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1/23/14

Tourism France: Menton on the Move - by Lanie Goodman

"Menton is a lovely little town, small and unreal," observed author Katherine Mansfield nearly a century ago, writing of its "colour and movement that make you continually happy". Surprisingly, not all that much has changed since Mansfield wrote her now-famous short stories in her tiny garden villa, Isola Bella, perched on a lush hillside in the sun-drenched neighborhood called Garavan.

East of the enclave of Monaco, sheltered by a circle of mountains at the Italian border, Menton has preserved a certain foreign charm, a combination of ancient Genoese influence and former aristocratic splendor. There's a certain holiday languor in the air, and the dazzling light seems clearer and brighter than in any of the other seaside towns of the Côte d'Azur.

Come sunset, couples flock to the seafront cafés for aperitifs, as the sea turns mauve and orange, and the golden ocher and russet buildings of Menton's Italianate Old Town take on a deeper hue. Small wonder that so many artists—Monet, Renoir, Cocteau, Le Corbusier, Eileen Gray and Graham Sutherland, among others—were drawn to this particular corner of the French Riviera.

Read more: Menton on the Move - France Today

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