At 39€ (21€ for children ages 4 to 12) for three consecutive days and 54€ (29€ for children) for six consecutive days, the card throws open the doors to over 100 sights and activities along the Riviera and into the Mercantour Montains which rise up from the coast. The card can be used for consecutive days between April 26 and October 31, 2014.

Most of the major art museums along the coast and inland are accessible with the pass: the Bonnard Museum at Cannet, the Picasso Museum at Antibes, the Cocteau Museum of Menton, the Fernand Leger Museum at Biot, and many others. Taking in several of these museums over a 3- or 6-day period reveals the influence on the work of these 20th artists of the light and leisure along the Riviera. The Maeght Foundation, at Saint-Paul-de-Vence, celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, is also included. Entrance there alone normally costs 15€.

The culinary arts also have their place in the Côte d’Azur Card with access to Escoffier Museum of Culinary Art at Villeneuve-Loubet. And the coast’s most popular museum, Oceanographic Museum of Monaco, which normally costs 14€, is also free with the card. Other than several of Nice’s major museums (notably the Museum of Modern Art and the Chagall and Matisse Museums), which aren’t included, the variety of sight and activities in Alpes-Maritimes, as this corner of France is officially called, is well represented by this single piece of plastic.

Possession of the pass doesn’t imply that you’re sole interest in travel along the Riviera is its museums as it also gives access to a variety of outdoor sites such as Menton’s Serre de la Madone Garden and Monaco’s Exotic Garden. You can even use the pass to take the boat from Cannes to Ile Saint-Honorat (one of the Lerins Islands), for a guided tour at Grasse, Antibes or Vence, to play miniature golf in Antibes, to go to the racetrack at Cagnes-sur-Mer or to go sea kayaking at Cap d’Ail or Menton.

Don’t worry, you’ll still find time for a leisurely walk by the beach and an unhurried moment in the café.The choice of a seat is all yours.

The Côte d’Azur Card is available at tourist offices throughout the region and in hotels and other accommodations, as well as online (later this month) at the official website for the card, www.cotedazur-card.com.

The Riviera’s official portal for tourist information is www.frenchriviera-tourism.com.

© 2014, Gary Lee Kraut

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* * *

I’d received a letter written in a strange hand inviting me to taste some baked pineapple at one of the tents of the Christmas market near the bottom of the Champs-Elysées. Odd! I went to see what it was all about.

While walking through Place de la Concorde, I came across Phileas Fogg, Miss Mimosa, and Jean Passepartout.

I asked if I could take their picture. Mr. Fogg said that he and Passepartout were in a hurry but they kindly allowed me to do so. Miss Mimosa gave me a little wink, I thought, before I realized that it was just the pleasant November sun in her eyes.

Miss Mimosa handed me a few sprigs of her namesake flower and off they went.

I turned to go up the Champs-Elysées where I saw coming towards me 16 Brazilian dancers. I could tell they were Brazilian because, well, you could just tell. They’d apparently come out of the tent where I’d been invited to taste the baked pineapple. There were eight female dancers in monokinis and feather headdress. The headdress rested on their shoulders and was covered at its base with a glittery fabric that draped down to partly cover their breasts. There were also eight male dancers in tight white bellbottoms and bronze naked torsos. I lifted my camera to their picture of the troop as they sambaed by but the hip of one of the Brazilians hit my elbow and my shot went up into the air, where it captured the copy of one of the Horses of Marly rearing by the entrance to the Champs-Elysées.

Following right behind the Brazilian dancer were six men playing kettle drums on wheels, three elephants, a tiger, a dozen dwarves carrying mimosas, the large head of a king, a dragon led on a chain by a mad, wiry trainer, three men and three women carrying baskets of lemons, and a cast of characters the likes of which I’d never seen on the streets of Paris.

A chimpanzee rode the lead elephant and waved at me to follow. He pointed to the big wheel on the opposite side of the Obelisk, by the entrance to the Tuileries Garden. That’s where they were headed.

Traffic stopped as the parade crossed over to the Obelisk. As I watched them cross I realized that I was witnessing a preview of winter festivities on the Riviera. The three festival towns had apparently coordinated their efforts and their schedules for their February Mardi Gras-time festivals.

Mandelieu-La Napoule, nestled near Europe’s largest mimosa forest, had brought along its flowers and its chosen beauty for its Mimosa Festival, Feb 15-24, 2013.

Nice had brought along some of its dancers and its King of the 5 Continents, sovereign of the next Carnaval, Feb. 15-March 6, 2013.

Menton had brought along Phileas Fogg and Jean Passepartout, who planned to make a detour for the “Around the World in 80 Days”-themed Lemon Festival, Feb. 16-March 6, 2013.

I lifted my camera to take a picture of the long train of this mixed parade, but just then the chimp took my elbow and my camera veered off toward one of the fountains on the square.

The chimp pulled me over to the Ferris wheel, threw me into a gondola along with one of the Brazilian dancers and jumped in beside me. Then up we went for some a remarkable view.

We all squealed in delight. Well, the monkey squealed in delight. The Brazilian dancer squealed with vertigo. And I squeal with surprise when the dancer, unable to look out and burying her face in her breasts, lowered her headdress into my face, where the feathers tickled my nose.

I asked the chimp if he would take a picture of me and the Brazilian dancer but he wouldn’t hold still.

I asked her if he would take a picture of me and the chimp but she wouldn’t look up.

I spread her feathers and looked down at the Tuileries Garden and the Louvre.

After we returned to earth, my Brazilian companion lifted her head and sambaed off the gondola. Phileas Fogg and Jean Passepartout rushed off to catch a train for Geneva. And the rest of us said teary good-byes promising to all get together on the coast in February. All but the chimp, who hung around with no place to go.

I was in such a fine mood that I invited him home to help me make a pumpkin pie, for American Thanksgiving was two days later.

