Menton lemon festival - fête du citron 2013

EDIT: I accidentally deleted this post, but have managed to recover it. More or less. So, if you think you've seen this before, you have...

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I wrote this post on Sunday last week. Technical difficulties have meant I can't post it til now. I see no reason to let that stop me actually using it now, so here you go... 

  So. The sun didn't last after all. Your intrepid author didn't let that stop her, though, because today, my friends, is lemon day.

Each year, Menton hosts a festival of lemons and oranges.

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This year is the 80th anniversary of the festival, and it's as brilliant as I remembered. Sadly, I forgot my camera in Paris, so you'll have to make do with phone-photos. Note the grey sky- the thunder started just as we got on the train to Nice, and by the time we got off, the rain was torrential!

Birthday cake!

As this is the 80th anniversary, the theme of this year's festival is Around the World in 80 Days. Places around the world, and methods of transport feature heavily.

House of cards:

Big Ben:

Trains:

Hot air balloon:

A wolf in the frozen snow. (No, I don't remember that bit in the story either...)

The Statue of Liberty. (Her torch lit up when the clouds got heavier. Light sensitive citrus fruit statues. Awesome.)

I think we then moved on to China:

And then to India:

Then, we travel by boat:

And, lastly, we move into the Middle East:

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Menton rehabilitated

OK, so, Menton has never been my favourite place on the Riviera. But my last trip kind of made me nearly like it. In the sunshine, it's almost nice - perhaps this is by comparison to Nice, which really isn't...

Anyway, some pictures, so you can see some of the pretty bits. (More can be found here, if you're interested.)

Coffee in the sunshine:


Possibly the worst shop name I've ever seen:


Flesh-eating fish (For real, this time - it's their job):


Old town in Menton :


Reflections:


The sea, obviously:


The aftermath of lunch:


In Menton old town:


The church:

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Weekend round-up

Weekends are, it appears, unlikely to get blog updates. I'm sure this tears at your hearts with the pain of a thousand dying stars, but I expect you'll learn to cope somehow.

There, that didn't take long, did it?

Friday, I may or may not have written here- I think that might have been my day of stating the fucking obvious, where I told you how buses work. See what happens when you start to run out of inspiration? (In my defence, the sheer number of totally bewildered tourists I see daily leads me to suspect that either it's not as easy as it looks, or we get all the stupid people. I doubt it's the latter, though I'm open to persuasion.)

We went for drinks with friends in the evening on the terrace, ate dinner and watched the sun set and that was Friday.

Saturday, it rained. It's been raining a lot this week - at all is a lot, if you ask me. It's August for crying out loud. I wrote a couple of thousand words on my new story, having woken up early again, and then we went to Antibes, because Nice is depressing in the rain. Antibes is better, though trying to find a bus stop in the rain where there are lots of busy roads all intersecting each other is not recommended. If you have an umbrella, it might be bearable, I suppose... The rain got heavier, and trying to get from the bus station to our house was just nasty. I boycotted the rest of the day.

Sunday was much better. We had breakfast at a cafe on the seafront, went to Cap d'Ail and Eze and walked along the beach, ate sushi in sun in Place Garibaldi, and had dinner out on the now-dry terrace.

Yesterday was a public holiday in Monaco, for some religious thing. So we took advantage of the continuing sunshine and went to Menton. Despite my standing objection to Menton, it's nice enough in the sun. I'm slowly warming to the place, though I still wouldn't want to live there. Photos will follow, at some point, as usual.

Today is sunny, I have orders to fill, food shopping to do, and that's about it. I think I shall spend the afternoon lying in the sun on the terrace. Maybe I'll brave the beach and go swimming, even. How strenuous...

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Lemon Festival - Part 2: the parade

Apart from the idiocy of people and their apparent inability to stand in a line to watch a parade go past, I loved this. (When I rule the world, though, snipers will be stationed at parades to look for people pushing in front. Particularly you tall people who push in front. Don't say I didn't warn you...)

Photos:

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