They shouldn’t thrive here. Yet these stubborn trees—descendants of seedlings brought by Portuguese merchants in the 1500s—still burst with fruit each winter. The municipal gardeners whisper that the sweetest tangerines grow near the old French consulate wall, where exiled writers once tossed their pits. At dusk, the square becomes an open-air salon: retired diplomats debate under the branches, children play football around the trunks, and the last flower seller arranges her jasmine garlands to the sound of pruning shears. The real secret? The trees only yield their full fragrance after the first November rain, when the peel oil mixes with wet cobblestones.
