We had a rather frenetic yet productive Saturday – I managed to finish all my Christmas present shopping in one day! To have done that in November is definitely a personal record (one that is very unlikely to ever be broken). There was a reason for this – my parents are heading back to Finland in a few days time so we wanted to ship our pressies with them. And since we were meeting them for dinner in Nice this evening, we decided to get the shopping out of the way. My parents had selected Trattoria Giuseppe for the dinner, in the old port of Nice, located at the former premises of Jouni (one of the gastronomic highlights of Nice – run by a Finn – he recently moved his restaurant to a swankier location). The quality of the cuisine is not quite up to its predecessor’s (but I enjoyed it anyway), but it has to be said that the price level is rather more reasonable as well (20 Euros instead of 100).
On Sunday, we had decided to continue from where we left off last weekend, and go for another walk. The weather was not quite as nice as it was last Sunday, but at least it didn’t rain... We picked another coastal walk, this one starting in La Napoule. The focal point of La Napoule is without doubt it’s castle, admirably located on the beach, overlooking the sea. It dates back to the 14th century, and is apparently (according, once more, to my Guide Vert) a mixture of several styles (Romanesque, Gothic and Oriental). Most appropriately, our walk started there, taking us along the beach past the imposing castle, towards the Massif d’Esterel. We carried on along the coast line until the small port of la Rague, from where we carried on inlands along the river, bearing the same name. We actually missed the footpath we were supposed to pick, and ended up walking along the river for rather a lot longer than we were supposed to. Oh well, it was a pleasant enough stroll, down a gorge, surrounded by the reddish Esterel rock structures.
We eventually realised our mistake, backtracked, and found the footpath. It took us up a rather steep hill, Mont Turney (well, actually , it’s only 87 meters high - we REALLY are out practice ;-) to a private castle, Chateau d’Agecroft (which has been converted to a kind of holiday centre for companies). From there we walked down towards La Napoule again, and up another hill – San Peyre (the culmination point of our “walk through the wild”). Another frisky hike took us up to the summit, at the lofty height of 131 meters. From there we were greeted by some very nice views all over the cote d’Azur – no wonder this hilltop was once one of Guy de Maupassant’s favourite haunts. He might be a bit disappointed about all the high-rise buildings, swimming pools and shopping malls that litter the coastline these days (the only nearby patch of green we could see was a gold course!).
We had a rather frenetic yet productive Saturday – I managed to finish all my Christmas present shopping in one day! To have done that in November is definitely a personal record (one that is very unlikely to ever be broken). There was a reason for this – my parents are heading back to Finland in a few days time so we wanted to ship our pressies with them. And since we were meeting them for dinner in Nice this evening, we decided to get the shopping out of the way. My parents had selected Trattoria Giuseppe for the dinner, in the old port of Nice, located at the former premises of Jouni (one of the gastronomic highlights of Nice – run by a Finn – he recently moved his restaurant to a swankier location). The quality of the cuisine is not quite up to its predecessor’s (but I enjoyed it anyway), but it has to be said that the price level is rather more reasonable as well (20 Euros instead of 100). 
On Sunday, we had decided to continue from where we left off last weekend, and go for another walk. The weather was not quite as nice as it was last Sunday, but at least it didn’t rain... We picked another coastal walk, this one starting in La Napoule. The focal point of La Napoule is without doubt it’s castle, admirably located on the beach, overlooking the sea. It dates back to the 14th century, and is apparently (according, once more, to my Guide Vert) a mixture of several styles (Romanesque, Gothic and Oriental). Most appropriately, our walk started there, taking us along the beach past the imposing castle, towards the Massif d’Esterel. We carried on along the coast line until the small port of la Rague, from where we carried on inlands along the river, bearing the same name. We actually missed the footpath we were supposed to pick, and ended up walking along the river for rather a lot longer than we were supposed to. Oh well, it was a pleasant enough stroll, down a gorge, surrounded by the reddish Esterel rock structures. 
We eventually realised our mistake, backtracked, and found the footpath. It took us up a rather steep hill, Mont Turney (well, actually , it’s only 87 meters high - we REALLY are out practice ;-) to a private castle, Chateau d’Agecroft (which has been converted to a kind of holiday centre for companies). From there we walked down towards La Napoule again, and up another hill – San Peyre (the culmination point of our “walk through the wild”). Another frisky hike took us up to the summit, at the lofty height of 131 meters. From there we were greeted by some very nice views all over the cote d’Azur – no wonder this hilltop was once one of Guy de Maupassant’s favourite haunts. He might be a bit disappointed about all the high-rise buildings, swimming pools and shopping malls that litter the coastline these days (the only nearby patch of green we could see was a gold course!).
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