Sarah and Bruno visiting

The weekend is here again! Busy times again, as Sarah and Bruno came over for a visit from Paris. So we took off straight from work, and picked them up at the airport, and headed straight to Nice (no point to loose any time, eh?). I was given the task of parking the car (always a challenging task in Nice), whilst the others headed off on foot to explore Vieux Nice. Having finally managed to park, I joined the group just in time to have an ice-cream at the premier ice-cream parlour in Nice – Fenocchio. We followed this up with a beer to slacken our thirst. By the time we finished our drinks our stomachs (or at least mine) were grumbling, so we headed off to find a good place to eat.

We opted for La Merenda – a place where we’ve wanted to eat for a while now. La Meranda is a bit of a Nicois institution, run by the well-known chef Dominique Le Stanc (he used to work at the Negresco hotel, and helped them obtain their second Michelin star). La Merenda is a bit particular in that they’re closed Saturday evening, and in that they don’t take reservations. Luckily enough, we arrived early enough, and got a table. I really liked the place, for a place as famous as it is, it’s very unpretentious – and the food was great. And it didn’t break the bank either… We finished off the evening with a couple of drinks in the Thor bar (we actually had a French-speaking waitress serve us – I used to think not speaking French was a perquisite for being hired at the place ;-).

Saturday kicked off in sporty fashion – we decided to do a walk (what a surprise, eh?). This time we picked a walk we’d already done last year, to La Madone d’Utelle (we really liked it because of the great views, but had some pretty cloudy weather last year so we always wanted to try it on a clearer day). After a quick walk around the village (another typically pretty Provencal village – this one especially nice since it’s truly off the tourist track), we set off. Somehow the walk seemed a lot easier than last time (or maybe I was comparing to the half-marathon last weekend? :-) – but unfortunately the clouds crept in on us this time as well. Still it was a nice enough outing – and me and Bruno even got to chase some poor sheep around the hills (actually reminds me of the last time we did this walk as well).

In the evening we explored Haut-de-Cagnes, and then had ourselves a nice meal in one of the nice restaurants up there – this time we chose a place called Le Goutte d’Eau. Really nice place – a bit more down-to-earth than some of the other places next-doors. After that we had ambitious plans to party ‘til dawn – but alas it was not to be. The pub in the old town, imaginatively known as “Le Pub”, was closed (apparently due to a recent fire). We figured “Le Lounge Bar” downtown would be a fair bet – what with a swingy name like that – but no, it was closed too. So, resigned to our fate, we wandered back home and played “Buzz! : The Hollywood quiz” on my PS2 instead (with some 18-year old Talisker and some lethal Calvados distilled by Mathilde’s nan to keep us going)…

On Sunday we embarked upon the mandatory Cote d’Azur coastal drive. Our first stop was Roquebrune, which is yet another pretty perched village – this time more in the Italian than Provencal style (quite possibly due to its proximity to the Italian border). It’s a real gem, actually, with great views over the coast, and the typically narrow streets and almost over-the-top-cute houses in various pastel colours. We also checked in the famous 1000-years old Olive tree, apparently one of the oldest in the world (at least it’s the biggest one I’ve ever seen!).

After a quick lunch, we had a walk around Cap-Martin. A tip should you ever wish to visit the Cote d’Azur – any place name starting with Cap means you will be surrounded by massive villas, which are almost always abandoned (because the owners most likely spend about 1 or 2 weeks per year there). And of course you normally need a bit of imagination to picture the villas (because of the high fences surrounding them). Anyway, it was a pleasant enough walk, with nice views over Menton and Monaco. After a last drink at Menton, it was unfortunately time to take Sarah and Bruno to the airport….

More photos here.

1 hour and 59 minutes of pain

Today is the day! The culmination of months of careful planning, a disciplined diet and most importantly, a rigorous program of running (I’m only exaggerating slightly ;-). Yes, that’s right, the day of my first semi-marathon. Why do it? Of course the main reason was that I actually wanted to. But there was also the everyday nagging at the lunch table at work, where my fellow Finns kept reminding me of my “near-participation” last year.