When I got home I realized that I’d forgotten to buy the ground ginger called for in the recipe. The chimp didn’t want to go back out for it and I didn’t want to leave him alone in the apartment. I thought about what I could replace the ginger with and remembered the Viagra pill that a doctor friend had given me when I was feeling a bit down after my cat died a few years ago, so I ground that up.

The recipe also called for ground cardamon. I didn’t know what that was so the chimp looked it up on the google machine. Looking over his hairy shoulder I saw that cardamon resembled another pill that someone once gave me in a Latino nightclub when I’d suggested at 3 a.m. that it was getting late, so I crushed that up too.

The chimp licked the bowl. While the pie was yet in the oven he started bouncing off the walls and humping the couch, so I kicked him out and haven’t heard from him since.

On Thanksgiving I took my pumpkin pie to the apartment of the friend who was hosting the meal. I set on the table the sprigs that Miss Mimosa had given.

The pie was a hit The French guests wanted to know what spices I’d use.

“Mostly cinnamon and nutmeg,” I said. “A few cloves.”

“And where’d you get the mimosas? Where you just on the coast?”

“Sort of,” I said, momentarily missing the chimp.

© 2012, Gary Lee Kraut

Mimosa Festival in Mandelieu-La Napoule, Feb 15-24, 2013.
Carnaval in Nice, Feb. 15-March 6, 2013.
Lemon Festival in Menton, Feb. 16-March 6, 2013.

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For some time now there have been whispers, rumors, developer dreams and political assurances that Menton may soon—one day—transition from a town (pop. 29,000) of serene and sunny comfort notable for its retiring well-being to a more sophisticated, more youthful, even luxurious destination.

Not that this fine-weather town is in need of upheaval—it’s main attraction as far as I’m concerned is that it offers some R&R from hyper-luxe, as they call it along the Riviera, though there is indeed much local wealth up in the hills. Menton simply wants some recognition that this isn’t where the French Riviera peters out before the Italian border but is rather one of its highlights.

If it is then that’s thanks in part to two markers of creativity and sophistication, the one gastronomic, the other artistic: Mirazur, the outstanding restaurant of chef Mauro Colagreco that overlooks Menton from the east, and the Jean Cocteau Museum, dedicated to a poet and artist who represents the artful high life along the French Riviera in the 1950s.

Mirazur – Mauro Colagreco

Looking out through the bay windows of Mirazur on a drizzly winter evening I could barely make out the lights along the coast below. But Mauro Colagreco’s resourceful, inspired contemporary Mediterranean cuisine sparks the imagination, and before long it wasn’t difficult to imagine sitting here on a long, dry spring evening enjoying the surprises of a blind tasting menu and watching the sunset on a sublime view of Menton and the sea.

Actually, we did have a tasting men, a group of journalists and me, after a wet day at Menton’s Lemon Festival.

Set on a hill along the French-Italian border, this soothing restaurant has an airy 50-seat upstairs (main floor) dining room and a 30-seat lower level dining area beside the windowed wall of the kitchen. There is also terrace and garden seating.

Mauro Colagreco, a chef-restaurateur from Argentina of Italian stock (all four of his grandparents were from Italy), has been the gastronomic draw of Menton since 2006. He was selected 2009 Chef of the Year by Gault-Millau, one of the most knowledgeable food publications in France. He has had a Michelin star since 2007. [Post note: In Feb. 2012, one month after publication of this article Mirazur received a second Michelin star.]

Basing his blind tasting menu on the day’s inspiration and produce, he elaborated for us a discovery dinner rich in variety and savors while clearly facing the sea and the coastal gardens.

As a wink to the lemon festival, a carpaccio  of gascon (a Mediterranean fish) with a citrus vinaigrette and edible flowers. For a successful touch of audacity, cream of shallots with a puree of green apples and aquatic mint. For the pleasure of mixed textures, clams on an eggplant puree. For a taste of classicism, médallion de volaille served with candied lemon, which was the least remarkable dish of the evening, either because of its very classicism or because poultry doesn’t inspire the chef. Other than that fowl, the other half of the meal was equally expressive and true to the taste of the original ingredients.

Diners who don’t care for the risks and sensory overload of a tasting menu can rest assured that there are other options, though surprise is in any case a part of the game.

Service is smooth, pleasant. Among those attending to our table was a waiter on his first day at the job. Though as accommodating and personable as the others, he was either less apt at describing the ingredients of the dishes that arrived, which might be expected, or less willing to faking it, perhaps a bit of both. Toward the end of the meal, we asked him to show us a real Menton lemon. You see,  Menton’s production of its celebrated lemon is about 10 tons while 120-140 tons of lemons and oranges are required for the festival, and those are imported from Spain. So we’d been ogling Spanish citrus all day and hadn’t much had the opportunity to get intimate with a real citron de Menton.

The waiter returned from the kitchen with a huge citrus. The tourist official sitting next to me remarked that it was quite large for a Menton lemon but was indeed the real deal.

Chef Mauro came out to greet and charm us after the meal. After some shop talk I asked if I could take his picture with the lemon.

“That’s not a lemon,” he said. “That’s a grapefruit.” Which goes to show that you can fool some of the people some of the time but you can fool journalists all of the time.

He was a good enough sport to allow me to take his picture with the grapefruit.

The hair that got in the way in the photo belongs to another journalist, because not only are journalists gullible but they will push you under a bus if you’re in the way of a shot that they want.

Here is Mr. Colagreco in a more dignified pose in his kitchen.

I was able to get a clear shot here after telling that other journalist that I’d just seen Carla Bruni Sarkozy out the window walking by on her way back from Italy.

Le Mirazur – Mauro Colagreco. 30 avenue Aristide Briand, 06500 Menton. Tel. 04 92 41 86 86. Open mid-Feb. to early November, Wed.-Sun. lunch and dinner, except from mid-July-end Aug. when open Tues.-Sun. for dinner, Sat. and Sun. for lunch.

