Menton

Why go

A frost-free microclimate — lemons ripen in February in a town at the same latitude as Milan. Gardens — Serre de la Madone, Val Rahmeh, the Hanbury just over the border; a botanical concentration unmatched on the coast. Cocteau in the old harbour — a bastion he decorated himself and a museum built for his work. Italy at the end of the beach — the border is a fifteen-minute walk and the food changes with it.

The character

Menton sits in a natural amphitheatre with the Alps closing behind it, and those mountains block the north wind so completely that the town has virtually no frost. That single fact built the place: citrus has been grown commercially here since the fifteenth century, and in the nineteenth century tubercular patients were sent from northern Europe on medical advice, which brought villas, gardens and English money.

The gardens are the lasting result. Botanists arriving with the invalids planted things that could not survive elsewhere in France — Lawrence Johnston at Serre de la Madone, Thomas Hanbury just across the Italian border — and the town is now a horticultural archive as much as a resort. It also stayed Italian in temperament: it belonged to the Grimaldis and then Sardinia until 1861, the old town stacks up the hill in ochre like Liguria, and the market sells Ligurian food. Menton is the quietest town on the Côte d'Azur, and in February, when everything else is shut, it holds a lemon festival with sculptures built from a hundred and forty tonnes of citrus.

Places of character

Serre de la Madone — Johnston's garden of terraces and pools, the finest on the coast and usually near-empty. Bastion Cocteau — a seventeenth-century fort on the harbour that Cocteau decorated inside and out. Musée Jean Cocteau — the collection Séverin Wunderman gave the town, in a building by Rudy Ricciotti. Vieille Ville and the Basilica Saint-Michel — the ochre stack above the harbour, with a parvis of black and white pebbles. Marché des Halles — a Belle Époque market hall selling Ligurian produce, open every morning. The Italian border at Ponte San Luigi — walk over for lunch in Ventimiglia and back.

The way to do it

Come in winter — that is the whole argument for Menton. Buy the garden pass and take two of them slowly rather than four in a rush. Walk into Italy once. And stay overnight: the town has a small hotel stock and empties completely by seven, which is the best hour on the seafront.

One perfect day

Coffee in the market hall, then up through the old town's ramps to the basilica and the cemetery above it, where the Victorian invalids are buried with views they came for. Down and along the seafront to the Cocteau bastion. Taxi or bus to Serre de la Madone for the middle of the day, walking the terraces with almost nobody there. Lunch back in town — Ligurian, with lemon in it somewhere. Afternoon walk east along the promenade and over the border into Italy for an espresso in Ventimiglia. Back for the sunset from the Quai Bonaparte, dinner in the old town, and the harbour lights on the water.

Grand hotels

n/a — Menton's grand hotels were converted to apartments a century ago; the town's best rooms are small hotels and villas.

When to go

Best expression: February, for the Fête du Citron and gardens in flower while the rest of Europe is frozen. Consider: April and May, when the gardens peak and the sea is swimmable by late May. Avoid if possible: nothing outright; August is busier but Menton never approaches Nice or Cannes.

The frame

Ideal stay 2 nights · Minimum 1 night · Best arrival the coastal train, 35 minutes from Nice · Airport NCE, 45 km · Walkability excellent, steep in the old town · Best without a car yes