Moving to Cagnes-sur-Mer

After 10 great months in Nice, it’s time to finally move on… Mathilde is going to start working in Sophia Antipolis, so the commute would just be too long…

We decided upon a nice little town between Nice and Antibes called Cagnes-sur-Mer. That way, both of us have a reasonably short commute, and we’re still close to Nice, and still by the sea ;-). We found a nice flat right in the centre, in a newly completed building, for a pretty reasonable price (well, reasonable for this part of the world, anyway…).




After the usual administrative hassle that seems to be required for almost anything in France (needed to get proof that you are steadily employed, insurance, two guarantors etc) – we were finally set to move! So we got up early Wednesday morning, drove down to Cagnes, and picked up the rental van. We had enlisted the help of Hannu, Sami and Mikko (my trusty compatriots here on the Riviera) for the evening, but optimistically figured we could easily do a couple of van-loads during the day, and only leave the trickiest and heaviest things to the evening.


Wrong… Put it like this, 3 van-loads (as well as a few beers and pizzas) later, about midnight, we still hadn’t managed to empty the flat. At least, thanks to the help of the guys, we had managed to move all the heavy stuff).







So Thursday turned out to be a day of hard work as well, as I drove between Nice and Cagnes with my parents Scenic packed to the roof with boxes, bags and odd bits of furniture (it’s actually amazing how much you can squeeze into that car) while Mathilde was packing the last boxes and cleaning up the flat. But, by midnight, we were finished!

Of course the work was still not finished – the next few days (the first two without electricity) we had to unpack everything, install the washing machine (at times some nasty thoughts involving guns and whoever designed the bloody kitchen came to my mind – that bloody thing took hours to get into place), get a fridge changed (it mysteriously stopped working after the move…) etc. But we got there in the end!

Meeting Sandrine & Carl in Hyeres

We knew that Sandrine (a good friend of ours from our years in the UK) was visiting Hyeres (where she's from) with her boyfriend Carl, and finally managed to get in touch with her - and decided to drive down to meet them in Hyeres (or Hyeres-les-Palmiers as its full name is - quite appropriately).



So we jumped into the car, and drove down the Provencal (the A8 motorway, which goes from the Italian border, through the Cote d'Azur, to Aix-en-Provence) towards Hyeres. A mere hour and a half later, we arrived (we were expecting worse, as it looked sooo far on the map...). We headed down to the port with Sandrine's mum, where there was a market (reminded me a bit of the Brick Lane market in London, except that we were surrounded by palm trees instead of Cockneys and Mockneys ;-). Having had a look at everything from 2nd hand books, cheap clothes to local farm products - we headed down to the beach. After a very nice lunch, we relaxed on the beach for a couple of hours.



Beach life at Hyeres is quite different from around Nice (better, you could say), as the beach is much better (sand instead of pebbles!), less crowded and somehow more chilled out (with relaxed bars and restaurants by the beach). It felt a bit more like Spain than the Cote d'Azur, somehow... (in a positive way)



Having roasted ourselves in the sun for a couple of hours, we headed for the Giens peninsula - a really beautiful, peaceful place, from where you have some great views over Porquerolles (one of the islands near Hyeres) as well as Hyeres. After relaxing there for a while it was unfortunately time to get into the car and head back for Nice. We'll be back for sure - maybe we'll visit one of the islands next.

Visiting Cimiez

We've decided to move out of Nice, since Mathilde has been assigned a teaching position in Sophia Antipolis (which is kind of like the silicon valley of France, with over 40,000 people working in high-tech companies) - Sophia is a bit too far from Nice to commute.



So we decided that we probably ought to do a bit of touristy stuff in Nice as well - since we actually haven't gotten around to doing that much over the past year. So we decided to visit the Matisse museum, which is located a bit outside the town centre in an area called Cimiez. Cimiez is a very famous part of Nice in its own right, as it's where the Romans built a city a long time ago (there is a still a relatively well-preserved Roman theatre there). It's a very nice area with old and very impressive villas and appartment buildings, dating back to the late 19th and early 20th century.



