Fête du citron in Menton

So last Sunday I was in Menton for the Fete du Citron. This is one of the strangest things I've seen in France so far (next to vine sachets I guess).

How did I get there?
From Nice you can take a bus number 100 that starts at Promenade des Arts. It's 1.5 euro and it takes about an hour to get there. The biggest advantage of the bus are the great views, as it goes through Villefranche, Monaco, Cap d'Ail. This time we decided to take the train. It's 4 euros, goes from Nice Ville (Gare SNCF, Gare Thiers-the tram stop) and it takes about 30 min to get to Menton.

What is Fete du Citron?
Apparently this is somethig Menton is very famous for. I've never heard about this before. My friend mentioned it to me a few weeks ago saying this is the 'it thing' and I totally had to come. So I did. The whole city was decorated with lemons. They were everywhere. Lemon cake, lemon muffin, lemon brioche, lemon-just-lemon.

                                                        Street in the city centre  

                                            The lemon-just-lemon, but a really huge one

Then we went for lemon parade. It reminded me a lot of carnival in Notting Hill in London. Music, dancers, clowns and the rest of this carnival-ish stuff. Less drinking than in London, but much  more confetti. The one spectacular thing that differs Menton carnival parade from similar events are the enormous lemon-orange sculptures. Absolutely amazing. Lemon-orange panda, snake, dragon and a lot more. The parade started at 2:30 and was about 1.5h long.

                                                  Confetti to the left, fake snow to the right!

                                          Geez, how did she even... ? Outstanding costume.

Later we went to the garden. A bit less hectic with less people, so we finally had a chance to take a closer look at the amazing instalation. We had joint ticket, Corso des fruits + jardin for 15 euros, standing places, you can get seats if you want to, but I like that with the standing ticket you can freely move around, follow the interesitng group if you feel like. My friends pre-booked the tickets, however I got mine in turist office on Sunday and it still was ok, I was a bit scared they would be sold out.  I'm wondering what they're going to do with all the fruit after the carnival. If you know, please leave a comment. Similar parade took place last Sunday and the last one is on 1st March, that is this Sunday, in case you're interested in going.

                           This rat/mouse with white, plastic fingers really freaked me out.

In the garden you can buy lemon souvenirs. There were lemon trees, lemon jam, some other food stuff I didn't quite get, plates, mugs, you can also have a cup of tee, with lemon naturally.

More info: Fete du citron official site

                                                  Always blue sky in Riviera. Hi there!