Last month I spent three weeks on the French Riviera (Côte d’Azur) at Antibes, a delightfully unspoiled little town midway between huge, sprawling Nice and ritzy, glitzy Cannes. From there I was able to take day trips to enjoy the sights and festivals for which the Côte is famous, and I’ll be sharing them with you over the next few months. The series will begin with the 75th annual Citrus Festival in Menton, because it is so colourful and unique.

Menton is a small town of about 30,000 in a valley opening off the Mediterranean right at the Italian border. Like most of the eastern half of what is now the Côte, before becoming officially part of France it belonged for centuries to the Grimaldi family (who today rule only Monaco). Surrounded by 1200m (3900+ ft) foothills, it is shielded from snow and the frigid winds blowing off the Alps. Consequently, it has a micro-climate making it the warmest town in all France, where oranges and lemons have been grown since the 1400s. It has long been a favorite wintering spot for British seniors, and English and Italian are widely used as well as French. For general information, go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/menton .

Beginning in the 1930s as a tiny local imitation of the much larger Carnaval de Nice, it has grown into the second most important event on the Côte, attracting about a quarter million visitors. Every year a new theme is chosen for the Festival: this year it was “Islands”, but in past years it has been “The Sea”, “Transportation”, “India”, and many others. For a couple of weeks during Lent, the large downtown Biovès Park is transformed into the home of huge representations of that year’s theme, each completely covered with oranges and lemons artistically arranged over steel and wire mesh frameworks commissioned by various cities and groups, and professionally built. For more about these frameworks, which take months to prepare, go to www.menton.com/uk/lemons/couliss.htm .

The imagination and creativity of the artists is legendary. In the process they use more than 120 tons of oranges, lemons and – sometimes in the past – grapefruit and limes. For great slide shows of earlier examples, go to www.menton.co/uk/lemons/index.html or www.feteducitron.com/photos-fete-du-citron.html .

I’m only going to show a few of the Park’s static displays today, but there’s much more to see as well. There are afternoon parades (“corsos”) with floats related to the same themes, plus marching bands, clowns, and gorgeous dancing girls from France and abroad. There are also flower shows, and parades under the lights at night, with fireworks. All in all, it’s a fabulous festival! My next article will feature the daytime parades.

If you get the chance to visit the French Riviera in February or early March, by all means avail yourself of one of the transportation-plus-grandstand-seating offers available from bus companies all across the region. Don’t drive yourself – you’ll never find a parking spot.