Today, we are inside the wisteria-clad pergola at Le Clos du Peyronnet and so is Prickle, William Waterfield's little Jack Russell terrier. Prickle is on hand to welcome every visitor to this beautiful garden but at this moment, she's off for a nap...
Wisteria! When the wisteria is in bloom, then you know it's springtime in Menton.
Here you see the glorious wisteria covering the pergola of the Clos du Peyronnet, one of Menton's famous gardens. You can visit but as it's a private garden, you need to make an appointment. Click on the link above to read more and click HERE to read an interview with the owner William Waterfield. This romantic garden - I adore it - has been in the same family for three generations.
Thanks to Virginia who reminded me it is 'wisteria time' with her lovely photographs from Birmingham, Alabama Daily Photo.
The Old Town of Menton is like this - streets go off in all directions, downwards, upwards, under archways, round corners. We're standing on Place du Cap looking towards Rue Ciapietta.
The plastic cover on the left protects the terrace area of La Spaghetto, an Italian restaurant, during inclement weather. Not needed today - Spring is here!
Life goes on, probably much the same as it has for hundreds of years in the medieval village of Gorbio.
Not the usual pretty Menton picture today but the side of a house. And what is painted on it would seem to be a somewhat cross-eyed version of the Mona Lisa in Menton!
We are in Rue Partouneaux, not far from Avenue Boyer and the Jardins Biovès. I just happened to look up. Always look up, you never know what you will find.
It can't have been easy to get up there and paint this, can it?
Sometimes I wonder if there is anything better to eat than thinly sliced tomatoes, liberally covered (read drowned) in olive oil and topped with lashings of chopped basil. Add buffala mozzarella, some crusty wholemeal bread and a glass of Provence rosé - well, that's lunch!
The secret is to use huile d'olive basilique - they sell it in the Huilerie Saint Michel which is the olive oil shop just by the entrance to the Old Town. You only have to remove the cap and you are immersed in the joyous aromas of basil.
For a double whammy of basil, of course you use this oil as well as chopped basil leaves and leave it all to sit for a couple of hours.
This is Gorbio's famous elm tree planted in 1713. It's hollow as you can see and now, after a long cold winter, it's rushing back to life again. Not long and it will be in full leaf.
The reason it's such a happy and healthy tree is because an underground stream runs under the tree and the cobbles that surround it.
I imagine Gorbio will have a big celebration in three years time when the tree will be 300 years old.
At 'Allo Robert' the fun is in exploring, searching, wondering what will be around the next corner. Here you can see just one tiny section. The shop iself is spread out in many different directions and on two floors.
My sort of shop and the owners are SO nice and friendly too. They were closing for lunch and I'd lost the lens hood of my camera. They helped me look, turned on lights that had been turned off, delayed their lunch and then I found it where I'd put it for safety...gracing my forearm like a bracelet. Duh!
I wish someone would give this old horse a home. He's lost a leg but it's there - hanging off the frame. He's waiting...waiting...waiting...
We're back at the brocante shop, 'Allo Robert,' to see a row of old bottles on a windowsill. Through the not too clean window we see a little of Menton's glorious colours.
The smaller photo - taken with flash which I generally don't choose to use - shows more clearly what was once in those bottles.
'A Ricard, anyone?'
She wears red and on either side of her, she has admirers wearing red. I wish she had known...
Today is Theme Day in the City Daily Photo community. To see how around 100 bloggers from around the world have interpreted the theme of 'Red' please Click here to view thumbnails for all participants
And to see The Virgin Mother please click on the link.
Just up the Castellar road from the Nouvelles Galleries is a place of wonders. 'Hello Robert' sells brocante and antiquities.
Once inside, you have to fight your way through furniture, piles of antique leather suitcases, a couple of cars, tables, fairground figures, ancient bicycles, rocking horses galore, old tins, statues, paintings, it never stops and of course it's fabulous.
The ground floor seems to extend forever, most is undercover but at the far end it's open to the elements and that's where you'll find old tiles, decorated pots, garden furniture, bird cages and loads of plants, even a small grotto with running water. Tucked in a corner at the foot of a staircase is this mynah bird who talks but is marginally impolite at times! He also wolf whistles to make you feel beautiful and screeches when you walk up his escalier (stairscase).
In October last year my very special friend, Catherine - who lives in Paris and spends time in Menton - published a photo on Just the Five of Us of these very same padlocks on the bridge in Ventimiglia. Click on the link to see them. See how rusty they've gotten over the winter.
Yesterday, Rob posted a 'link lock' on North Metro Photo, which in turn led me to Valeria at Verona Daily Photo who posted Locks of Love which explains it all!
It seems it all started with a book by Federico Mocca called 'I want you', which was subsequently made into a film. The story was an inspiration to Roman lovers who copied the main characters and wrote their names on padlocks and fixed them to the Ponte Milvio lampposts - and so the idea spread. But there is more and for that you'll have to read this fascinating article in the New York Times.
Isn't it amazing what we learn from our blogging friends? Thanks everyone!
A sure sign of spring in the south of France is Clematis Armandii. It's a very happy plant in this climate and I'm all for happy plants. It originated in central and southern China and was introduced to Europe by Ernest Wilson and named in honour of the French missionary, Père Armand David (1826-1900).
This Clematis Armandii is in the famous Hanbury Gardens at La Mortola, just over the border in Italy. I have one in my garden too but it's taken off and has climbed way, way up into a tree, instead of gently trailing along a fence as it was supposed to do. No matter. I admire it from a distance.
We're back in Ventimiglia today. Remember the old lady eating a bowl of chocolate? Note her reflection in this old Martini advert. In the smaller photo, you see the hills above Ventimiglia.
Just in case you wondered what I was doing in Italy yesterday...
...eating, of course! This was the first course of warm seafood salad. In fact, three of us shared it You can see mussels, octopus and calamari, palourdes (a sort of small clam) and prawns. The big fellow on top is perhaps a langoustine - which seems to translate as a scampi or Dublin Bay prawn.
After this, we all had pasta with Pesto Alla Genovese, so named because it originated in Genoa just along the Ligurian coast from here. Pesto is probably my favourite Italian sauce - made of basil, garlic, Parmigiano-Reggiano and Pecorino cheeses, olive oil and pine nuts. It's traditionally ground with a mortar and pestle - in fact, the word pesto is the past participle of the Italian word for 'to pound or crush.'
You can buy freshly made Pesto Alla Genovese in any market in Ventimiglia or Menton so I confess I never bother to make my own.
It's late afternoon in Ventimiglia. The sun sends a sliver of silver light across the water. We are looking towards Menton and beyond, in the far distance, is Monaco. It's time to go home.
