Serre de la Madone

Lawrence Johnston, the Englishman who made Hidcote, bought this valley above Menton in 1924 and spent thirty years planting it. The result is not a botanical collection laid out for labels but a garden of rooms: eight terraces linked by stone staircases, with pools, colonnades, statues and cypresses arranged so that each level frames the next one down.

That structure is what makes it photograph well. The stairs give height and leading lines, the pools give reflections and a flat surface in an otherwise green frame, and the stone balustrades and archways give you something architectural to place people against. It is a compact garden, so a session moves between four or five completely different backdrops in half an hour.

The planting is subtropical and evergreen, so it reads full in every season, but spring is when it is at its best — mimosa and early bulbs from February, then the terraces filling out through April and May. Light is filtered under the canopy for most of the day, which is easier to work with than the open coast below.

It is a ticketed garden with restricted opening days, closed periods across the year, and its own conditions for professional photography — check directly before booking a session here. It sits about two kilometres up the valley from the seafront and the road is narrow, so allow driving time.