Weekend in Rome

Visited Rome this weekend, as it is only about 1 hour's flight from Nice. The trip went quite smoothly, until we had to get from the airport to our hotel. Of course we decided to save a little bit of money and use the famous (for all the wrong reasons) Roman public transport system. To cut a long story short, we ended up being driven from the train station to our hotel in an old banger driven by a half-blind geezer, and naturally ended up paying about the same price as we would've had we just taken the taxi directly from the airport.





The rest of the evening was equally interesting, our hotel reminded me of where I stayed in St. Petersburgh before it was called St. Petersburgh (that's right - from the communist era), and the neighbourhood and the "atmospheric local restaurant" (I'm being ironic here) where we had our dinner were in the same mold, so to speak. (OK, so I'm exaggerating the misery a bit here ;-)

Visiting Rome itself was pretty amazing, I guess you'd struggle to find a ciy with so many historic sites to visit. We saw most of the famous sights during a very energetic day spent walking, like the Spanish Stairs, Piazza Navona, Fontana di Trevi, the Colosseum, Roman Forum, etc., had some very nice meals and enjoyed some very nice weather.


The sunday was somewhat less energetic, although we did have time to take in the Villa Borghese museum and park, as well as Santa Maria Maggiore (which dates back to the 5th century).

Visiting Petite Afrique

Time for this weekend's walk. After the previous day's strenuous activities, we decided to do a short walk near Nice, to Petite Afrique (Little Africa) from Beaulieu-sur-Mer. The area is so called because it has a micro-climat resembling that of Africa, which means that there are numerous plants and trees that cannot be found elsewhere in France (me, being a bit useless with this type of thing, couldn't of course spot any).
But, as always, the views were nice and we once more saw loads of posh houses...

More Finns moving to the Riviera!

Some months ago, my parents decided that putting up with the freezing cold of the Finnish winter (although judging by this one, snow and cold seems to be a thing of the past...) just isn't worth it, so the obvious choice would be to move south! And by accident (I'm sure ;-) they ended up moving about 20 kilometres from Nice, in Antibes!


So having driven through Germany and France in my brother's Volkswagen minibus, filled with furniture and even some of my things, they finally arrived today.
After an interesting day spent mostly at Carrefour buying all the necessities for the flat, we had a nice dinner in the old town, and took the TGV back to Nice...

Walking up to the Fort de la Revere

We decided to be even more ambitious today than the day before (when we walked up to Mont Boron), and walk all the way up Fort de la Revere, situated at the somewhat more respectable height of 696 meters.
The walk began at the dramatically located perched village of Eze (pictured left), one of the prettiest villages on the Cote d'Azur (unfortunately, it seems that about every 2nd house in the village is a restaurant or tourist shop).


After a steep and rather strenuous walk we finally made it up to the fort (which dates back to 1870), which we could not visit, unfortunately. But anyway, we had some pretty nice views from there over the Riviera, as well as the other way towards the Alps.

Above, the fort. To the right, Mathilde enjoying a picnic beneath the fort. And finally, below, the view towards the Alps.

Climbing up Mont Boron

We made the bold decision to take on the daunting task of scaling the heights of Mont Boron, situated between the port of Nice and Villefranche sur Mer. Well, to be perfectly honest, considering the summit is at a less-than impressive height of 191 meters, I suppose daunting task is a bit of an exaggeration ;-)
But anyway, the views over Villefranche and Nice were very nice indeed. And as always it seems on the Cote d'Azur, we were greeted with some rather impressive villas during the walk, and to add some spice to the walk I forgot our map somewhere along the way (fortunately, finding our way back was pretty straightforward!)

Walking around Cap Martin

We went for a walk with Katja and Jani around Cap Martin, just next to Menton. It's a very pretty peninsula, if shall we say somewhat exclusive, judging from some (well, nearly all) the houses we saw on the walk. But very beautiful, with great views towards Menton and the Italian alps on the one side, and towards Monaco on the other side.

Night out in Cannes

Decided to hop on the train from work, to meet Isabelle and her friend, as well as Katja, Jani and Mathilde in Cannes for some drinks and a nice meal.
Before the meal we did have some time to visit Cannes. We walked down the Croisette, the famous beach boulevard, past the Palais de Festivales (where the Cannes film festival takes place).
We also went the Allee des Stars, where you get the handprints of various more famous (Joel Coen, Bruce Willis, to give an example) and less famous (Chuck Norris, to give an example, and also see picture below ;-) persons.


Then we walked up through the old time to a nice church at the top of town, from where we had a really nice view overlooking the coast.


Having explored the town, we went on to explore the bars (which disappointingly there didn't seem to be many of!) and restaurants (of which there are many!) of the old town. We ended up having a very nice dinner in a restaurant where apparently Sophie Marceau (who starred, in addition to numerous French films, in for example Braveheart as well as The World is not Enough) had also dined during the festival (very nice lady apparently).

Walking around Cap Ferrat

The weather was very nice, and since Nick was still staying with us after the new year's festivities, we decided to have a walk around Cap Ferrat, a nice little peninsula located between the seaside towns Villefrance-sur-Mer and Beaulieu-sur-Mer.



Nick, having a well-deserved coffee in a cozy cafe in Saint Jean Cap Ferrat, after our strenuous walk.

New year on the riviera!

After the dark and snowless christmas spent in Finland, we decided that Nice would be a better venue for celebrating new year. Quite a big group turned up for the festivites in the end, including Jani & Katja from Finland, and quite a big bunch of people from Guildford. Not to mention some locals as well...
Although judging from the picture on the left, I'm not sure the party was a gret success ;-)




On new years day, some of the brave (foolish?) ones of us (actually only me and Nick) decided to participate in the "Traditional Nice New Year's Day Swim". (strangely enough, we seemed to be the only ones doing it??).
Taking a swim in january might seem like quite a strange idea, but actually I think it's about the same as taking a swim in Finland in june, so not too
bad really!


The rest of the day we spent exploring the streets of Nice in the glorious sunshine. We also climed up to the Nice Chateau, and were rewarded with some nice views over Nice, as the sun was setting...