We Explored the Pearl of the French Riviera – Menton Travel Guide

Join us as we explore the stunning coastal town of Menton, tucked between the French Riviera and the Italian border. Known for its colorful old town, citrus heritage, and elegant seaside charm, Menton offers the perfect mix of French beauty and Italian flavor.

In this vlog, we wander through Menton’s charming streets, soak in its breathtaking architecture, relax by the beach, and dive into its lively local food market. From fresh produce to Italian-inspired dishes, the culinary scene here is unforgettable. Expect plenty of delicious local food and a focus on the region’s unique Italian-influenced cuisine.

Whether you’re planning a trip or just dreaming of the south of France, this video will show you why Menton should absolutely be on your radar.

🎥 Don’t forget to like, comment, and subscribe for more travel content from beautiful destinations around the world!

Tours worth doing in Menton:
Exclusive Food Tour in Menton -3 hours- small group: https://getyourguide.tp.st/mJcSokEI

﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌
OUR ACCOMMODATION – https://booking.tp.st/56HGSmJR

﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌
DISCOUNTS FOR YOU

🎞️ Music and stock footage we use — https://artlist.io/referral/6116552/Horia
🩺 Travel Insurance — https://bit.ly/3JRRbEZ
🌎 Express VPN — https://www.expressrefer.com/refer-a-friend/30-days-free?referrer_id=88711126&utm_campaign=referrals&utm_medium=copy_link&utm_source=referral_dashboard

﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌
SUPPORT OUR CHANNEL

Want to help us make more videos like this, only better? Here’s how you can do this:
Buy us a coffee — https://buymeacoffee.com/goneagain

﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌
AMAZON STOREFRONT

https://amzn.to/4dD9Phx

﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌
LET’S CONNECT

□ SUBSCRIBE to our YouTube – https://bit.ly/4ae5kaa
□ Laura’s Instagram: https://bit.ly/3JVAF6U
□ Horia’s Instagram: https://bit.ly/4b6RE1U
□ Our Instagram: https://bit.ly/3PPyqVy
□ Email us: goneagaincreative@outlook.com

﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌
CHAPTERS

00:00 Intro
00:33 The Main Promenade
03:46 Menton’s Famous Lemons
07:13 Views of the Port
11:06 Dinner and Discovering the Old Town
14:22 Sunrise
17:10 Menton’s Food Market
22:13 The Gorgeous Old Town
25:53 The Botanical Garden
29:12 Gelato at the Beach
30:43 Apartment Tour
33:30 Evening Walk and Amazing Pizzza