So anyway, the day was upon me. All the preparation had been done (including eating like a pig for a week in Spain). I had a rendez-vous at Sami’s place half an hour before the race, where we carefully went through our game plan – the objective being to finish the race in less than 2 hours.

All the doubt, nervousness and questions disappeared the moment the race got underway – the adrenaline giving me that little extra boost. I thought things were going pretty well as we run up Boulevard Gambetta, past the train station, back to the promenade des Anglais (which is where the race started) – until I saw the Kenyan’s storming down the other side of the road (which basically meant they had already done 10 kilometres compared to our measly 5!). Unfortunately, I lost Sami at the first watering point – but no matter. I actually started feeling pretty good as I hit the 10 kilometre mark (again at the promanade des Anglais) – until I was demoralised by the Kenyans on the other side of the road (again!) this time crossing the finishing line!

The last stretch of the race proved a harder one, as we rushed down the promenade towards the airport. I actually caught sight of Sami again at the 14km mark – and upped my pace to catch up with him. Once I did however, I realised I had overextended myself, and off he sped again into the distance. But I hung in there, even through the last 4 kilometres which were pure pain, and after what seemed like an eternity, crossed the finishing line… I looked at the timer on my GPS – my time was 1:59! So I made it, yippiayeee!

After clapping each other on our backs (Finnish men don’t do silly things like hug, or god forbid, kiss, each others), we headed off to rehydrate ourselves with Mathilde – in the closest bar we could find, of course! If ever there was an occasion where a beer was well deserved, this was it… Afterwards, we headed off to Sami’s flat to check the official results. Imagine my shock, when I found out that my final time was 2:01! (objective not achieved). Well, I reckon I did it under 2 hours – I set off the timer when I crossed the starting line and stopped it when I crossed the finishing line (the official time starts when the race starts, not when you cross the start line – how unfair is that!). Anyway, I consoled myself with an XL size Entrecote at the local Hippopotamus resto…

Night out in Cannes

Tonight’s program was to meet up for dinner with Margaret, an old friend from my tough year (not tough because of the studies, if that’s what you thought ;-) at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh. She had come over to the Cote d'Azur for a long weekend of golf with Bart, a friend of hers. After mulling over various options, we decided that the best place to meet up would be Cannes (since that’s where they were staying). The evening didn’t start off promisingly, with a fair bit of raining coming down (not very good weather for golf). Once in Cannes, things only got worse – it really started pissing it down, as they say in old Blightey. In fact, I’m not sure that I’ve ever seen anything like it so far on the Cote d’Azur (basically like your average day in the UK)!

We had a very nice dinner in a place called Bistro Gourmand, a cosy little place next to the main food market in Cannes (which is where they buy their ingredients, apparently). Our waitress was actually half-Swedish and spoke fluent Swedish – so Margaret got to confuse her with her undecipherable (at least to me) Norwegian and me with my dodgy Swedish-Finnish accent.

After the dinner we had a couple of drinks in one of the bars in the old town. Can’t say it was a busy night – we had the bar to ourselves apart from a couple of drunken locals – maybe something to do with the weather?

Anyway, it was great to meet up with Megs again and catch up on the good old times again (getting to be that age - it's all about nostalgia these days...). And fortunately for them, things got much better weather-wise for the rest of the weekend!

Spanish Wedding!

So finally, after quite a few days on the road, we arrived in Madrid, for the main event of the trip – Paula’s and Peppe’s wedding. We arrived a couple of days early to have some time to meet up with old friends and explore the Spanish capital.

Our first stop was Pablo’s and Olga’s place – friends of mine from my years in Scotland and England. The plan had been to stay at their place Thursday night, but due to their young Adrian getting quite seriously ill, we had to change our plans a bit and stay one more night at the hotel we had already book – but we still wanted to pop by and say hi to them. We figured it would be easy enough to find their place with our wonderful TomTom, but alas, ‘twas not the case. After getting all confused in the networks of tunnels surrounding the centre of Madrid we got thoroughly lost (poor TomTom didn’t even sort itself once out of the tunnels). Well, we eventually managed to driver ourselves into the proximity of their house, but then had problems finding parking. Well, we eventually made it at their front door – having lost “only” about an hour zigzagging around the streets of Madrid. Anyway, it was great to see Pablo, Olga and little Adrian again (although the last time was only about 6 months ago, in Cairo), and catch up on the latest. A shame it was so short…

Afterwards, we met up with Katerina and Alexandros (who were also attending the wedding) for dinner in the town centre. After some aimless wandering about we finally ended up eating in a nice, if somewhat pricey, restaurant offering Galician cuisine. The trip back to the hotel turned out to be a bit of a hassle as well, taking us about 45 minutes as opposed to the 15 predicted by TomTom, as the police were doing breathalyser tests on one of the main Madrid thoroughfares – halting traffic to a standstill in the process.

