Seems a bit strange to be back in France after spending just over 2 months in Italy and who has heard of Menton? We certainly hadn’t.
Menton is the first town on the French Riviera. Although it seems a little confused with being so close to the Italian border you can see the Italian influences and some people speak to you in French and others speak to you in Italian.
We headed off to the seafront so that we could take another look back at the Italian coastline.
View of the old fort on our walk while enjoying the sun.
Its now getting cooler in the evenings and it is hard to tell what the weather is going to be like at lunchtime. We were dressed up with coats and jumpers on which was a bit of a mistake, it was a lovely sunny day. Apparently, and we don’t know how true this is but Menton is 3 degrees warmer than anywhere else in France as it has its own little micro climate going on.
The old town is built in to the hill and we both wanted to go and have a look at the baroque basilica of Saint Michel. This meant we had to endure the steps leading up to it. The climb was worth it as we admired the view from the top, it was hard to photograph as the basilica is currently under going renovation. The picture below is of the church behind the basilica.
The walk down was much easier and we wondered through the town to find somewhere to have lunch. We came across the indoor market which was full of artisan products and the freshest looking vegetables we have seen in a while. Unfortunately we didn’t make any purchases as the market was packing up for the day and we didn’t want to carry lots of shopping around with us.
We spent the rest of the day looking around the shops and enjoying the ambience.
Menton is much bigger than we had initially thought and took us much longer to walk around but it was worth it. Its such a nice place and situated in such a great place right on the border, you really can have the best of both countries.
