TacoTravels

Visiting Menton’s Lemon Festival

Today is the last day of Menton’s Lemon Festival, so of course, I only managed to visit yesterday, just before it ended. The lemon festival is pretty famous around this area and I definitely visited to be able to say that I visited.

What the Lemon Festival was like

The Lemon Festival has 5 main parts:

  1. An exhibition (this year’s theme is Opera and Danses so all the sculptures are based on that) – Free entry
  2. Arts & Craft Show – Free entry, basically small stalls scattered around the exhibitions
  3. Orchid Festival – Free entry
  4. Illumination (we didn’t see this since it’s at night) – Free entry
  5. Golden Fruit Parades – 13 euros per ticket

And of course, there were many other programmes, like lemon hikes and tours, but those were all sold out quite early on. Since my friend and I decided to just do a half-day visit, we just went to see the exhibitions (lemon and orchids) and browse the stalls!

Personally, I found the sculptures to be really interesting – they are all made of lemons and oranges and a quite a sight to behold! There are a few stalls next to the sculptures and one of them sells lemonade; I found it really interesting that so far, all my North American classmates have said the lemonade was too sour while others (so far me, Japan, and some Latin American classmates) find the taste perfectly fine. According to my friend, there’s a lot of sugar in North American lemonade, which sounds a little scary to me!

I also really liked the Orchid exhibition. It’s not very big, but it’s pretty and there’s a photo booth on the same floor that will give you a printed and digital photo with a Menton Lemon Festival backdrop for free!

Exploring Menton’s Old Town

Since the exhibitions were just that, we were done looking at everything pretty quickly and decided to explore Menton’s Old Town as well. We walked along the shoreline (it’s beautiful and we were tempted by all the restaurants there!) till we hit the old town market. Our goal was actually this set of very photographic steps, but we didn’t actually ask anyone so all we had to go on were internet pictures.

But we found it! It’s basically the steps in front of Basilique Saint-Michel Archange de Menton, so if you’re looking for the same spot, look for the Church and the steps are the ones facing the port. From the Church, we walked back towards the festival through the Old Town and I found it to be a really lovely place!

We ended our visit at Jean Luc Pelé, a boulangerie that our friend recommended because it has great tarte du citron. We had that, some of their lemon cake, and something savoury for lunch (I had a pizza) and it was all really tasty! The lemon cake wasn’t too sweet and the tarte du citron had a nice sharp tang without being overpowering. Honestly, everything there looks so good that I wanted to buy one of each to try!

This was a really fun half-day trip! Menton is only 40 min away from Nice by train, so it’s really easy to get there – it makes me wonder why I didn’t visit earlier!

2 thoughts on “Visiting Menton’s Lemon Festival

    1. HAHA yes, the people of Menton really love their lemons!! I think I saw quite a few Italians too – the town is along the French/Italian border!

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