Jean Cocteau Museum

Like Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse, Jean Cocteau remains heavily identified with the high and artful life along the French Riviera, particularly with respect to the 1950s in his case.

Cocteau (1889-1963) was a major figure in French art, theater and literary circles from the 1910s until his death in 1963, an artist’s artist of multiple talent—poet, novelist, playwright, graphic artist, filmmaker—flitting between genres and between friends in the worlds of art, theater and film.

Banking heavily on those talents, Menton has opened a major museum decided to Cocteau’s work and spirit throughout his career. The Musée Jean Cocteau adds a shot of modernism to the Old Town, both in its seafront architecture and in its exhibitions.

The museum is built around the donation of an enormous collection of Cocteau’s work from Severin Wunderman, who made his fortune in luxury watches. Born in Belgium, Wunderman’s family moved to the United States during WWII. He had previously displayed a part of his collection at a Cocteau museum that he created in Irvine, California in 1985. But the artist’s connection with the Riviera, a land where art, film, frivolity and wealth thrive, along with France’s reputation for subsidizing museums, made this the more appropriate home. Construction of the museum began shortly after Wunderman’s death in 2008.

In covering Cocteau’s output and his association with other artists, the museum displays in a given year only a portion of the vast collection, through both its permanent collection and its temporary exhibits.

As poet first, graphic artist second, Cocteau’s visual and decorative graphics employed a style of playful, poetic arabesques of figures and motifs.

His decorative work can be seen in situ in the Marriage Hall (1957-1958) in Menton’s City Hall. He also designed the mosaics for the small 17th-century fort called Le Bastion that’s near the town’s port.

“Tattoos” is how Cocteau referred to frescos that he made while staying at a friend’s villa at Saint Jean Cap Ferrat, the exclusive-minded peninsula basking in the sea near Nice. Pretty graffiti or wall doodles may be another way of looking at some of his decorative work; through one eye they enliven white walls, through the other they await a new paint-job. The rooms he decorated at that villa, Villa Santo Sospir, are open to private visits by appointment only.

He also decorated the walls of the Chapelle Saint Pierre in Villefranche-sur-Mer, also near Nice.

Following in the footsteps of Jean Cocteau along the Riviera can get quickly tiresome for those who aren’t true fans, and I admit that I’m not. However, any of these glimpses, particularly the new museum, can serve as in insightful introduction to this man-for-all-arts, his work, and the marriage of art, wealth and leisure on the Côte d’Azur.

Musée Jean Cocteau, 2 quai Monléon, 06500 Menton. Open 10am-6pm. Closed Tuesday as well as Jan. 1 May 1, Nov. 1 and Dec. 25. In July and Aug. the museum is also open Friday until 10pm.

© 2012, Gary Lee Kraut

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1. Carnival in Nice
Nice’s Carnival, the 3-week period of parades leading up to Mardi Gras (March 8), is not the bacchanalian event that I expected when I was recently on the Riviera. Not that I thought it would be party city, but I did expect hints of spring break in Cancun here and there. Instead, I learned that the day and night parades are happy feasts for the eyes through rather subdued. Fun for whole family, I’d say. Here’s a spot-on report about it by a writer who has more than a few spring breaks under her belt.

2. Nice: A bar with a view
The pink dome of the Hotel Negresco is a landmark in Nice, but you can be turned away at the entrance when you want to go to the bar and you look like, well, me.

The lesson learned isn’t, however, that I’ll forever snub the Negresco (though that’s a thought) or that I should upgrade my wardrobe (though that’s worth considering) but that one needn’t wallow in rejection but instead enjoy a seat on the balcony of 7th-floor bar at the Clarion Grand Hotel Aston, which has a grand view over the city.

4. Colmar and Kaysersberg, Alsace
Colmar, I learned, is not the ideal February destination. It’s cold, the museum dedicated to the works of Bartholdi, creator of the Statue of Liberty, is closed, as is the Dominicans’ Church, home to the Madonna of the Rose Bower, so are some restaurants and a few hotels, the Unterlinden Museum is freezing, and the Christmas decorations still standing by the covered market look terribly sad.

In March and beyond, however, one can:
– take an excellent guided tour of the Unterlinden Museum and its masterpiece The Altarpiece of Issenheim without the crowds (keep your coat on).
– see a plaster cast of the Statue of Liberty’s ear in the Bartholdi Museum,
– have a fine dinner and the Jacuzzi bathtub at the old-fashion and romantic (in a 30th anniversary kind of way) Hotel Le Maréchal,
– take a bus to visit nearby a village such as Kaysersberg, again without the crowds, visit winemakers, eat kougelhopf (regional brioche), and enjoy a gastronomic meal at Olivier Nasti’s Le Chambard, then spend the night there.

The post Four French lessons I learned in February appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

I have fond memories of a stay at Les Ambassadeurs in Menton, a hotel that I referred to in that guidebook as “the most reasonably priced 4-star on the coast.” I wrote that it had a “noble Victorian façade and wrought-iron balconies” and that its 54 rooms were decorated with a “pleasing pink, peach and green style of an indefinable period that must be ours.”

I also noted that Les Ambassadeurs had been “recently renovated with a sense of dash and verve,” but reading that today I have no idea what it means. The terms dash and verve in themselves sound dated–so 20th century, like something you’d hear on “Mad Men.” That may have been the only time in my life when I’ve used the word “verve.”

Arriving in Menton, I was nevertheless hoping for the chance to revisit Les Ambassadeurs so as to find out what has happened to that “indefinable period that must be ours” and to its “dash and verve.”

Turns out that Les Ambassadeurs is no longer in operation–closed pending the decision (and a buyer) to reopen it is a hotel or as an apartment building. I nevertheless took a picture of its (noble Victorian?) façade.

