Start of the big road trip - crossing France

Time to set off on the big adventure ! The plan is to drive through France, cross Germany, take the ferry to Helsinki and then do a tour of Finland (attending my cousin’s wedding in Carelia on the way). Then take a ferry to Sweden, and drive back through Denmark, Germany and Luxemburgh, and then on to Normandy for another wedding. And then, hopefully, arrive back safely on the Cote d’Azur one month later, safe and sound. The plan was of course to meet up with loads of friends on the way as well!

So today, we started our journey by driving up to Valence (which was at a suitable distance from Cagnes for an evening drive). The drive was pretty much eventless, thankfully we didn’t even encounter any traffic jams (good idea to leave on a Thursday, methinks). Valence is a nice enough town south of Lyons, nothing spectacular, but it makes for a nice stop-over. After a perfectly decent and very reasonably-priced dinner at the lively main square of the old town, and a quick stroll through the old town, we hit the sack. We had a long drive ahead of us the next day...

Our next destination was Strasbourg, all the way in north-eastern France on the German border, a good 700km from Valance. A bit of a drive then – thankfully the French motorway network is very good. Traffic was also smooth, apart from one bit around Lyons (we stupidly blindly followed the GPS through Lyons, rather than taking the ring road...). So we arrived late afternoon, eager to start exploring the city.

Strasbourg is the capital of Alsace, a region of France with very close ties to their dear neighbour Germany (the region has changed hands several times over the last couple of centuries). A fact which is very visible, notably in the architecture and cuisine (also, especially the older people seem to speak German pretty comfortably). We started our visit by a walk around the enchanting old town – where the German influence is particularly noticable in the architecture. The canals that criss-cross the city also adds to the charm. We naturally paid a visit to the famous cathedral, with its impressive astronomical clock.

After our tourist walk, we made our way to my aunt Tutta’s place, who lives in Strasbourg. Her appartment is very nicely located in the middle of the old town, in a peaceful courtyard. After a quick tour around her cozy place, followed by an aperitif, we headed into town for dinner. She had picked a very nice and lively place in the old town, nicely located by a canal, where we eagerly devoured the local cusine (since I’m not a big fan of sauerkraut, which is a major ingredient of Alsacian cuisine, I went for spezels with lamb stew).

After dinner, we contently made our way back to the hotel, our stomachs filled, ready to tackle Germany.

Sandra and Nathalie visiting

This weekend, we were expecting some visitors from the west of France – Nathalie and Sandra. They had spent a week at the Avignon festival with some other friends, and were kind enough to drop by for a visit “sort of” on their way back home (Cagnes-sur-Mer isn’t strictly speaking on the way…). After an aperitif at our place and some catching up, we speedily took them up to Haut-de-Cagnes for a bit of sight-seeing, before a cosy dinner at one of the cheaper places in the old town – “La Goutte d’Eau” (there are very good restaurants in Haut-de-Cagnes, but they’re not all very light on the purse…).

On Sunday, we decided to take the girls over to Italy. We started the tour with an old favourite, Dolceacqua. It’s a very picturesque little place where we often drag friends and family if they visit us. It has all one would expect from an old medieval village: narrow cobble-stoned lanes snaking up the slopes, nice restaurants (surprisingly few, come to think of it), a river going through it (with an impressive old bridge to go with it), and a castle. This time the place was pretty busy as well, since we were visiting on market day.

Having visited Dolceacqua, we carried on to the next village, Isolabona. By now our stomachs were grumbling (or mine was, anyway), so we decided it was time for lunch. We found a typically cosy little eatery, with a nice balcony overlooking the river, where we had a very tasty and reasonably-priced lunch. The good value for money you can get in Italy never ceases to surprise me… Having gulped down the tasty meal, we carried on up the Valle Nervia. The roads got narrower and narrower as we rose higher and higher up the mountains, but we pushed on, undeterred, to Apricale. Apricale is another one of those villages that could only exist in the south of Europe (well, at least one would certainly not find them up in Finland, that’s for sure!), seemingly impossibly perched on its hilltop, with narrow, steep streets criss-crossing the village, lined with pretty stone houses. It must’ve been a right pain to build the place! But we very much enjoyed it – and thankfully the place is a lot less touristy than for example Dolceacqua (driving up there must just be too much of a pain for most people!).

