakefield Mori, curator of the National Museum of Art in Monaco, who donated his personal modern art collection to Menton in 1959. Works by Salvador Dalí, Chagall, Picasso and Francis Picabia are waiting for you, and there is also a spectacular sculpture garden opened in the palace grounds in 1994.
Modern and classical sculptures are sprinkled around a research garden, with 137 different citrus tree species.
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