Menton is now sans 4-star hotel, though I’m told that a 5-star is in the planning stages in the French cliffs toward the Italian border. And perhaps Les Ambassadeurs will one day live again, if Town Hall gets its way.

In the meantime, Menton is generally comfortable 2-star and 3-star territory, i.e. with sea views and town/hill views but without doormen and porters.

I stayed at the 3-star Hotel Riva, another hotel that I had visited 15 years ago. Here’s what I wrote about the Riva at the time: “A recent hotel facing the bay with very good pastel comfort. AC. Rooftop solarium with Jaccuzzi.” I’m happy to report that I could more or less write the same thing today, other than to say that it is “a less-recent hotel” and has wifi.

This was the view from my room at the Riva in the morning.

My purpose for visiting Menton wasn’t to do a hotel round-up but rather to see and experience the Lemon Festival, its 78th Fête du Citron, which now draws about 230-250,000 paid visitors per year and runs this year from Feb. 18 to March 9, concurrent with Nice’s Carnival, the celebration leading up to and including Mardi Gras.

I’ll soon be writing about both of those events, highlights of the winter season along the Riviera. In the meantime, you can read Stephanie Sommers’ festival report for France Revisited during their 2009 editions.

It rained in Menton on the afternoon I went to see the Corso parade, where colorful bands and dancers parade between floats decorated with lemons and oranges.

Despite the rain it did have a certain amount of dash and verve.

For official information about the Lemon Festival in Menton see here.

For official information about Carnival in Nice see here.

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Before I moved to Nice I had been warned by friends in nearby Provence that this was a city of little old ladies and small dogs and that I should always look down at the pavement while walking in order to avoid the ubiquitous “ca-ca.” Their comments were perhaps inspired by the Provence-Riviera rivalry, but even in Nice I’d been told that the locals easily distinguish the tourists from the true Niçois by the fact that the former look up as they walk while the latter look down.

Nice is a big city with much going on, but those little old ladies—usually widows, I imagine due to their lack of male accompaniment—are as much a part of the city as the famous Promenade des Anglais that follows the curve of the bay. It’s not unusual to see their tan, wrinkly, svelte bodies lying around the beaches below the Promenade in groups of two or three.

I arrived in Nice just after the New Year. This wasn’t my first time in the city of widows, but I had only ever spent the odd weekend here. I chose the Cote d’Azur for the mild winter weather and Nice in particular for its language schools—it was time to master the language of Molière once and for all. As a bonus, I arrived just in time to witness one of the most famous winter festivals in Europe, Nice’s celebration of Carnival.

Carnival (Carnaval in French) is the period of festivities that precedes Lent—not that many people in French now pay attention to that religiosity. Basically, Carnival is Mardi Gras. Though Mardi Gras is technically Fat Tuesday, the day that precedes Ash Wednesday, it’s non-religious connotation (i.e. party time) has now led to it referring to the full period of festivities. Call it what you like, it’s party time!

Pre-Carnival buzz

Nice’s Carnival began on Friday evening, Feb. 13, but all that week there had been a buzz in the air. Nice is one of the larger cities on the Cote d’Azur so there’s activity in the streets all year, but beginning early in the week I noticed the arrival of an increasing number of people looking up—tourists no doubt. Despite the cold weather, the widows were out in force, bronzing themselves in preparation for the upcoming festivities.

The fabulous Promenade des Anglais—think the Champs Elysées of Paris but along the sea—is never really empty unless it’s raining, but it was getting increasingly busy. Bleachers had been in place for a few weeks already, and on Monday a massive TV screen was installed in historic Place Massena on which the various parades would be shown. The Nice Tourist Office was the first to decorate, putting a giant colorful lizard head up on the roof.

Nice’s Carnival, France’s largest, has been around for 125 years. Another major Carnival takes place in Dunkerque in northern France. Nice’s Carnival lasts for two weeks. There are festivities every day, punctuated by major events described here: the opening ceremony, the Flower Parades on Saturdays and Wednesdays, the night parades on Tuesdays and Saturdays and then the grand finale on the last Sunday.

This year’s theme was “King of Masquerades” whose inauguration was staged in a parade with 20 monumental floats, accompanied by over 200 big ‘heads’ much like the above-mentioned lizard.

Arrival of the King

The King arrived on Friday evening. By then it had become apparent to me that a lot of Niçois have never actually attended the Carnival because when I asked various locals what happens on the King’s arrival I never got a clear answer. They all seem to know the history: The King’s arrival commences the Carnival, and at the end of Carnival two weeks later is taken out to the sea and burned so that he can rise from the ashes the following year. But everyone was vague on the details.

What actually happens, I discovered at the opening ceremony, is this: There is a huge party staged in Place Massena with two enormous floats—the King and the Queen—that come from the direction of the large shopping street, Avenue Jean Medécin. The square is packed with revelers; confetti and Silly String are thrown about in huge quantities. Everyone is in a festive mood and dances in the middle of the square to the pop music blaring from loudspeakers.
Quite a few of the revelers were masked.

I asked one of them why and they said that this year the theme, The King of Masquerades, was an invitation to hide your identity and become someone else. This made it impossible to resist dancing and frolicking in the streets with perfect strangers. My friends and I made the most of it. Then suddenly we all realized that the King and Queen were bearing down on us, and we were in a panic as we all tried to make way for the giant floats to pass. As they passed by, you could see that there were masked people in costume inside the floats, waving and throwing confetti and spraying the crowds with Silly String. Revelers also sprayed each other. At first I wondered where all the aerosol string was coming from but after the parade I saw a few street vendors still hawking the stuff.

Trailing after the floats were various semi-organized groups in costumes, including a gaggle of children and some acrobats who danced in the streets. The whole experience reminded me of an exotic New Years Eve in Times Square as for a few hours strangers from around the world danced, laughed, and sprayed each other with Silly String. It was fantastic.