From there, we carried on (or crawled on, since the roads weren’t getting any better…) past another couple of pretty villages, and eventually made it back to the coastline, where we stopped near Taggia for a well-deserved swim in the relatively cool Mediterranean… We then sped back to Cagnes – since we were expecting some more guests…

We made it back in time to welcome Milene, Kamel, and little Nael. Their plan was to stay the night at our place before taking the ferry to Corsica in the morning. Things got a bit complicated since the villa where they were supposed to stay at with some friends burned down! (there were some very severe forest fires over there during the weekend). So their holiday looked a bit endangered, but we nonetheless spent a very nice evening chatting over a few drinks (I even have to admit to a slight headache in the office the next day…). Thankfully, they were able to organise some new accommodation for their stay, so in the end things turned out well.

On Monday evening, after seeing off Milene, Kamel and Nael, we headed into Nice, where Sandra had a dinner date with her aunt. Meanwhile, we took Nathalie around for a walk in the old town, and then finished off with a nice meal in a nice Corsican restaurant.

The next night, we decided to take the girls to St-Paul-de-Vence, which is of course one of the most famous villages in Provence – a real haunt for artists past and present. It’s not really my favourite place since I find it very touristy (there are equally pretty villages without the crowds), but since we were visiting on a weekday, the crowds were not over-whelming. And it is undeniably a very beautiful place. This time we even managed to locate the tomb of one of its famous residents – mr. Marc Chagal. Having done fulfilled the daily touristy quota, we headed down to another pretty village, Le Bar-sur-Loup, for a dinner in a very unusual place – L’ecole des filles. Yep, that’s right, in the girl’s school. The décor in the dining hall was authentic enough, with pulpits, bookshelves, and the like. Unfortunately the waitresses were not dressed in school girl uniforms, though… The food itself was very good, but very rarely have I had such slow service – and I wouldn’t call the place good value for money either. But worth trying out once ;-).

Collet des Graus de Pons walk

The excellent weather which we’ve been blessed with over the last few weeks didn’t relent – so we decided today would be a good time to do another walk (we figured it would be a good idea to keep up the practice so to speak – since the plan was to do a bit of walking on our upcoming road trip). We picked a walk not too far away from Cagnes – starting in Cipieres.

Cipieres is a typically pretty Procenval village, located between the equally picturesque villages of Bar-sur-Loup and Greolieres (which we’ve visited quite a few times over the last couple of years, since our good mate Ollie’s parents have a house there).

The footpath started at the altitude of 750 meters in the village, and took us through some typically pretty, if dry, landscapes. The going was quite easy, in spite of the gradual ascent. The walk ended at 1000m, next to a ruined settlement (with its well preserved “stone hut” called “la borie de Pons” – don’t ask me to translate that...). As this particular walk was not a circular one, we had to walk back the way we came...

A nice walk all in all, a pleasant way to spend a summer afternoon!

Circuit de Viériou

I used to start a lot of blog entries with something along the lines of “We woke up to another beautiful day on the Cote d’Azur…”, and would follow up with a description of a hike. Well, this year we’ve been rather lazy on that front, I reckon a couple of months have passed since the last time we took out the dusty hiking boots.

So we figured there was no excuse this weekend not to go, as the weather was glourious indeed, and we had nothing else planned for the day (having spend the previous day in Nice shopping, we were both in the mood for a bit of nature, as well). We opted on a walk around the village of Coursegoules; which is not too far away from Cagnes-sur-Mer. Half an hours driver later, we arrived. Coursegoules is a typically pretty Provencal village (I use that expression quite a lot on this blog, I think?), refreshingly un-touristy, built at an respectable altitude of 1020 meters.

We set off for the walk; le Circuit de Viériou, watching the steep ascent towards the Viériou peak with a certain trepidation. But surprisingly, considering our lack of practice over the recent months, the ascent proved rather swift and easy. A good half an hour later we found ourselves at the Baisse de Viériou, at an altitude of 1356 meters. Having caught our breath, and admired the views for a bit, we carried on with the hike, following a ridge up to the highest point of the walk, at 1424 meters. Couldn’t really fault the views; with the peaks (some still partly snow-covered) of Mercantour greeting us one way, and the beautiful Mediterranean opening up beyond the pretty hilly landscapes the other way. And not a soul in sight…

The rest of the walk back to Coursegoules was a breeze, all downhill, briefly pausing to have a look at the recently restored, 11th century chapelle Saint-Michel. A really great day out in the wild – really must get back into this hiking business, seriously!

...and a few days in the UK

After a break of about 2 months, it was once more time to visit that grand island of Great Britain. Since Mathilde had sneaked off to Angers with Alix for a week, I decided to head out there a bit early; on Saturday, to be able to participate in Adrian’s birthday BBQ.