The Matisse museum (which had recently reopened after some major restoration works) was very interesting. Not only because of the impressive paintings on display, but also because there was also quite a lot of information about his life, especially on the Cote d'Azur (where he spent most of his life). And it didn't take too long to visit - which for me is quite important as my attention span when it comes to art museums is somewhat limited :-)

Young guests from Paris

Having seemingly crossed most of France during her holiday, Muriel arrived in Nice with her whirlwind of a daughter, Alix, and the nearly equally energetic twin boys, Paul and Lucas. About half a day in their company left me completely exhausted... OK, so maybe I'm exaggerating a bit (although having said that, I think I must've run around the old town of Nice 2 or 3 times during Friday afternoon ;-).



Actually, I have to admit, it was great fun ;-) And then in the evening we celebrated Paul's and Lucas' birthday - with a great strawberry Tiramisu cake Mathilde had baked (it was the first - and I very much hope not last - time I had that - honestly I could've eaten the cake all by myself...).

Meeting Ollie and Raphaële in Cannes

You might remember from a couple of blog entries ago that we ran into Ollie and Raphaële at the airport in Paris, and that they were on their way to the Cote d'Azur ? Well, they were still there, so we decided to meet up. Ollie's parents have a place in Greolieres up in the mountains, which is where we were thinking of meeting up at first. However, nice as Greolieres is, we figured Cannes might offer more options for a night out ;-).

So Cannes it was. I left work at four, hoping to avoid the rush-hour traffic into Cannes (my last trip there took me about 2 hours, so...). In vain - I was stuck again, swearing in frustration along with all the other poor souls (at least I had aircon...). Although this time it "only" took me one hour to reach the centre.



Having parked, I met up with Ollie and Raphaële in front of le Palais des Festivales, from where we strolled over to the Suquet - the old town. It's a nice part of the town, although it is extremely touristy - although fortunately of the culinary kind (I think every single building on the main drag is a restaurant - and at least all the ones we've tried are pretty good). We walked up to the top of the old town, from where there are some great views over Cannes and along the Cote d'Azur. There is also a nice church up there, and an old castle which now houses a museum.



After having walked around for a bit on the Croisette as well, we went for a nice meal in the Suquet. Then it was time for the tearful farewells, and for me to head back to Nice. Which proved to take an eternity again - the signposting to the motorway is interesting to say the least - let's just say that it gives you a great tour of Cannes (took me about 1 hour - again...) - no wonder I was the only one following the signs ;-).

Afternoon in Paris

After taking the TGV back to Paris from Angers, I had a few hours to spend in Paris before flying back to Nice. So I decided to have a walk around Paris, which really is one of my favourite cities in the world to walk around (which is kind of a paradox, since Paris is, apart from very beautiful, also a city of grand boulevards and mad drivers).

So I headed down towards Boulevard St. Germain from Gare Montparnasse, and from there towards the Latin quarter and Place de St. Michel. I really love this part of Paris, with its cafes and 2nd-hand bookshops. I spent a good 2-3 hours looking at books and BD's (Band Dessinees - French comics).




I did also have time for a bit of touristy stuff, as my walk happened to take me past Abbaye de Saint-Germain-des-Prés - which happens to be the oldest abbey of Paris (the current building dates back to the 11th century). The church is very impressive, built in the Romanesque style - and made a nice break from the hustle and bustle of Paris.

Visiting Angers

Sunday morning, we got up bright an early, and off we went to Gare Montparnasse to catch the TGV to Angers (294 kilometres in 90 minutes - pretty good).

We spent a few relaxing days in Angers visiting Mathilde's dad - here are a few photos...




Having lunch with Joel, Francoise and Herquise.



View over the Maine river, during our walk around "Lac de Maine".



Visiting Mathilde's granddad in the Sarthe department.



Visiting Angers (the picture shows the 13th-century Saint Maurice cathedral).