La Bataille des Fleurs – Battle of the Flowers a.k.a the Flower Parade

Honestly, someone should have warned me that the Bataille des Fleurs, the Battle of the Flowers, was not a contest between the flower floats in a parade but rather an actual “battle” to catch the flowers being thrown at the spectators throughout the parade.

The Bataille took place Saturday afternoon on the Promenade des Anglais. I was seated in the bleachers thinking that I had lucked out for picture-taking because seated around me were hundreds of gentle, sedate senior citizens who would never jump up in front of my camera. They were mostly couples, arms linked rather romantically (occasionally you saw one lone man with a few ladies seated around him; I’m guessing these lucky men were favorites of the widow crowd). “Aw, how cute” I thought, wishing I had someone special with me. As it was most of my friends had refused to pay the hefty 25 euro fee to sit in the stands and had opted to stand in the crowds on the other side of the street. And my one friend who had been willing had lost her ticket. So I was friendless in the stands.

The parade started with a bang when loud Brazilian music accompanied by an even louder announcer scorched our ears. I noticed a few of the seniors dialing down their hearing aids.

The first dancers to arrive were Brazilians scantily dressed like flowers. I had to laugh at the men in the bleachers trying hard not to look too much and the women acting scandalized when they caught their men ogling the dancers. One particularly Brazilian-shaped (read: nicely formed) dancer was sans flower and very nearly naked, shaking her bootie on uber-high heels. How could you help but stare!

Then the first flower-drenched float arrived. It moved slowly. I noticed there was someone just walking alongside the float with a cartful of flowers. The walker then started throwing flowers into the stands. This caused a roar from the crowd, and suddenly everyone was lunging forward trying to catch flowers. Fights erupted between the men who, I now realized, were supposed to try to catch the flowers in order to give them to their significant others. It was utter chaos. The formerly placid old men surrounding me who didn’t look like they could move unless assisted were now jumping up like grasshoppers, sometimes knocking over their loved ones in the process. Several times a few aggressive younger men very nearly came to fisticuffs. Their women gave each other the evil eye all in order to catch a flower or two.

This process went on throughout the parade. It was evident that this was a time-worn tradition as the women knew how to duck and weave whenever the flowers were thrown. A few were unlucky and knocked off their chairs but they just got themselves back up—in a very dignified manner, I might add. I myself was nearly knocked over a few times, but I managed to catch a few flowers, although the old ladies, seeing that I was manless, just sniffed and turned their backs on me.

The parade was fantastic—it’s hard to describe all of the various floats and costumes that passed by in the two-plus hours—and it was a photographer’s delight, but I think the real event was the battle. As the parade was coming around a second time the flower-tossers were now pulling flowers from the floats themselves and throwing them into the crowds. The competition got even more fierce. Slightly shaken, I decided to scurry out of there lest some loved-up senior decide to arm wrestle me for my armful of flowers.

Corso Illuminé

The Corso Illuminé is the night parade that circles two times around Place Massena on Tuesday and Saturday nights. The two corsos, or corsi, I attended were spectacular. There were enormous harlequins and huge floating caricatures of what would have entertained royalty back in the day, a rather fierce dragon (my personal favorite), and groups from various countries who entertained us in between the grotesque processions with acrobatic dances, drum-playing, or baton-twirling. They slowly passed by as the crowd heaved to and fro, filling in the spaces between each float.

It was interesting to see the spectators get up close and personal with the floats, and armed with aerosol string cans (boums, in French) and confetti, they would spray the heck out of the floats, the groups, and each other until everybody and everything was covered in string and confetti.

Those of us who chose not to buy boums and confetti were frequently targeted with stealth attacks from behind as if the boumeurs (think bombers) were saying, “Hey, you there, blocking my view and my chance to spray a float, this one’s for you!”

I was told by my French teacher Jean-Philippe (probably referring to pre-aerosol string days) that years ago they threw little plastic balls a bit bigger than bb pellets and which weighed a bit more than bb pellets (I’m guessing) as there were always a few eyes put out and, according to my informer, a couple of near deaths. As Carnival became increasingly popular with tourists from other countries they finally banned the pellets and switched to paper confetti and the infamous boums.

After a few days of partying and picking string off my clothes I stayed home one evening to do research into the origins of Nice’s Carnival. Nice’s Carnival is mentioned various times in the journals of royal patrons during the Middle Ages. It appears to have been particularly popular with dukes from France and Italy and that in 1889 the Prince of Wales (future Edward VII) came to light the procession stake to commence Carnival.

My favorite float, the dragon, is called a “babau” and first appeared as a float in 1882 to honor the tradition of grotesque mythology that is prevalent in most Carnival histories. Here is where mythology and Catholicism meld. Winter Carnivals are now said to be a celebration of the advent of Lent, which is why Mardi Gras (literally “Fat Tuesday”) commemorates the end of the Carnival period and incorporates a huge feast so that Catholics can get ready for eating meagerly (specifically no meat) for Lent, the 40 days leading up to Easter. Nowadays my Catholic friends usually resolve to give something up like sugar in their coffee or white wine. (Notice they don’t say all wines.) According to tradition, then, all manner of wild behavior and voluntary madness is allowed during this Carnival period as you would pay penance during Lent. Perhaps this explains the folly of Silly String.

Street food in Nice: the socca party

I could write at length about how, after a week of cool weather, we finally had a beautiful sunny day, and how my friends and I gathered together on the Promenade des Anglais along with a few thousand tourists to watch the parades most days. But what I really want to do is write a love letter about a Niçois street food called the socca.