The next day, the rest of the group arrived (the group being Mathilde’s friends and their other halves from her Erasmus year in Perugia), and we all headed down to the city centre for some sightseeing. First up was the Palacio Real – the royal palace. So time for yet another audio guide – but the palace was very impressive, it has to be said. After a very reasonably priced and tasty lunch (apparently the staff were trainees), we headed for the botanical gardens where we had a nice walk around. And then it was time to head back to the hotel, to prepare for the evenings programme.


The programme for the evening was a tapas dinner at the local restaurant. Very nice indeed, with great food and wine and a good atmosphere. Some of us headed to a local bar afterwards for “a digestif” (which actually ended up being quite a few…). We had a really good time – there was a feria starting in Sevilla, apparently, which was being celebrated (which meant some dancing from the staff and a free round of drinks!).


On Saturday, the boyz (me, Alexandros and Kamel), headed for what is apparently the second most visited tourist attraction in Madrid – Estadio Santiago Bernebeu (yep, that’s the stadium where Real Madrid play). For the “reasonable” (depends on whom you ask, I guess ;-) price of 15 euros, we got to see all their trophies (and there are a lot – they’ve wont the most European trophies and more domestic trophies than any other Spanish team), replays of famous goals, player’s shoes and ID cards, and of course the stadium itself (including the players facilities – which include a Jacuzzi). I like the modest comment on the last page of the leaflet we got with the ticket: “keep your Bernabeu Tour ticket to remind you that this unforgettable day was not a dream”.

Then it was time for the climax of the trip – the wedding. This would be my fourth Spanish wedding – but my first Spanish-Italian one (Paula is Spanish and Peppe is Italian). All of us numerous foreigners got put on a bus and taken to the church – well, eventually. (I think the bus driver should consider getting a GPS – he seemed as lost in Madrid as us for a while). After the ceremony in the church, we were whisked back to the hotel, after a brief guided bus tour of Madrid (now that’s what I call a nice touch ;-).


The evening’s festivities kicked off with a meal. And not just any old meal – a starter of foie gras, smoked salmon and king prawns, followed by some delicious fish, and culminating in the biggest steak I’ve had for a long, long time (ever?). And this followed by a delicious desert, and cigars. And of course, great wines, cognac, liqueurs to go with it… Now that’s what I call a meal ;-). Things only got better later on, when things kicked off at the dance floor. Great fun – and of course a free bar is always nice ;-). We eventually crawled into bed about 4:30 in the morning… What a great party!

After a rather late breakfast, and tear-filled farewells to everybody, back on the road it was for us. We spent the night in Barcelona at Rich’s and Mireia’s again, and were also treated to a great Catalan dinner. And the next day, we drove straight back to Nice, wistfully leaving Spain behind us.

A big thanks to everybody who put us up during the trip, and especially to Paula and Peppe for a great, memorable celebration

More photos here.

On the road to Madrid

After a very pleasant weekend in Barcelona, it was time to hit the road again. The first day took us south, the first stop being Sitges. Sitges is a prestigious coastal resort, also known as the St. Tropez of Spain (looking at the house prices in the estate agents, I can see why…). Sitges is also known for being a very liberal town – hence it’s popular with foreigners (apparently ca. 35% of the population are foreigners) and also the gay population. We spent a pleasant hour or so walking around Sitges (the last time I went, a few years back, the weather lent itself better to staying at the beach so didn’t see much of the town) amongst its pretty, white-coloured houses and cobblestone streets.