A day in Paris

We didn't have a lot of time to rest after the great yet hectic week we had spent with our friends from various parts of the world (actually, we had the following nationalities present during the week: French, Finnish, Malaysian, Chinese, Japanese, Hungarian, French and English. And Nick is actually Welsh-Irish-English), since we had booked tickets for the Friday to go to Paris (and from there to Angers, where Mathilde's dad lives).



So after one evening of tidying up and packing, off we went again to the airport to catch "the Navette" to Paris (Air France call the flights from Nice to Paris "the shuttle bus", maybe because they're so frequent?). For once we got lucky with the travel (after the delays, lost luggage etc. we've become used to...) and were put on an earlier flight, so we actually arrived in Paris an hour earlier than we expected. The plan was to stay with Sarah and Bruno, who live on the other side of Paris from Orly, in the 18th arrondissement (the arrondissements are the administrative sectors of Paris, there are 20 in total). Our departure from the airport was delayed a bit by us running into Ollie and Rafael, who were actually catching a flight to Nice! Another case of "small world, eh?"... So we had a quick coffee with them, before heading off for Porte de Clingancourt.


Sarah had prepared a great dinner for us (seems that she took my comment about "being able to eat a horse" seriously), which we eagerly wolfed down in our hunger (well, maybe I'm just speaking for myself, actually - about being hungry, I mean).




Saturday was a bit of a slow starter, in the best sense of the word, as we leisurely got up and had a great traditional French breakfast (or at least my version of it, which involves eggs, fresh baguette with ham, croissants, pain au chocolat...). After this brunch of sorts, we headed off to Gare de Lyon (which is, by the way, in my humble opinion, a very impressive-looking train station) where we sorted out our train tickets for Angers (for some reason we didn't receive the tickets posted to us).




After this we did a nice walk on top of an old viaduct from Bastille towards the east of Paris. It was a very nice walk indeed, nice to see some typically Parisian boulevards and houses from a new perspective (above). They have also planted trees and bushes on top of the viaduct, so it was kind of like walking through a garden. We stopped for a light lunch and refreshing drink at a typically Parisian brassserie. Throughout the afternoon I was struck by the lack of Parisian clichés - there was hardly any traffic, no shouting people, and even the waiter in the brasserie was polite!






In the evening we took the metro down to Butte Aux Cailles (in the 13th arrondissement :-), where the plan was to meet up with Stephane (a French friend of ours from Guildford) and some of his mates to watch some rugby (France vs. England - France ended up winning). It's a nice and quiet part of Paris, almost like a small village of its own, with some nice bars and restaurants. It was good fun watching the rugby (for me, at least ;-), whilst having a few pints, kind of reminded me of the good old days in England...

We finished off the evening by having a Chinese meal (sorry, can't remember in which arrondissement ;-), then left the lads to continue on to the next bar as made our way back to Sarah's and Bruno's....

Milene & Kamel in Nice

A couple of hours after we left Peille Monday this week, Mathilde got a phone call from a friend of hers from Paris, Milene (who in fact also attended the Greek Wedding in Thessaloniki which features on this blog). Seems that Milene was not only on the Cote d'Azur, but actually in Peille (a relative of hers has a flat there so she was staying there with her boyfriend Kamel)! We were having lunch just a couple of blocks from the flat. Life is full of coincidences, eh?



Today they were visiting Nice, so we decided to meet up with them (as well as Winston and Weng, who were still staying with us) for some drinks and dinner (yes, finally some drinks after being the designated driver for the last few nights :-)!!! So we met up at a terrace at the Place du Palais in the old town for an aperitif.




This was followed by a nice and reasonably priced (after Mougins, it was bound to be...) dinner in one of the numerous restaurants in Court Saleya (Court Saleya is a big square just one block away from the sea, in the old town. It's famous for its flower market, and also has a lot of nice, if touristy, restaurants with plenty of outdoors seating).


After the dinner we went back to our place for a few digestifs (the occasion merited bringing out the bottle of 18-year old single malt Talisker) - in fact maybe one too many, as the next day in the office was a bit of a struggle...

Fireworks at Cannes!