Socca is a thin, moist-on-the-inside, crispy-on-the-outside pancake made of chickpea flour, olive oil and salt and baked in huge pizza pans in wood burning ovens. It is delicious, especially if, like me, you have been living it up all weekend and are moving just a bit slower than usual on a Sunday afternoon. It is served on little paper plates. You just add pepper.

I’m not the only one who loves socca. In the Albert 1er gardens next to Place Massena, the Carnival held a socca party and everyone queued for over half an hour just to get a plate of socca. The line was so long that kids waiting with their parents were bored silly and as a result used up most of their aerosol string cans on all of us waiting in line. Other targets included the wandering bands of Spanish singers, a few clowns and the occasional palm tree. On most Sundays the queues are just as long at the socca restaurants in old town Nice.

The socca in Vieux (Old) Nice is served alongside other local specialties such as pissaladière (caramelized onion pizza sometimes with bits of anchovy and black olives), pan bagnat (little buns brushed with olive oil, then filled with green pepper slices, black olives, onion slices, anchovies, tomato slices and hard-boiled egg slices — all drizzled with vinaigrette), niçois farcis (vegetables like zucchini, peppers and onions cut into bite size pieces and topped or stuffed with delicious fillings made of meat or fish or other vegetables), and beignets (shrimp or meat fillings dunked in a thick batter and deep fried).

All of these are finger foods—although your fingers tend to get very greasy—and families, couples, and friends gather together at brunch time to sit at the picnic tables outside, eat some Nice street food, and wash it all down with a glass of rosé. Yum!

While Nice parties through Carnival, Menton hosts its Lemon Festival

While Nice was holding its Carnival the pretty Riviera town of Menton, sitting between the Italian border and Monaco, holds its Lemon Festival, la Fête du Citron.

I’d visited the Riviera a number of times before moving here but for some reason I’d never thought to go east of Monaco. Now I think it’s a shame that it took me so long since Menton is indeed worthy of at least a daytrip.

The Lemon Festival is also basically Carnival/Mardi Gras/party time while being directly linked to that fact that the climate in Menton is ideal for growing lemon trees and other citrus. Known as the City of Lemons, Menton distinguishes itself from the rest of the French Riviera by having a subtropical climate that, in addition to its attractiveness to lemon trees, has earned it a special place in the heart botanists and garden-lovers.

The town has won many awards for being the top “floral” town in France. Botanists have been coming here since the 1800s to plant rare species of flowers and plants because they can thrive in this climate. About 115 acres (46 hectares) of park space surround the town, with contemporary gardens created in the very heart of the city. During the Lemon Festival the garden at the center of the town becomes the setting for the jardins illuminés or illuminated gardens/gardens of light.

During an afternoon reconnaissance mission from Nice I was struck by the fact that although this is on the coast and therefore should be loaded with tourists and little old ladies with tiny dogs, it isn’t, so you can walk through the pedestrian area without having to watch your step. Menton (pop. 29,000) has its charms but isn’t quaint per se, though it has an elegant feel that is sometimes lacking in Nice. It is one of the few towns in France where the population is actually getting younger, and the downtown area appears to be particularly clean.

In preparing this article I didn’t actively set out to test restaurants but I can nevertheless report that of I’ve enjoyed the several meals I’ve had here. In Nice, on the other hand, which has some great food possibilities, haphazard selection can lead to some bad and overpriced meals and hit-or-miss service.

The Lemon Festival, first held in 1934, runs about three weeks. The theme for 2009 was “Menton celebrates the Music of the World.” And indeed the night we went everything from African tribal to American country music was being played in different venues in the gardens. My friends and I were delighted; a town that actually encourages music and dancing is a town that we can love.

Since my army of friends marches on its stomach, no sooner had we arrived then someone suggested we find a restaurant. We stopped at La Tagliatelle, an Italian restaurant across the street from the beach and promenade. It was absolutely fantastic and came complete with two huge Italian waiters. They’re brothers and they look like Mama breast-fed them pasta from the day they were born. Jolly as they were, it was the clientele who spoke volumes: La Tagliatelle must be a badly kept secret amongst the Italians as I heard no French in the restaurant, only Italian. (Remember, Italy is only a few miles away.) We each had a different pasta and left nothing behind. The lemon tart, tarte au citron, was fabulous, with no complaints about Le Colonel, a lemon sorbet topped with lemon vodka topped with a tiny bit of whipped cream.

After the meal we attacked the night garden event, and within five minutes a big stuffed clown thing was flirting and dancing with me… and trying to touch my bum while we were dancing.

Swiftly moving on, we came upon a quite good mariachi band which had us shaking our booties once more. Through the evening we frolicked amongst several other musical venues: country, disco, tango, rock-‘n-roll, etc. The venues themselves were each shaped a bit differently—there was a house, a chateau, a boat, a car, even a ‘moulin rouge’—all composed of thousands of lemons and oranges! Officially, the Lemon Festival uses about 145 tons of citrus fruit.

Open for dégustation throughout were small stands selling some of the best limoncello (sweet digestive liqueur made of lemons) I have ever tasted.

At the far end of the gardens Grand Marnier, makers of the famous orange liqueur, had set up a creperie that was serving warm Grand Marnier and coffee. By this time it was late and we were tired, so we all had a glass of Grand Marnier, tipped it in admiration to the magical music village, and caught the last train back to Nice.

We returned to Menton for a second evening of lemon festivities for the parade and fireworks. The parade itself was a little disappointing since it contained few surprises as it mainly consisted of the various village settings made of oranges and lemons that we had already seen. Or maybe the parade was a bit disappointing because we had been going to the far more spectacular night parades in Nice where the crowds were enormous and more international and showed more enthusiasm in the streets. Nice’s Carnival attracted more than a million visitors in 2009 whereas Menton’s Lemon Festival drew about 230,000. The crowds in Menton seemed mainly to be French, and the French, in my experience, don’t publicly dance or express themselves at such events like the English, Americans, Germans, Swiss, Dutch, etc.