After this brief visit, we headed off for the main destination for today – Tarragona. Tarragona, then called Tarraco, was once upon a time actually the capital of the Roman province that roughly corresponds to modern Spain. So the main reason to visit are the roman remains. Unfortunately, turns out all the Roman sites were closed on Monday… So a bit of re-planning was required. No worries, we kept ourselves busy by visiting the impressive cathedral in the old town, and then by visiting Reus. Reus was a pleasant enough town, blessed with its fair share of Modernista architecture. And not by coincidence either – Reus is where that Spanish master, Gaudi, was born. We spent a bit more time than planned in Reus, since we had some problems finding the tourist centre. Rather than doing the obvious – ask somebody – we punched in information centre into our TomTom and blindly followed it. Having spent more than half an hour walking through the rough streets of the Reus 'burbs (we were even assailed by a few drops of rain...) we finally found the "information centre", which actually turned out to be the chamber of commerce… Oh well, a bit of walking (like, half an hour one way) never did any harm to anybody, right? ;-) Naturally the tourist centre turned out to be about 100 meters from where we had parked our car! Undeterred by this setback, we bravely took on the Modernista architecture trail, and we headed back to Tarragona, where we had a nice dinner in the old town (yes, that’s right, tapas again).

We got up bright ‘n early in the morning, and due to our tight schedule decided to only visit one of the Roman sites, the amphitheatre. It was one of the more well preserved ones I’ve seen, a pity it was only partly open to the public.

After this we set off once more, towards Zaragoza. We stopped on the way to visit Monestir de Poblet, an impressive Cistercian monastery, in a very nice landscape of woods and hills. The monastery houses the largest Cistercian (after all the monasteries I've been to I still haven't got a clue what the difference between Cistercian, Fransiscan, Dominican, Benedictian etc. is...) churches in Spain, and it was impressive indeed. After the interesting guided tour (in French ;-), we headed out to the surrounding countryside for a short walk.

We then drove on towards Zaragoza, through the wild and empty landscapes of Aragon. We arrived late afternoon, greeted by the impressive sight of a Basilica by the Ebro River. Having found accommodation for the night (24 euros for a double room in the old town – not bad), we headed off to try to find a local self-service laundry service. Which was pretty much a repeat of our Reus experience (the lady at the hotel gave us some simple enough instructions - but it took us about half an hour to find the place, only to realise that: a) it was 50 meters from the hotel and b) it wasn't actually a self-service laundry). After this slight misadventure, we explored the old town a bit. It was pleasant enough, if perhaps slightly less picturesque than the one in Tarragona. The basilica we had seen on our way in was as impressive on the inside as on the outside (which houses a famous fresco by Goya – who spent a lot of his life here). After another pleasant dinner, we went to bed (exhausting, these road trips…).

Before heading off the next day, we visited the two main sites. The first one was the Aljaferia, apparently the most impressive Muslim structure outside Andalucia. It was originally a pleasure dome for the local Muslim rulers, but was later changed during Christian times to its current appearance. I really enjoyed the visit, especially the central courtyard of the palace, which really reminds me of the some of the architecture found in Alhambra, in Grenada. Truly sublime. We then visited the main cathedral of Zaragoza, known as La Seo. The interior was very impressive indeed – one could nearly say over-the-top. A bit baroque for my taste, but rarely have I seen a church quite as magnificent as this (well, maybe St. Peter’s in Rome and St. Marc’s in Venice are even more impressive).

From Zaragoza, we headed on towards our next destination – Toledo. The road took us through the desolate yet beautiful landscapes of Aragon, through to La Mancha (the lands of Don Quijote), which is very flat indeed. Eventually we arrived in Toledo late afternoon. We again stupidly and blindly followed TomTom – this time into the town centre. Anybody who’s walked the narrow, twisted streets of Toledo can appreciate why it’s stupid… Having navigated the ridiculously narrow lanes without even scratching the car (or running over any fellow tourists), we eventually found a car park.

