Trip to the UK

So time to go back to the UK... Why, you might ask, so soon? Well, there are so many things I miss in the UK: the weather, the lovely food, and so forth.... OK, seriously speaking; I was there for work and of course Mathilde is still stuck in old blighty as well (and to be fair, the pubs are better over there as well ;-)
It was nice to be back in the Farnborough office, so busy and energetic compared to my relatively quiet new professional life over in Nice. And we did pop into London a couple of times, which was very nice. And yes, we did find time to pop into a couple of pubs as well over the week ;-)


On the first weekend we also visited the historic seaside of Portsmouth. We were planning to visit some of the ships, but after seeing the entrance fee of £20 per ship we decided a couple of pictures of them would be enough...




On the second weekend we met up with Mr. Winston Wong and his lovely lady friend in London, with whom we had a nice walk around town, seeing all the tourist attractions (for the nth time)...



And then of course we were treated to some excellent Chinese cuisine in Chinatown.



The trip was rounded off by an excellent thai/chinese meal in Shalford, just down the road from Guildford, with Joanna, Mathilde's if not young, then at least young-at-heart French student.

Visiting Nice

So 3rd weekend in Nice, Mathilde flew over for a visit. We spent the weekend mostly sorting out the flat, and walking around town. Very nice place indeed.



Above, some pictures of Nice port, as well as some free advertisement for a Finnish restaurant ;-)

Road trip on the Cote D'Azur

First weekend for Mathilde on the Cote d'Azur. She definitely picked a nice weekend for it ;-) We spent quite a lot of time sorting out the flat, but found some time to explore the region a little bit.


So we jumped into Francoise's Laguna, and drove down the coast toward Italy, stopping on the way in some of the lovely perched villages of the Riviera, such as Eze (very pretty but oh-so touristy - not sure where all the people live since ever house seems to either be a touristy shop or cafe/restaurant) and Roquebrune (also very pretty and a bit less touristy, pictured on the left).



We stopped for a picnic in Cap Martin, with very nice views towards Menton, the mountains, and Italy. On the way back towards Nice we stopped briefly in Monaco (seen from a bit higher up on the left) for a couple of photos (first impression wasn't that great I have to say - seems to me it's mostly ugly high-rise concrete buildings to me). But anyway - a very nice trip indeed.