Nevertheless, Menton is quite elegant and easily manageable for the tourist who wants a French seaside town flavor without all of the excessive tourist trappings, and that extends to its Lemon Festival as well. The benefit of attending Menton’s parade compared with Nice’s is that when Menton’s slows down you can walk right in between the various acts to take pictures. Another advantage is that there is far less Silly String in Menton.

The fireworks were rather special, particularly as they illuminated the sea—and who doesn’t love fireworks?! The whole event, while sedate compared to the Nice Carnival, was nicely presented.

Afterwards we all headed for the train station, satisfied with the food and festivities… but soon to be unsatisfied with the return home to Nice. As befitting a typically subdued town, there are no buses leaving Menton after 8 pm, so everyone without a car must take a train to get home if they don’t live there. The majority of people seemed to be headed east, as we were, in the direction of Nice and Cannes. Add the fact that the SNCF, the French rail service, had cancelled the two trains before the last one heading east, which was also delayed for over an hour, and you have a recipe for chaos.

The fireworks had ended around 10 pm but at nearly midnight there were still hundreds of people waiting for a train. The police were already there in advance, waiting to quell any possible riots and to keep people from being pushed off the platforms, but it would have seemed more reasonable to send in train reinforcements rather than police reinforcements.

The train finally arrived, and for about 10 minutes we couldn’t breathe, let alone move as the crowds—a not very young crowd at that—pushed forward to the doors. It was a nightmare that really only ended when we arrived in Nice. In short, check the bus and train schedules if you aren’t staying at a hotel in Menton.

The burning of the King and the end of Carnival

Back safely in Nice, I again turned my attention to the Carnival, which came to an end on a Sunday night. The burning of the king in the sea marks the end of the festivities and the start of Lent. Legend has it that by burning the King he will then rise again next year from the ashes to reign once again during the Carnival.

It was one of the more frenzied nights of the Carnival period. By 9 pm tens of thousands of revelers were gathered in Place Massena to escort the King to the sea. With music blasting over loudspeakers everyone danced in the streets, working themselves up for the ritual burning. The Silly String and confetti were flying everywhere; I had hoped that maybe they would have sold out of the stuff by now but it was actually even worse. I saw one little girl of maybe 5 or 6 being completely covered by Silly String by her parents and elder siblings, after which they threw confetti on her. My friends and I wondered whether that might constitute child abuse, but the child seemed to be enjoying it.

When the King started to move, the crowd roared bloodthirstily and followed the King down to the sea. My friends and I raced ahead to the Promenade des Anglais to take pictures of the procession. Then, as the King rounded the corner, we realized that the crowds at the beach were so immense we would never be able to see the King out at sea.

This is where I admit to having a slight advantage over typical visitors since I found the most official-looking person in the crowds, flashed my press badge, and asked where the press area was. We soon found ourselves in a private viewing area on the Promenade des Anglais, directly in front of the boats out at sea that were set up for the burning and the fireworks afterwards.

But the King was already out there! How was that possible when we had just left him at the corner? I soon discovered that they don’t actually burn the massive grotesque King we had all seen in the parades; instead an effigy made of paper maché is burned. Considering that the real King is made mostly of hard plastic this actually makes sense.

As we waited, the crowds behind us grew more bloodthirsty. Their chant of “Brule!” (Burn!) got more and more intense. Suddenly the announcement came that it was about to happen, and there was a brief pause in the yelling and screaming as they lit the King on fire.

As the fire took, the revelers found their voices again and they roared through the 5-6 minutes it took to burn the effigy. As the fire died down, so did the voices, save for one child’s voice who yelled out one last comment: “Au revoir, Sarkozy!” We all laughed.

Immediately after the burning of the King the fireworks began, and it was evident where a good portion of the city’s 6-million-euro Carnival budget went. They were spectacular. Four boats out at sea shot off fireworks in tune to approximately ten different songs as we watched from our advantageous press-passed position. The fireworks seemed endless.

Then it was over.

As my friends and I waded our way through the Silly String-and-confetti-filled streets we noticed that the formerly frenzied crowd had lost its energy and vitality. Everyone shuffled back to their home or hotel. The party was over, and we all knew it was time to take off our Carnival masks and return to our real lives.
Tourist Offices and Festival Information

Nice: Nice’s official Carnival website.

Menton: Menton’s official Lemon Festival website.

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Another night in Menton; another great meal. Thursday my friends and I went to Menton’s night parade and fireworks display, the last one during the Lemon Festival. We ate beforehand and I wish I had the name of the restaurant as it was brilliant, but alas, I forgot to write it down and nobody remembers the name. It’s a shame, as that was one of the highlights of the night.

The parade itself was a bit disappointing as it mainly consisted of the various village settings made of oranges and lemons that I reported on earlier. Or maybe it was a bit disappointing because we had been going to the far more spectacular night parades in Nice where the crowds were enormous and more international and showing more enthusiasm in the streets, with people always dancing and having fun. The crowds in Menton were mainly French.

At this point I must make an observation about the French; they are lovely people but at musical events they just don’t dance or express themselves like the English, Americans, Germans, Swiss, Dutch, etc. I once went to a Status Quo rock concert in Marseille and NOBODY got out of their seats until the last song. (Except us.) How anyone can sit through Status Quo’s rocking tune, “Whatever You Want” without even moving their heads is beyond me.

Most of the people in the crowds were elderly as well, and the rest appeared to be parents with small children. I recall a remark by my teacher Jean-Philip about Menton, that the population was mostly retirees and that he hadn’t visited Menton in a while because there was nothing of great interest to do there. I understand his point but I still hold to my opinion that Menton is quite elegant and easily manageable for the tourist who wants a French seaside town flavor without all of the excessive tourist trappings.