Hello guys and welcome to Menton. Now this is a French town that borders Italy. It’s the first city as you come from Italy on the Ligurian side. It’s a beautiful town if you wanna come and lay in the sun, it has a beautiful beach. And more importantly, it has stunning houses, very colorful, beautiful architecture. And it’s very vibrant and tropical. And it has all the perks of being in the south of France and close to Provence with some of the best Italian food actually. Yeah, it’s a combination of Provence and Ligurian dishes. We are starting this vlog on the Promenade, which is kind of one of the main attractions in Menton. And it’s a bit of a windy day, but it’s very pleasant. I mean, for the first of April, I think it’s a fantastic day. Is it warm enough for me to wear a T-shirt? Probably not. Yes, but you are wearing a T-shirt. Nonetheless. I thought, listen, I packed these with me. I’m gonna wear them. We’ll be spending the next four nights here in Menton We’ll be shooting a video based solely here in Menton. And then a couple more with some day trips around because the beauty of this town partially lies in the fact that it’s so well connected by train to so many other towns in the south of France, such as Monte Carlo or Cannes and so on. So we’ll definitely be exploring some of the other towns around here. But right now, seeing as our train again was a bit delayed getting into Menton, we are gonna go get a late lunch. So another aspect of Menton compared to other towns in the area is that it does have a lot of very rich history. It has this very beautiful new part here of the town with these incredible buildings with provincial architecture. But it also has a beautiful old town, which is exactly where we’ll be heading next. Look how big this beach is, how wide it is. And it’s a combination of sand with pebbles, whereas most of the southern French beaches are pebbles, like nice and so on. So it’s kind of a combo. And the thing that I love the most is the flora, the plants. I don’t know, the palm trees, the cacti. It’s so beautiful. No matter how beautiful this town is, it’s still a very dangerous one. It’s very risky to walk down these streets because so far, anytime we’re trying to cross the street on pedestrian crossings, just nobody seems to stop. You really have to push through. It’s not as bad as Southeast Asia, but it’s close to it. Yeah, we keep trying to make eye contact with the drivers and they ignore us and they just don’t give us priority on the pedestrian crossings. Menton is known for their lemons. It’s said that it has the best lemons in Europe. And look at these huge and juicy lemons behind us. These are some of the biggest that I’ve ever seen in my life. The only ones that’s slightly compared to them, but they’re definitely not as big are the Amalfi ones. They look like pears. They sell lemonade. Maybe we can get a glass. There’s a whole tradition and a whole culture of the lemon here. We’re supposed to get some lemon tarts from the Patisseries here. And also there’s a lemon festival. We’re not here for the right season of that, but yeah, everything lemons. Yeah, and apparently the lemons are very good because it’s a microclimate in this area. Yeah, similar to the basil in Genoa. Yes, yes. Where are you going for all microclimates this year. They have different types of lemon, different breeds, I don’t know. So yeah, we bought one of these lemonade glasses. So you tasted the peel as well of the lemon. And it was better than the lemon, right? Yeah, it was better than the lemon, honestly. I mean, the lemon was quite sour, but the peel was absolutely delicious. It was very juicy. It’s the best lemonade I’ve ever had. Is this the best lemonade you’ve ever had? Yeah. It tastes of honey as well. And it’s not tart at all, it’s not… Yeah, it doesn’t make you… Yeah, you don’t, I know what you mean. Hey, we’re foreign, okay? Bear with us. We’re trying to figure out the word. It’s not… Sour? Sour at all, yeah. Cactus petite. The childhood Laura would have loved these cacti. I was obsessed with cacti at some point. Do you think that phaze just faded or…? Yeah, I still like them, but I was obsessed. I would spend my whole allowance on cacti when I was little. That’s so funny. I don’t know, weird obsession. The local craft shops here and the souvenir shops are probably some of the most tasteful that I’ve ever seen in my life in any town, any touristy town ever. They are touristy, yet… Very cool, very cool. Very local as well. You know, I don’t really wanna normally jump into these souvenir shops, whatever we travel with here. I feel like I would buy everything. They have way too much bread now. So we came here for a walk on the beach and we’re on this strip of land and right behind us is this beautiful view of the town. This is the main church of Menton and also on my right side we have the harbor. It’s honestly so peaceful here. It’s so quiet. So many families with their dogs and their kids walking around. It’s beautiful. And it’s closing into sunset now so it’s a perfect light. So if you want to get a photo of the town, you would want to get that in the morning when the sun shines from the opposite side and illuminates the town. Also fun fact Mentonn is I think one of the sunniest places in Europe. It’s like 300 days per year sun. You have to have really bad luck to come here and for it to be rainy. Also Menton is called the jewel of France and I can see why. So you want to move here now? Yes I do. We’re just talking about how