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 ;-).