There are benefits to attending a smaller parade like Menton’s: when it slows down, you can walk right in between the various acts to take pictures. To illustrate this point I present a photo taken in the middle of the parade. I also had my friend Gaby take one of me and a flower boy while the parade was stopped. And since the theme was “Music from Around the World,” we were treated to different tunes throughout the parade, of which my favorite was the country and western band—it reminded me of my home state of Texas. Oh and I must mention that the amount of Silly String was probably less than 10% of that used during the Nice parades.

The fireworks were rather special, particularly as they illuminated the sea, and well, who doesn’t love fireworks? The whole event, while sedate compared to the Nice Carnival, was nicely presented. We all headed for the train station, satisfied with our meal and the festivities.

Here’s a little rant about France’s lack of services for public transport, particularly during special events like the festival. There are no buses leaving Menton after 8 pm, so everyone must take a train to get home if they don’t live in Menton. The majority of people seemed to be headed east, as we were, in the direction of Nice and Cannes. Add the fact that SNCF cancelled the two trains before the last one heading east, which was also delayed for over an hour, and you have a recipe for disaster. The chaos that ensued was palpable.

The fireworks ended around 10 pm but at nearly midnight there were still hundreds of people waiting for a train. The police were already there in advance, waiting to quell any possible riots and to keep people from being pushed off the platforms. I was with a bunch of Swiss friends who complained about the lack of services and how in Switzerland this would never happen. I have to agree; the timing was pretty bad and in many countries, including the US, there are usually special buses and trains added to the schedules whenever there is a special event like a festival. But not France. Why not France? I would really love an explanation to this phenomenon.

Anyway, the train finally arrived and for about 10 minutes we couldn’t even breathe, let alone move as the crowds pushed forward to the doors. Most of those in the crowd were senior citizens who moved ever so slowly onto the train, which delayed us getting on and prolonging the feeling of being crushed. I worried that some elderly person would have a heart attack and still end up on the train as we were slowly ‘carried’ to the doors. It was a nightmare that really only ended when we arrived in Nice, at which point I vowed to never again stay out past 8 pm outside of Nice.

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Concurrent with Nice’s great Carnival that I’ve been blogging about, Menton, the pretty French town sitting between the Italian border and Monaco, has been holding its annual Lemon Festival. If, like me, you have visited the Cote d’Azur many times but for some reason never thought to go to Menton (known as the City of Lemons), allow me to twist your arm a bit.

Menton distinguishes itself from the rest of the pack by having a subtropical climate that allows it to grow citrus fruits (particularly the lemon) and holds many French awards for being the top ‘floral’ town in France. According to the Tourist Office, botanists have been coming here since the 1800s to plant rare species of flowers and plants because they can thrive in this climate. About 115 acres (46 hectares) of park space surround the town, with contemporary gardens created in the very heart of the city, which is where I was last Friday evening, viewing the “jardins illuminés” (illuminated gardens).

I spent an afternoon checking out Menton last week, and what strikes me as most special about the town is that although it’s on the coast and therefore should be loaded with tourists and little old ladies with tiny dogs, it isn’t, so you can walk through the pedestrian area without having to watch your step.

Menton isn’t quaint per se, but it has an elegant feel that is sometimes lacking in Nice. It is one of the few towns in France where the population is actually getting younger, and it also has a clean feel to the downtown area.

Another thing I like about Menton is its restaurants, at least the ones I’ve tried so far. They are rarely overpriced and I have yet to have a bad meal there, unlike in Nice, which is nearly always overpriced (even my teachers complain about this) and the food and service in Nice can be a bit hit-or-miss.

This year is the 76th Lemon Festival. It runs about three weeks and ends on March 4. The theme this year is “Menton celebrates the Music of the World.” And indeed the night we went everything from African tribal to American country music was being played in different venues in the gardens. My friends and I were delighted; a town that actually encourages music and dancing is a town that we can love.

You should know that my army of friends marches on its stomach and that my friend Gabriela in particular can’t pass a tarte au citron (lemon meringue pie) without wanting a taste.

We stopped at an Italian restaurant across the street from the beach and promenade. This restaurant, called La Tagliatelle, was absolutely fantastic and came complete with two huge Italian waiters. They’re brothers and they look like Mama breast-fed them pasta from the day they were born. Jolly as they were it was the clientele who spoke volumes: La Tagliatelle must be a badly kept secret amongst the Italians as I heard no French, only Italian spoken at all the tables. (Remember, Italy is only a few miles away.) We each had a different pasta and left nothing behind. The tarte au citron was fabulous, but fellow student Andre and I went for Le Colonel, a lemon sorbet topped with lemon vodka topped with a tiny bit of whipped cream. Did I mention that this is why I will never be skinny?

With renewed energy we attacked the night garden event, and five minutes later a big stuffed clown thing (see the picture—your guess is as good as mine) was flirting and dancing with me. “Vous êtes mechant, vous. Arrete!” I said, shaking my finger at him when he tried to touch my bum while we were dancing. Only in France.

Swiftly moving on, we came upon a quite good mariachi band which had us shaking our booties once more. Through the evening we visited (more like frolicked) amongst several other musical venues: country, disco, tango, rock-‘n-roll, etc. The venues themselves were each shaped a bit differently—there was a house, a chateau, a boat, a car, even a ‘moulin rouge’—but they were all composed of lemons and oranges! I must ask the tourist office later this week just how many citrus fruits are actually used in the fabrication of this tiny village-cum-garden.

Open for dégustation throughout were small stands selling some of the best limoncello (sweet digestive liqueur made of lemons) I have ever tasted, and at the far end of the gardens Grand Marnier (makers of the superb orange liqueur) had set up a creperie that was serving warm Grand Marnier and coffee. By this time it was late and we were tired, so we all had a glass of Grand Marnier, tipped it in admiration to the magical music village, and caught the last train back to Nice.

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