nice it smells on the street. Yeah it’s so clean and so calm and peaceful. There’s many shops that sell lavender soaps and lemon soaps and just everywhere you walk it just smells really really nice. And we stopped by a local wine dealer and we got a couple of bottles of wine. Oh this is the beer. This is the wine actually. And Laura is carrying my three local craft beers. They had at least 20 different kinds of beers made here locally. It’s just something about buying local stuff. I always like that. Especially when you travel somewhere new rather than going to a supermarket and getting a Heineken. Laura is impressed with the local tomatoes. I miss some good tomatoes because in London you can’t get any. The cardboard ones. Look at that. I really didn’t feel like having tomatoes but now I really want them. I really want them. Blue cheese and pancetta. Let’s freaking go. Bring them out. No way we’re not getting those. There’s the Camembert one too. We are just getting home and I wanted to show you what the entrance to the building that we’re staying in looks like. This is just a normal apartment. Just have a look at the entrance in our building. Please. We are now right next to Jardins Biovés. You can see mandarin trees lined up either side of this beautiful garden. Palm trees as well. So this is the space where they usually hold the lemon festival. Every February there’s a huge lemon festival. Huge I mean actual like think Rio type of grandeur. Incidentally not only this but you’ll see in Menton, so many places, buildings like this. Look how beautiful this is. These are all three star hotels which is so interesting. We’ve seen at least three or four really beautiful buildings with three star hotels. These are not cheap. Like a room there is like 200 euros. The standard is higher here for stars. Yeah, maybe. Look at this small. This looks like a fairy tale. Small square. Oh my god. That’s amazing. It’s so quiet around here when it’s not full season. We saw this orange / mandarin tree. It has fruit and flowers in bloom as well and it smells incredible. And there’s two doves as well here. This is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. There’s a lot of walking today. I mean compared to other days. Not so much, but yeah. I’m having a red beer, a local one and Laura’s having some white wine. Yeah, local white wine as well. They’ve got really good stuff in this area. Starting with food and then drinks. And if you go to the supermarket the fruit looks amazing and the vegetables as well. So I’m trying the chips with blue cheese and pancetta. They’re really good. You can’t really taste the pancetta but it’s very much blue cheesy. Oh, I love blue cheese. Cheers. Cheers. I can’t wait to wake up at 6.30 and go out running. Yeah, sure. Challenge accepted. It is very blue cheesy. I like it. Okay, it’s 6.45 in the morning. Sunrise is just after 7. Let’s go out for a run and see what it looks like. You’ve got to love the fact that it’s not even 7 in the morning and there’s already people in the Boulangeries buying their croissants and their breads for the day. So I’ve been running for about 15 minutes. Sunrise is starting to actually creep up, but I realized that if I keep running for another five minutes, I’ll get to Italy. And as ridiculous as that sounds, it’s actually true. So let’s go check out sunrise in Italy. All right, we made it guys. That’s the Italian flag. We made it past the border. So right now it’s about 7:05, maybe 7:10. Absolutely beautiful sunrise. Look how beautiful it is. The way the morning light shines on these buildings. That is the church bell you see up there. This is so beautiful. Honestly, these colors and this light, there we go, Sunrise is here. So that is our first stop this morning. We’re coming to this food market here. Every kind of big-ish town in France has one of those. But now I see that it’s kind of starting raining. I hope this is not gonna keep going for the rest of the day. I’m almost home, but on the way home there is a really cool bakery I’m gonna stop by and get some treats. All right, success achieved. Not the bakery I initially wanted, but the one that was meant to be, I guess. So the bakery right behind us is the one that I told you. I think it’s owned by the guy who has the three Michelin star restaurant. But yeah, so far a load of stalls with loads of cheeses. Fresh fish and fresh seafood as well, yeah. They look incredible. And you can buy loads of stuff to cook at home. They’ve got produce as well. And they have a lot of wine and obviously, well, not Prosecco, but like the local champagne or whatever, yeah. Sparkling wine, yeah. Are you hungry? Not really, but I wanna taste something, maybe something local. I think we should have some nibbles, maybe. These are all pates here. Didn’t know there are so many types of pate. So I got two very thin slices of the smoked tuna. Two very thin ones, like just to taste. It’s just a bit over 4 euros. It’s 13 euros for 100 grams. It better be good, it better be so good. We’re just gonna buy a few things and probably head out somewhere and eat on the side of the beach or I don’t know. So we bought some stuff. We got some cheese, some salami, pretzel and a can of wine as well. And we’re gonna have this sort of outdoors brunch situation but there’s a few raindrops and it’s a bit chilly right now. 300 and something days of sun in Menton and this is what we end up with. It’s a bit overcast. Hopefully it passes soon. Doves are gone. This is the most beautiful