Not sure whether it was a good idea to have a rather long night out in Nice with Pete, Mikko, Marianne and a friend of hers the night before the flight... So one could say I wasn’t on the best of form as I boarded the flight – but I had but myself to blame. But the main thing is; I made it without incident to London Heathrow - and amazingly enough, on time! Perhaps it was due to the magic of terminal 5 – my first flight there. I decided to brave British public transport and take a bus (it’s either that or pay an arm and a leg for a taxi) – and eventually arrived in Richmond about 1 ½ hours later.

The BBQ was great fun, met a bunch of new people, and also saw a few people I’ve not seen for ages; like Gilad, Anita, Gareth, Russell and Martha. And I met a bunch of new people, of course. As always, I was impressed by how international the proceedings were, there were people from all sorts of weird countries (Peru, Israel, South Africa, Poland, Rumania, etc. – being a Finn doesn’t even feel very exotic). The weather was of course typical British BBQ weather – ie. it rained for a lot of the time. But hey, who cares as long as people are having a blast? The rain did get to us eventually, and eventually even the hardiest of us finished up in Adrian’s comfy & intimate flat. Even Nick joined us eventually, about 2 hours late of course.

After a good night’s sleep on Adrian’s most comfortable sofa, it was time for me to head out for the rendez-vous I had made for the day. My first stop was at Kensington, where I had a coffee with Amal. Good to catch up with her – it’s been a while now. After that, I quickly sped on to Leicester square, for a lunch at a Moroccan restaurant not very originally named “the Souk” with Nick and Chie (Nick was only 45 minutes late this time). Unoriginally named or not; the place itself was great; really felt authentic (almost to the point where one might suspect more tourists than Moroccans go there). And the food was great, and not too expensive at all...

Anyway, after the lunch, I had to speed back to Richmond, where I had a hot movie data with Adrian and Yda, to watch the latest work of “art” from Sacha Baron Cohen, Brüno. I have to say, I was actually a bit disappointed with the film. It just didn’t quite work for me. In parts,. It was hilarious, in other parts, it just somehow didn’t work. It kind of had the same problems as Borat; which I thought was funnier than this one. At the end of the day, I still reckon Ali G is Cohen’s best character, hands down. Having done with the weekend’s dose of cinema, it was time to jump on the train down to Guildford. After dropping of my bags at Phil’s, it was time to head off for the final redez-vous on this rather busy Sunday, which was dinner with Manue at Chez Gerard. Nice to catch up with her again, especially since we didn’t get much of a chance last time (it was after all her big party, with a lot of people attending)... On the way back to Phil’s (who was unfortunately unavailable for merrymaking, having to get up 4 o'clock in the morning for work!), I made the philosophical observation that I still hadn’t been to the pub??

That inconsistency was taken care of the next evening in Fleet at the Oatsheaf, where I met up with Rob & Lisa for a couple of well-deserved pints after a hard day at the office. Good to catch up with them – every time I’m in the UK I’m supposed to meet up with them but it never seems to happen (possibly since I usually give them about 2 hours notice?). Juha joined as well – he’s family was away so he had “a free night”. After the well-deserved pints we met up at the Blue Tiger for a curry with Sinhung & Arthur (one of Sinhung;’s badminton buddies). So on that night I did manage to scratch off the two mandatory experiences on a UK trip – beer in the pub and a curry.

So another good trip to old Blighty then, all in all ;-)

A few days with Alix

It’s been a while now since we’ve seen Mathilde’s spirited niece, Alix. So we thought it’d be a good idea to take her down to the warm south for a few days, to give Muriel a bit of a break (I think she’s got enough to handle with the even more spirited twins Paul & Lucas).

We had all sorts of activities in mind for Alix; including visits to Marineland, the Monaco aquarium and the Cap Ferrat zoo. But turns out she was quite content to hang out at the residence swimming pool, and going to the beach. Which suited us just fine – a relaxing weekend was just what we needed… Well, perhaps relaxing is not exactly the right word; Alix does have rather a lot of energy as well (although I think her brothers have the upper hand in that department at the moment).

