Val Rahmeh Gardens History
It takes just over an hour to drive to Menton and we arrived at the Val Rahmeh Botanical Gardens around 11 am. The Gardens are now part of ‘The Museum National d’Histoire Naturelle’, but the story begins back in 1905 when Sir Percy Radcliffe began transforming a former agricultural property into a garden. Sir Percy’s full name and title would alarm any socialist, General Sir Percy Pollexfen de Blaquiere Radcliffe, KCB KCMG, DSO.
Sir Percy came from a long line of aristocrats based in the west country. I haven’t been able to find out how they acquired their wealth, but probably through land. He followed his father’s footsteps who had also become a General in the British Army. Sir Percy named the garden after his first wife Rahmeh Theodora Swinburne. Rahmeh means tranquility in Arabic, and the gardens do offer a place calmness as you wander round.
Ratcliffe had purchased the house and land from a local Menton noble family. In 1957 the estate passed on to Miss May Bud Campbell a rich, eccentric English woman who continued to develop the gardens and imported plants from around the world.
Unfortunately Miss Campbell fell into debt and sold the Villa and estate to the state in 1966 and who then entrusted it to National History Museum to manage. The following year the gardens opened to the public.
Our visit to Val Rahmeh
Before we started our tour we bought a coffee from the receptionist who also sold the tickets and audio guide. To buy the audio guide you had to deposit a form of identification. I looked for my driving license in my wallet. It wasn’t there. Immediately I think “what a pain it will be to replace it.”
Maggi hands in her license and we take our coffees and sit on the terrace that overlooks some the gardens and the Mediterranean. I tried to image what life would have been like for General Radcliffe in Edwardian times with his servants living in luxury on the border with Italy. Of course, in Edwardian days the Riviera was a winter resort and the wealthy returned to England in the summer.
Along with the audio guide we acquired a map of the gardens that indicated the places to listen to the guide. You do not move from one formal garden to another, but apart from a couple of tidy landscape areas the place seems wild with trees, ferns, palms which seem to sprout up all over the place without any human guidance.
Maggi and I both enjoyed our tour which took about 90 minutes.
Menton
We made our way down to the coast and parked adjacent to Port de Menton Garavan. At this time of the year parking is free. We walked towards the old town and stopped at the first place we saw that sat next to the beach, La Dolce Vita Plage, which is a nice mixture of French and Italian. All the waiters were Italian and friendly. The place had a nice atmosphere. Maggi and I shared a starter of fried shrimp and calamari which I followed with a pizza, while Maggi chose a spaghetti of 3 tomatoes. The food was all very nice as was the location, right on the beach.
We walked on to the old town and climbed the stairs to the Basilica St Michael. It is quite a climb from the promenade up to the church. We arrived just before 3 pm to find that the church opened its door at 3. We waited and then did the tour.
Obviously Menton had plenty of money in the past from the lavish decorations in the Basilica. A basilica is a church that has been granted special privileges by the Pope. This designation recognizes the historical, artistic, or spiritual significance of the building. Basilicas often serve as places of pilgrimage and hold a place of honour in the Catholic world.
After our short tour of the St Michael’s we descended back to the base of the old town where the tourists flock to buy souvenirs of their brief stay. Maggi bought an ice-cream which I tasted.
We walked back to the car and Maggi drove back to La Colle just in time for the commuter traffic.