tree I’ve ever seen. Found this fairly secluded bench and we’re gonna have our brunch. So we bought a few different things from the market. I was drawn to this tuna salad with samphire and chickpeas and tomato. Very lemony. Good. Is it good? Mm-hmm. I think this whole thing was about 6 euros I think. Actually quite affordable considering it’s tuna steak. High quality, yeah. Next up we got two small slices of smoked tuna with pepper. So one of those slices is 2 euros. Okay. It’s really good. It’s a bit salty so you have to have it with – pair it with something else. Oh man. Good. I think it’s worth it. It’s like tuna jerky. Mm-hmm. With olives. Jesus, how do you even? You have to work for it. But the taste? Mm-hmm. And so much olive oil. This is the traditional French quiche Lorraine. Not sure if I pronounced it correctly. It’s eggs with creme fraiche or heavy cream and bacon or pancetta or something. And the pastry obviously. It’s basically mildly solid carbonara in a pastry. Okay, sounds good. Instead of pasta. Last up – almost. This is the smoked goat cheese. It was recommended by the staff and we are pairing it with some salami with mushroom. That looks really nice. Very creamy. It has the texture of camembert. This is so good. This is my favorite salami ever. I mean, I’m not the connoisseur, but. Between this one and Tuscan finocchione, the one with fennel. That one, huh? So good. Imagine pizza with that. Mm, oh my God. Smoked a bit as well. Nice. Okay, we also got some vino, white wine from Nantes. Yeah. It’s dry. And a red one. Sometimes having this type of food instead of sitting down in a restaurant, I kind of like it more. And with this setup as well. It’s really beautiful here. The last thing is dessert. And we have a local pastry. This is a lemon tart, which I’m not fond of. I don’t like lemons in my dessert. You gotta love them here. The local delicacy. The batter, it’s very good. It’s just the filling with the lemon that I don’t like. I’m mildly, afraid of this seagull that’s stalking us. This is delicious. I like the batter. It’s very biscuity. Yeah. It’s like a cheesecake batter. We came up the stairs at the Basilique Saint-Michel. Now this is a 400-year-old church. And this is a great example of Baroque architecture. Apparently the bottom of the stairs where you can have a beautiful view of the church became very popular. There are a lot of tourists here taking photos. And yeah, I didn’t know it was that popular. Somehow the little square here at the top of the hill, not so much. No, no, just yeah, at the bottom of the stairs where you can have the beautiful view. What a viewpoint, huh? There’s clear skies where the sea is. And you can also see the church from here. And the marina. And it smells so nice because of this. I don’t know what kind of tree this is. Flower plant. It is a purple one. Okay, yeah. We found this beautiful viewpoint. It’s named Point de Vue-au-Port. Something like that. And yeah, we found that from Chat gpt. that this is actually a wisteria plant. It’s very common in the Mediterranean space. It smells so nice. From this point on, it’s not such a steep climb anymore. Got another 10 minutes to walk or something like that. We’re getting to one of the many Jardines. Exotique. Exotique Botanique, available here in Menton. There’s quite a few up here on this hill. There’s a few more outside of the town as well. So this one’s fairly accessible to us next. So we’re just gonna walk there. I think there might be a small entrance fee too, but it’s supposedly very, very beautiful. So up until 1860, Menton was part of the Kingdom of Sardinia. That was before Italy even existed, before it was united. But a very large majority of the population wanted to be under France for tax purposes, for commerce and so on. So in order for Italy to be able to unite all the kingdoms, France said they would support the union as long as they get Menton and Nice in this whole area under France. So since then, Menton has been actually part of France. Before that, it was very much Italian. And I feel like it is so cool that there is this one place where you can find really good Italian food for lunch and dinner, and really amazing boulangeries for breakfast. And wine. And wine, exactly. It’s like the best of both worlds. This is the way that leads to the botanical garden. Don’t really know what to expect, so let’s see. Initially the alleyway that led to the garden was very, unassuming, but this is actually incredible, now that we’re here. Looks like a tarantula. Right, looks like spider feet. What if it moves now? Let’s go in. It’s 8 euros a person. I’m not sure how big this space is, but this house is amazing. This is the ticket office. I never knew poppies came in so many colors. I thought they were just red, these are beautiful. This orange is beautiful. Looks like pomelo or something. What is that? Does anyone know? It’s forbidden fruit. Can I touch them? I’m sure you can. Oh, look at the size of it. Oh, it smells so citrusy. Oh my God. It smells sweet. Sweet, yeah, sweet smell. That was a cute walk. If you’re into plants, definitely come here. Well, this is one of the main attractions in Menton. Not this garden specifically, but just generally the vegetation here. Very exotic. The vegetation is the destination. It’s food, architecture and vegetation kind of. This is really Menton in a nutshell, but really cool spot. I mean, it’s not super affordable, but it only takes up, let’s say about an hour of your time. Roughly. We went through