As you may recall from my blog entry a couple of days ago, when we came to Cannes, it was to watch some fireworks (the "Festival d'Art Pyrotechnique de Cannes", kind of like the unofficial fireworks world championships, are on all August). Well, we got the wrong date - the fireworks were in fact today. So we were damned if we were going to miss them again, so we decided to try again today!

I was working today, so went kind of directly to Cannes. I say kind of, since I had to pick up Nick's camera, which he had left at the restaurant in Mougins last night (fortunately, Mougins is only a few kilometers from Cannes). So I ended up spending two hours getting to Cannes (getting into Cannes by car is a nightmare any day of the year, but in particular when the fireworks are on...) - and I didn't even park in the town centre!



Anyway, I managed to meet up with the rest of the gang, who came by train from Nice, and grab a bite to eat before the show. And what a spectacular show it was, with the pyrotechnics nicely coreographed to some music (I liked the tunes they picked - especially "Nothing else matters" by Metallica). I haven't seen fireworks as impressive as that for a long time... Brilliant!




After the show we headed off to a bar just off the Croisette - we figured we probably better wait for the traffic to calm down a bit. We decided to all have cocktails (due to my chauffeuring duty I had a non-alcoholic one... )

Perched villages & windy mountain roads

I decided to take Monday off so we could show our friends some of the pretty villages around Nice. By now, quite a few people had left, so we could manage with two cars. So we started off by renting a car for Winston (after failing to rent one at Nice airport with Nick).

Eventually, with car hire and breakfast out of the way & sorted, we set off towards Peille and Peillon, possibly our favourite perched villages on the Cote d'Azur (since they are near Nice and not very touristy). Driving along the scenic if somewhat windy mountain roads (I think Winston in particular enjoyed tackling them with his feisty Fiat Panda) through the Nice hinterlands, we started off with the small and picturesque Peillon - a real picture-perfect example of a Provencal village. What I like about Peillon, is that there are no tourist shops or restaurants in the village at all (a choice of the local population, apparently).



Having seen Peillon (which to be honest doesn't take very long at all), we headed on towards Peille, which is the "big brother" of Peillon (Peillon means little Peille). Peille is a bit busier than Peillon, and there are some restaurants here, so we stopped for lunch here. After this, it was time for us to take Sinhung to the airport - so we left Winston & co. to continue the road trip for a while on their own.



In the evening, we all met up in Mougins (or Muggins, as Nick insisted on calling it), near Cannes. It's also a village very close to my heart, due to the fact that it's (so I've heard) basically impossible not to eat well in this place. All the houses in the village seem to be either restaurants or artist's studios (in the interwar period, Mougins was discovered by surrealist painters such as Cocteau and Picasso, who spent much of his time here between 1961 until his death in 1973). We visited the Musee de la Photographie, there was a cool exhibition about Italian movie stars and Hitchcock there (as well as a lot of photos of Picasso). After this injection of culture, we nourished ourselves (very well, if somewhat expensively) in Aux Trois Etages.

French Medieval Spiderman!

(in this is guest entry, Mr. Winston Wong describes, as best he can recall, the mysterious events that took place at the Fete Medieval at Cagnes sur Mer on the 5th of August 2007)

"Our Nice Team was now heading for the world famous Medieval Festival in Cagnes Sur Mer. Chie and English Geoff were attacked by a group of Gargoyles whilst shopping for comics. Our first obstacle was lack of seating in the small restaurants. This forced the team to split into two equal parts. I joined Team A, which went into Chez Parker for dinner, which was awarded a quarter of a star in the Michelin guide. We were greeted by Pierre, who was recently awarded waiter of the year by the same Michelin guide. We ate salmon, lamb and strawberry mousse, all worth a quarter of a star."

"We went to the main castle square with Pierre, our new found waiter friend, to watch more of the festivities. To our surprise part of the castle wall burst into flames. Furthermore, there was a baby stuck in one of the chambers. Just when we thought it was too late, appearing from nowhere came the French Medieval Spider-Man to the rescue. He saved the baby from the burning castle, and swung away."