We started off things with a rather lazy Saturday of chilling out on the beach and swimming in the azur blue Mediterranean… It’s kind of funny, but we don’t actually go to the beach very often, even though we live just a 15-minute walk from it… So it was nice to spend "a proper beach day" there. For the evening, we’d been invited to another party organised by a colleague of Mathilde’s; Anne in Valbonne. On the way to the party, we briefly stopped by at the Parc Départemental de Vaugrenier in Villeneuve-Loubet, for some exhausting fun & games (not sure it was a good idea to work up a sweat just before going to the party...). I initially felt a bit lost at the party, amongst all those teachers (almost all of whom I’d never met), but I did find one fellow engineer to chat to. And of course there was food and drink; which is almost without exception enough to keep me happy ;-). In the end, I bravely threw myself into the conversation and found myself having a really good time.

On Sunday, Cagnes-sur-Mer was proud to welcome the Tour de France – probably THE biggest sport event in France. In fact, the show was passing by just about 100 meters from our flat (we could nearly watch the race from our window). We joined the rest of the crowd by the road, and waited, and waited… (Mathilde was smart enough to wait in the flat and check on the internet live coverage where the race was actually passing by, rather than stand and suffer in the smouldering heat, like me). About an hour before the racers, the sponsor vans passed by, chucking various more and (mostly) less useful articles at us punters (Alix proved very useful at this point, rushing back and forth up the street collecting sweets, caps, even washing powder...). The race itself was a bit of an anti-climax – the whole thing was over in about 15 seconds… If you ask me, it’s an even less spectator friendly event than the Monaco Grand Prix (although admittedly considerably cheaper to attend….). Apparently a Finnish guy called Veikkanen came 3rd that day (never even heard of the guy).

After the race, we headed down to the beach where we met up with Hannu and his family, who were back from their adventurous trip to Barcelona (Hannu had his wallet snatched there). Great day in the sun again, and good fun swimming amongst the big waves. Alix seemed to get along well with Hannu’s kids, especially with Sara. After some initial shyness, the two of them were playing with each others as if though they were the best of friends. Ah, how easy these things are when you’re a kid, eh…? A couple of collapsed sandcastles and a fair amount of swimming later, it was time for the tearful good-byes (me and Hannu could barely hold back our emotions).

Monday & Tuesday were beach days again – I escaped out of the office on both days at 4 o’clock to join Mathilde and Alix. It occurred to me that we are quite blessed living where we are, again. Being able to drive down from the office to the beach in 15 minutes is a luxury I hope I’ll never take for granted. Alix made a new friend – this time an inflatable dolphin called “Wave” (I think that’s what he was called, anyway – not quite sure about the spelling). We certainly had great fun with Wave – especially when the waves swept it all the way across the beach and I had to swim like a madman to catch up with poor wave (thankfully a helpful lady rescued him for us – we were very close to a disaster).

On Wednesday, it was time to say bye-bye. I drove the two lovely ladies down to Antibes, from where they took the night train to Nantes. The flat felt very empty and quiet after their departure…

A couple of dinners....

The summer is here! Which means cozy dinners in gentle summer evening warmth :-). The first ones in line this year was Antoine & Claire. Antoine is a colleague of Mathilde’s, who possibly (and needlessly) felt obliged to invite us for dinner, since we had lent our old ‘n rusty Polo to him for a week or so. They live near the typically pretty Provencal village of Carros, about half an hours drive by typically narrow country lanes. Since our GPS was unable to find the exact location, we followed Sandra and Stephane there (who were also invited). Claire & Antoine live in a lovely, typically Provencal villa, with great views over the Var valley. A pity about the cloudy weather... After an entertaining apero, with live entertainment from the children, we enjoyed e delicious Tagine (apparently, the recipe is secret). All in all, we spent a very nice evening there; with great food, wine and company.

On Thursday, I took Mathilde to the airport, and from there sped back down to Cagnes for my dentist appointment. Just as I was about to get my teeth examined, I got a text message from Jean-Luc, a colleague of mine who was visiting the Cote d’Azur, inviting me for dinner to their rented villa in Le Colle-sur-Loup. I obviously could not say no to that, so once my appointment was over, I quickly headed home to pick up a bottle of rose, and then continued down to Le Colle (which is thankfully just a 5-minute drive from Cagnes). Jean-Luc got a taste for the Cote d’Azur during the 6 months he spent at our office over here (I can understand he misses the warmth – as he normally works in Helsinki). Anyway, it was great to catch up with him and his family again – and I was rather impressed to hear about his Nice Ironman performance (which had taken place the Sunday before) – his marathon time alone was 4:20 (that’s not too bad after 3.8km of swimming and 180km of cycling! When I was practicing for my sadly cancelled marathon run, I was aiming for 5 hours, just to put things into perspective...). The only downer of the pleasant evening was that Theo (who’s about 5 years old) kept beating me at cards!