‘It’s not France, it’s not Italy, it’s Menton.” The seaside town on the French-Italian border has changed identities many times in its history. It was the only town in France completely annexed by the Italians during the second world war, but has also belonged to the Grimaldis of Monaco, was part of the kingdom of Sardinia, and only became French after a public vote in 1860. Today, ignoring the colours of Il Tricolore and Le Tricolore, almost everything is painted in various shades of yellow, a celebration of the town’s reliance on its beloved lemon.
Mauro Colagreco, the chef at the spectacular Mirazur restaurant, a few steps from the border, takes me up into the hills to visit one of his lemon and citrus fruit suppliers. “You can eat the peel of a Menton lemon; it has a thick, sweet rind. You can eat the whole thing; it’s totally organic and very juicy.” Menton’s microclimate, its warm winters, terraced hills and sandy soil make it perfect for growing citrus fruit. “What’s particular to the Menton lemon is that it has a smile, a small curvy fold at one end,” says Colagreco, who uses them in his restaurant alongside exploring the possibilities of Star Ruby grapefruits, yuzu confit and kumquats.
This time of the year, late February and March, is called “yellow time”, owing to the lemons, daffodils and the mimosa on the hillside. It’s also the time of the Fête du Citron, a two-week festival with parades, giant floats and, this year, huge models of a whale, 12-metre-high parrots and entwined storks – all covered in citrus fruit. It was the 92nd iteration of the festival, but the Menton lemon is too expensive and rare to use, so all 123 tonnes of oranges and lemons now come from Spain (mostly) and Portugal.
In a perfect location to appreciate Menton’s two personalities is Luciano Fondrieschi, who runs R Bike Menton, a cycling shop on the promenade between the old town and the Italian border. He believes there’s a lot of lively competition between Italy and France in the town. Fondrieschi was a successful runner and triathlete in Italy and his shop is always full of French and Italians, looking over the racks of shoes, pedals and bikes and asking for advice.
“Menton is a French town with an Italian regard,” he tells me. “All the boats in the harbour are Italian.” However, looking around, most of the cars are French. Fondrieschi switches languages seamlessly in his repair shop. While we are chatting, a British couple come in, breathless but exuberant in their Lycra, having just completed a 36-mile (58km) round trip to Sanremo. They are followed by an Italian pensioner who had cycled up to Dolceacqua, 13 miles away, for a pizza lunch, and a couple from Luxembourg who want a puncture repaired before they set off for Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat. “French people really just like speaking in French, but we [Italians] speak with our hands, so can talk to anyone!” says Fondrieschi. His in-store cafe offers a mix of brioches, rústico caprese, Italian aromatic cordials and café au lait.
Like every town in France, Menton’s streets are named after the country’s authors, politicians and war heroes. But in Menton, for every avenue Pasteur, Victor Hugo and Général de Gaulle, there’s an avenue Cernuschi and Laurenti, a rue Pietra Scritta, Isola, Urbana, Pieta and Mattoni. There’s also a Square Victoria (the British queen stayed in Menton in 1882), avenue Blasco Ibáñez (the Spanish writer lived in a huge villa here in the 1920s) and avenue Katherine Mansfield (who stayed in the villa Isola Bella) – the last two linked by the rue Webb-Ellis.
William Webb Ellis, the schoolboy who supposedly invented the game of rugby when he picked up the ball in a school football match in 1823, became an Anglican vicar and moved to Menton in the 1860s, spending the last years of his life there. He is buried in the hilltop Vieux Château cemetery, a steep walk up from the old town, where his grave overlooks the sea, forever covered in rugby balls and club ties.
The grave of the English illustrator Aubrey Beardsley is even higher up the hill, in Trabuquet cemetery. He died aged 25 and is buried alongside many other young artists, writers and aristocrats who flocked to Menton at the end of the 19th century to cure their respiratory disorders and lose themselves in the town’s many botanical gardens.
Half a century later, France’s own master of pen and ink, Jean Cocteau, also turned up in Menton. In 1955, the mayor asked him to decorate the interior of the Salle des Mariages – a depiction of the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice with centaurs and a Menton marriage. A key is available at the town hall for visitors.
A hundred metres away is Allo Robert, a warehouse-emporium of French and Italian bric-a-brac, the kind of things couples had on their wedding lists 100 years ago. I found a light-up Tabac sign, cabinets packed with 1930s soda siphons, candlesticks and champagne buckets, Italian crockery and blue chairs from Nice’s promenade. It’s a dusty snapshot of Menton from the early 20th century – as it says on the sign outside: “de curiosités … et tutti quanti” (“curiosities … and so on”).
Stay at the seafront Hôtel Napoléon, which has a solar-heated pool; doubles from €106, napoleon-menton.com. Eat pizzas, vitello tonnato and flavoured burrata at Mauro Colagreco’s La Pecoranegra, pecoranegra.fr