it a little bit quicker. Because we’re tired. Yes, because we are tired and we, honestly, this is our only final full day here in Menton. We’ve been slightly unlucky with the weather today. Although the forecast was actually looking great for today. Yeah, it was reupposed to be sunny and 19 degrees. However, we have been lied to. Normally we’d be a lot more outdoorsy and like to. We had a plan to go at a. Sort of like a rooftop restaurant up on the hill, but that’s not gonna happen because it’s way too windy now, unfortunately. We had a light lunch and we just came on the beach and it’s finally sunny. I’m so happy, but now I’m exhausted as well. We were literally just about to go home for a bit and chill because it was so nasty outside. And then as we sat and had just a tiny bit of food, this happened. I got some artisanal gelato from the best place in town. Pistachio. One of the best ones we’ve had. Not the best necessarily, but one of the best ones. And this is, I only tried this because it’s Menton and it’s lemon-ish, it’s lemon. Cheesecake. Yeah, lemon cheesecake. It looks really cool too. Like the texture looks really cool. Because it’s cheesecake, it has the biscuit base as well. It’s slightly too sweet for what lemon should be, but it’s very good. Oh, finally a bit of sun, honestly. We were just saying how Montan has 300-ish days of sun a year, right? And we got one of the few ones that isn’t. Yeah. But it’s all good now. It feels like everyone was just waiting for the sun to come out. This is so nice. There’s people here just chilling in the sun. There’s actually people getting some tan. Really nice spot. And you can see the whole promenade from here all the way to the neighboring village, really. Yeah. Welcome to our humble abode. We just arrived to Menton. We took the train from Genoa. It was around three hours just because we had a few delays. And yeah, we’re so excited. We just arrived to this beautiful apartment. And let’s do an apartment tour. Okay, so this is the living room slash kitchen. It is tiny, but very modern and very clean. So this is the kitchen side. Yeah, here we have a washing machine, which is useful. We have a small fridge over here. And also we have some coffee pods with a coffee maker as well. Oh, cool. Which is cool, yeah, because we have coffee. The microwave, the oven. We also have a bin-venue, a gift, something. I don’t know what this is. Let’s open it. And a tiny tiny TV. Oh, so we can wash our dishes. Oh, I swear. That’s such a beautiful gift. I was hoping for something sweet. I was like, oh, cool. Some patisserie stuff. No, it was just for you to wash the dishes. Oh, at least we know they’re new. Yeah, yeah. And look at this view. We have a balcony. So this is one of two balconies. Two balconies, yes. So this one has a small table with, it’s kind of loud now, with chairs and a beautiful view of the beach. On this side, and then we have mountains on this side, and really beautiful buildings. It looks like a quiet street. Oh you, I didn’t show us the lizard. I don’t know. Interesting touch. This is the bathroom. It’s again, very clean. I like the shower. The shower is quite large, and a lot of storage space above the sink as well. And now we have a bohemian bedroom. Really cute, spacious. Hey, you have a vanity table kind of. I have a vanity table, and we have a bit of storage space here as well. Which is good. Yeah? I think you can see the seaside even better from this balcony. Look at that. It’s actually quite big, this balcony. Yeah. The accommodation isn’t that affordable in Menton, especially if you want a good central position here. Also, there’s not that many apartments to begin with. We did book this maybe like three months ago. So we did actually take the time. I think we paid about 80 pounds per night. Yeah, so I feel like this location is kind of ideal because we have the beach one minute away and five minutes away, there’s a train station. So if you have heavy luggage, I recommend staying in this part because a lot of Menton is hilly, and you don’t want to go with your luggage on those hills. Exactly. All right, now let’s go back to the vlog. We are off to dinner. We are on the promenade of Menton. And normally these terraces on the beach side will be full of people in the summer. This definitely is one of the most relaxing places we’ve ever been to. As far as resort towns go. And it’s quite entertaining as well, even though it’s small and relaxing, it’s, you don’t get bored. Night two, and the doves are back here again. And they’re snuggling up. Look at them. It’s so cute, under the oranges and beneath the flowers and it smells so nice. Oh my God. So we’ve actually over time been to many Mediterranean spots. And I have to say Menton is one of my favorites now. It’s such a cool, chilled, relaxed, beautiful vibe. Yeah, very family friendly, safe place, a lot of dogs, beautiful weather, like except for today, but it’s still nice. I mean, it was nice today as well, a bit cloudy. But if you come here during summer, you can just relax on the beach. And there’s so many spots where you can have drinks and food on the side of the sea. The promenade is beautiful and it’s so quiet. I just love the vibe here. Also one of the things that I like about Menton is that it is a wealthy town. You don’t see any opulent yachts and it has such good taste. We hope you enjoyed this vlog from Menton and don’t forget to like this video and subscribe to our channel. And we’ll definitely see you in the next video.