Having found a nice, small family-run hotel right in the centre, we set off to explore Toledo. Toledo is one of the most historic towns in Spain – in fact it was set to become the capital of a united Spain after the reconquista – until the king decided to set the capital in Madrid instead (which was at the time an insignificant provincial town). Toledo’s glorious past can certainly still be seen and experienced; Toledo must be one of the best preserved medieval cities in Europe. And one of the most touristy - considering the amount of people we faced during our visit (which was off-season, in the middle of the week, and with rainy weather) I can only imagine what it is like in the summer. Fortunately Toledo is one of those places where the historic centre is so big, that you can always find quiet backstreets to explore in relative peace and quiet. We started our visit by checking out the cathedral – and magnificent it was indeed. Perhaps slightly less impressive than the one in Zaragoza, or maybe just not as recently restored. After yet more walking (interrupted by a Chocolate con Churros - a very Spanish snack) about the twisted cobble-stone streets, we finished off the day with a very nice dinner in a dungeon-like restaurant… (where I had partridge - a Toledo speciality)

The next day we continued exploring Toledo. Our first stop was one of the (many!) local monasteries, where some works of El Greco were on display (he mainly worked in Toledo). Our appreciation of the fine works (which actually turned out to be mostly copies!) was somewhat disrupted by the fearsome nun/guardian (with her around they won’t need any CCTV or alarms in this place!). We finished off by visiting yet another monastery – San Juan de los Reyes. By now audio guide fatigue was starting to set in… (what’s worse, I reckon the same guy does all the English-language audio guides in Spain!).

We figured we’d seen enough churches for one day, and since the other main sight in Toledo was shut (the Alcazar), so we decided to head on towards Madrid. We did make a stop at Aranjuez, to visit the Palacio Real – a royal palace where the kings & queens of Spain used to spend a month or two during the spring. Argh, yet one more audio guide, although admittedly this one was slightly more interesting than some of the other ones we’d suffered through…

More photos here.

Barcelona!

Time for our much-awaited Spanish road trip!! Our final destination was Madrid, the occasion a wedding. But we decided to take the opportunity to visit northern Spain a bit.
So off we set in our “trusty” Polo (it had just been to the garage for yet another set of checkups). We first headed to Sete, where we were planning to spend the first night. The reason we chose Sete was that it seemed to be about halfway between Cagnes-sur-Mer and Barcelona, and my battered old Lonely Planet wrote rather favourably about the town.

We arrived just a bit too late to catch the sunset, and checked into our hotel. As our stomachs were grumbling by then, we quickly headed out to find a restaurant. Sete is a pretty touristy place (being a nice town, located by the sea in the south of France pretty much automatically makes a place touristy) – but for now it was thankfully off-season. After a pleasant walk along the canals (a tourist brochure we picked up even went as far as to call Sete the Venice of Languedoc), we opted for a restaurant by the port, where we had a very nice seafood dinner indeed, and for a very reasonable price, at that (compared to the Cote d’Azur, anyway…). Since we wanted to get up early, we went to bed early. Before hitting the road, we had a quick walk around the town, and checked out the main sights. Two of them are actually cemeteries – Georges Brassens (famous French crooner) is buried in one of them, and Paul Valery (a poet, apparently) in the other one.

After this quick but pleasant stay, we continued on our odyssey towards Spain (on the way we stopped at what must be the nicest motorway services I’ve ever been to – the Catalan Village – almost like a tourist attraction in its own right…).

We arrived at Richard’s and Mireia’s place in Barcelona in the afternoon, and quickly made our acquaintance with the new member of the family, an energetic young man named Eric. After the normal catching up the latest chit-chat, we headed down to the local bar for our first cervezas… Alistair, an English mate of Richard’s joined us as well. After a nice Catalan dinner in a local resto, and a couple of more drinks, we headed back for some much-needed sleep…

On Sunday, we left the young parents to their baby-business, and headed into town for a bit of sightseeing. Having walked around in the centre for a bit, taking in the impressive architecture, we visited a very interesting museum, showing some Roman ruins (they are actually under the modern city). After this bit of culture, we met up with the dynamic trio for a very nice tapas lunch (genius culinary invention – I could just eat them all day, no problem!). After some more walking around the city we headed back to the flat and got some Chinese takeaway for dinner (popping into the local bar on the way to catch a bit of local footie, as you do…). We went to bed relatively early (early, considering we were in Spain) since we wanted to get an early start the next morning for the next leg of our trip…

More photos here.