South Of France - Citrus Festival

February is a beautiful time to visit French Riviera. Blooming of Mimosas, peak of the citrus season and warm temperatures (comparing to the rest of Europe) are good enough reasons to escape the reality.

But our actual reason endeavouring on this trip was to experience the fun of a Citrus Festival. That’s right - a celebration of the citrus harvest.

It is usually organised from mid February - mid March in a little town called Menton, just 40 minute train journey from Nice.

It was actually my mum who mentioned it, so she asked me to do some research and organise our little trip. We went there for 3 days, which is just enough to escape the routine and unwind, but to not fall behind with all the responsibilities (perks of running a small business).

The festival includes many events and activities, it’s easy to follow their program on the website. We organised our trip so that we can see the Golden Citrus Parade and an exhibition of citrus patterns in the beautiful Biovès gardens. There are tickets that can be purchased in advance, but we just queued and got them on-site. The price is about £18 per person, which is quite reasonable as there has been so much work put in to create all the patterns and put on a great show at the carnival.

More than 300 professionals work on the project and 145 tons of citrus fruits are being used.

We stayed in a little apartment through Airbnb. It had an amazing sea view and made our stay very authentic as we were surrounded by local people.
The best part about French Riviera is that it is fairly easy to travel from one city to another by train. We flew into Nice, took a train to Menton and managed to visit Monaco during our stay. It was only 15 minute journey from Menton and it felt quite amazing suddenly being in another country / state.

After checking out from our cosy little flat, we decided to spend a day in Nice, so we can easily make it to the airport. We climbed countless steps up the Castle Hill to reach a waterfall, it was definitely worth it.

If you’re after some sunshine, fresh lemonade and seaside breeze, this is the place to go!