This past spring we were on a repositioning cruise of a passenger ship that operates in the south of Spain during the winter and moves up to the Azur coast of France for summer trips to Corsica. We disembarked in Nice and instead of heading directly home we spent a few days there to explore a couple of the destinations that were on our must-see list. The local trains in that area offer an all-day pass for 25€ for the two of us—roundtrip tickets for one city alone would have been 60€—so it was time to discover another part of the country and do it at a bargain price.

Sometimes Bill and I take a rail journey simply for the views along the way rather than for the final destination. That was the case with Le Train des Merveilles (The Train of Wonders) that travels between Nice and Tende in the Alps by the border with Italy. Beginning in the Middle Ages, mules laden with sacks of salt followed the route to deliver this precious commodity from the Mediterranean Sea to as far as Turin. As we made our way through the Mercantour National Park, every turn, and there were many as we climbed from sea level to 1000 meters (3280 feet), revealed another mountain top view with a village clinging to its side contrasted with plunging valleys carved by glacial rivers some of which we could see below. It’s only a 2-hour trip to the top and as you can see from the photos directly below, well worth the time.

It was only a half-hour ride to our second day trip and we got off at the Menton-Garavan station to start the morning at the beautiful Val Rahmeh botanical gardens (entrance photo in first paragraph) known for its subtropical microclimate. In the gallery below you can see some of the plants that were in bloom but oddly we didn’t spot Menton’s most famous product: lemons. No problem since later in the day we stopped into the Herbin Confiturerie where you can taste at least a dozen of their jams and see the process of turning citrus into a tasty spread.

Although the castle was long ago destroyed, its cemetery remains an ideal vantage point well above the city below. Today’s featured photo across the top of this post was taken from there. Luckily the rest of the day was all literally downhill as we descended first to the Baroque cathedral and continued down to the sea where the walkway Promenade du Soleil began.

What’s for lunch? We could have picked up something at the Art Nouveau covered market Les Halles but we were on the lookout for Menton’s speciality: Pichade Mentonnaise. It’s a cheese-less relative of Italian pizza, with a tomato and onion sauce spread thinly over dough, topped with olives and anchovies and baked in a very hot oven.

On the way back to the station for the short return ride to Nice we stopped to see Menton’s City Hall, framed by a tropical garden in front and inside featuring a wedding hall decorated by French artist Jean Cocteau.