"Pierre appeared, he had apparently just walked when it all happened, and returned just when Spidey swung away. How silly of him."

Lunch buffet & sightseeing in Nice

For Sunday, we had planned to stay in Nice, meeting up with Flore, Christian and Florian for lunch (who were passing by Nice on their way back to Paris after a holiday in Corsica). We had originally planned on going to a restaurant, but made the snap decision to organize a bit of a buffet at our flat instead. So with a flurry of intensive shopping and preparation, we managed to come up with lunch for 15 people! We also had another go at Haunted House (I had to mention that since I won ;-).



After the eating and gaming, we headed out to explore town a bit - taking in the newly opened Place Massena, the Promenade des Anglais as well as the old town. After this we said our goodbyes to Flore, Christian and Lilian, who had to push on to Paris (what can I say, it was short but sweet).



The ones of us who were foolish enough to brave the heat, climbed up to Colline du Chateau. Our heroic efforts were rewarded with some nice views over Nice (as well as some high class entertainment in the form of Nick nearly taking a dip in the pool by the artificial waterfalls, and Sinhung displaying some Thespian skills at an outdoor theatre stage).

Antibes & Cannes

The next morning, once everybody had gotten up and had breakfast, we jumped on the train and headed down to Antibes to meet the part of the gang who had stayed at my parents flat over there - as well as Nathalie and Patrick who had just arrived this morning.


We started off with the obligatory posh yacht watching session in the old harbour, and then headed into the old town. After having a good walk around the streets, loafing about in the shops (where Geoff got himself some swimming trunks), we had a quick lunch (as quick as it's going to be with 12 people at the table ;-). Sinhung got to have his favourite French meal - Croque Madame (better than Croque Monsieur since there is also an egg on the toast ;-).

After lunch, we walked around a bit in a very nice part of Antibes called "Commune Libre du Safranier". It's a very leafy part of the town, almost like a village (with houses covered in flowers) - they even have their own mayor, apparently. It makes a nice change from the rest of Antibes - which although nice, is a bit overwhelmed by restaurants and tourist shops.




After a refreshing bath at the sandy beach (a nice change from the pebble-beach of Nice) near the port, we caught the train to Cannes. We were hoping to see some fireworks (there is a fireworks festival over there in August), but turned out we got the wrong day... Well, no mind, we spent a nice evening in Cannes, checking out the hand imprints left by movie stars in front of the Palais des Festivals (which is also the place to be during the film festival). We also had a competition for the blokes for "Best Antonio Banderas Lookalike" (the hands-down winner here was Patrick). The Angelina Jolie one for the ladies was tougher to call... We finished the night by a very nice dinner in the Suquet, which is the old town of Cannes.

Evening in Monaco

After a few days of rest, it was time for some action again. We had invited over a few friends from the UK, and then a few more. And then we invited yet more people from France as well. To summarize, we ended up with 10 people coming over to Nice the same weekend!

The first bunch arrived on Friday lunchtime - Nick, Sinhung, Chie, Geoff, Winston and Weng. Philppe and Aniko arrived by train (from Toulouse) a couple of hours later. Logistically everything proved rather challenging (we had to put half of the people in my parents' flat in Antibes) - but everybody had a great time (I hope :-).



After the general confusion, once everybody had arrived (and we had had a go at Haunted House, a board game Winston had kindly given us), we went to Monaco - which of course is where everybody wants to go :-). So we jumped on the train and headed off. After a walk through the port - dutifully admiring the posh yachts, we walked up to "Le Rocher" (the rock) where the palace and the old town are located. After the obligatory snap shots, we had a surprisingly affordable dinner in the old town (15 euros for a decent 3-course meal - not bad for one of the richest cities in the world - and this was just one block away from the palace).



Then we walked across to Monte Carlo for the obligatory visit to the casino. This time I paid the 10-euro entrance fee and actually went inside. I have to say the main gambling hall is pretty damn impressive. Fortunately, I only had enough cash to have 1 go at the roulette table. Still, 20 euros was a bit steep for the 10-odd minutes I spent in the casino ;-)