Mentone in Melbourne named after Menton on the Italian / French border of the Cote d'Azur still reminds me of many wonderful times as a kid. Serendipitous perhaps that our retirement journey starts in the port of Menton. Seazen 6, renamed Cooinda, will be our new home for most of the year/s from July. She is a beautiful boat (Fountaine Pajot Elba 45), and is a very blue water capable boat for our return home to Sydney replete with fantastic memories of family, friends old and new from the voyage home.

I flew to Menton for the all important pre purchase survey that hopefully picks up particularly serious flaws. The surveyor came from Cannes with the price tag to match. we had to take Cooinda to Ventimiglia across the border in Italy as there wasn’t a travel hoist big enough to lift her Menton side of Antibes. The survey and sea trial went off well with only minor issues revealed. The sails look unused and the boat presented as new making the decision easy to proceed. (The sea trial and lift was quick and dirty thus the offensive sail set ).

Menton is a beautiful town having a lot of the charms of the better known towns of the French Riviera but without all the hype and BS. It is famous for it’s citrus , in particular it’s lemon festival (Fete du Citron). Whilst easily accessible by rail or road from Nice, it is unspoilt by tourism despite its beautiful pastel buildings and tasty cuisine that blends wonderfully the fine produce from Provence, the Med and coastal Italy. Being on the Italian border, the locals are a fine mix of both countries with their own dialect and a friendliness not always found on the Riviera.

The authentic old town and of course lovely beaches added to the attractiveness of this place. It has been the home to many famous folk over the years attracted by its fantastic and reputedly restoratitive climate (300+ days of sun annually. People from all over, from London to Moscow, settled here or had summer mansions here . It is for instance the resting place of William Webb-Ellis a former teacher from Lancashire regarded as the creator of rugby as well as a number of the former Russian aristocracy.

I was lucky enough to have a side trip to catch up with Russell and Celine in their lovely home in the attractive village of Biot. We had a great catch up with a good look around the next day of the less hectic and pretty town of Antibes on the coast below Biot.

So after a few days in Menton it was back to Oz to make plans to move aboard in just over a month after my return home.