Halloween in Nice!

It’s that time of the year again – Halloween time! Time to dress up and trick &treat… Or perhaps I’m getting a wee bit too old for that?

Anyway, the plan was to meet up with the Finnish gang in Nice for some drinks & dining. A Halloween costume was mandatory, apparently ;-) After a quick tour around the shopping outlets of Cagnes-sur-Mer I came to realize I would struggle to find anything appropriate (the French just haven’t learnt to commercialize these occasions like the English , for example – although they are catching up slowly…). The closest thing to a costume was my silly Jimmy hat (you know, the Scottish tartan patterned hat with some ginger hair glued to it – looks ridiculous enough to require a certain level of intoxication to wear without shame).

After a quick coffee ‘n cake sessions at my parents’ place, I just had enough time to get back to catch a lift with Pete and Anne (and Jasmin, of course). They were clearly much better prepared than me (Jasmin dressed up as “petite diable”, Anne as a veritable black-haired femme fatale, and Pete with his red monster mask). Thankfully they were able to lend me a black cape to go with my not-very-fear-inspiring headgear…

We started off with an aperitif at a nice little bar on Cours Saleya, which had the appropriate décor (skulls, pumpkins and the like) for a nice Halloween party. Mikko and Marianne soon joined the merry-making (Mikko looking nearly as silly as me with his skull-decorated Viking helmet). After making fools of ourselves over some (for once) reasonably-priced cocktails, we carried on to our booked dinner venue, Delhi Belhi. Time for my first Curry in France, yihaa!

It wasn’t bad at all, actually, a bit different from what you get in the UK. I was a bit disappointed (but also relieved) not to find any Vindaloo or Phal on the menu. The merry-making and childish behavior continued over the tasty meal, accompanied by some Indian wine & beer (even the Kingfisher tasted different, I reckon…).

Our bellies filled, we carried on to Wayne’s, where they were well in the Halloween spirit (including the well costumed waiters). A couple of digestif’s later, it was time to hit the road! After all, there was a young lady to put to sleep, and I had to get up early the next morning!

But what a memorable Halloween it had been!

Cabris & culture in Grasse

For today, the plan was to go all cultural, and attend a theatre play in Grasse (the first one in French for me).

We decided it was a good occasion to explore the area around Grasse for a bit, since we’re not very familiar with it. So we crossed Grasse and continued to the nearby village of Cabris, where we made a stop. Cabris is yet another pretty Provencal village, quite dramatically perched on the edge of a cliff. The panorama which opens towards the sea is quite remarkable, affording views from Nice all the way to Massif d’Esterel (including Lac St-Cassien). But what’s most remarkable is that we finally saw Corsica! I say finally, since we’ve seen it indicated on several “tables d’orientations”, but never actually laid eyes on it so far (we had been starting to suspect Corsica was an imaginary place...).

The village itself wasn’t particularly remarkable, apart perhaps for the fact that Antoine de Saint Exupery’s mum used to live here. St Ex (as friends and fans sometimes call him) is a famous French aviator and writer - he wrote the “Little Prince”, which is actually the first book I read in French :-). The main square in town is named after him.

After our quick village visit, it was time to take the scenic mountainside road back to Grasse for our dose of culture. We saw “Des Gens” by Zabou Breitman. The play was based on two documentaries about patients and doctors in a psychiatric hospital. It was a very interesting idea, and I could even follow the dialogue pretty well, but for some reason the play just didn’t work for me.

Young Finnish ladies visiting

This week , we had some young visitors gracing us with their presence. Namely, my three teenage nieces. This nicely coincided with my parents returning to the cote d’Azur after their extended summer stay in the cold northern lands…

We decided to meet up on Saturday for a meal. We opted for a restaurant in Villeneuve-Loubet this time, called Le Chat Plume, which we’d heard and read good things about. The place is located in an old butcher’s workshop, and the name is evoked in the very cat-inspired decoration. This cozy little place is indeed very intimate – in fact they kind of struggled to fit all of us around their biggest table. Once the seating arrangements were sorted out, we could get down to business and order.

I must say I really enjoyed this little restaurant and its tasty-yet-reasonably-priced cuisine. Things kicked off with what were possibly the tastiest raviolis I’ve ever had (being stuffed with foie gras certainly helped here…). The main course was equally refined; duck with a mushroom and black truffle sauce. Yummie. And things culminated in a delicious selection of deserts… I think this is one place we may visit again!

The next day, I headed into Nice to meet the clan again. After a slightly dodgy and rainy Saturday night, the weather was thankfully back to its sunny normal again. After enjoying the sun on the beach, we walked for a bit on the Promenade des Anglais and Place Massena with its street artists out showing their stuff. We finished the day at a restaurant in Rue Massena, where my fellow clan members had a Turtiainenish late lunch (it was getting close to 4 o’clock in the afternoon - I had already eaten in my un-Turtiainenish manner and therefore contended myself with a milk shake) during which the girls briefed me on their fledgling studies and gave me a summary of their trip so far - the highlight had been Cap 3000, obviously ;-)

A day at Villefranche-sur-Mer

After a pretty uneventful weekend (some sailing, a bit of DIY, movie at home on Saturday….) we decided it was time to get off our behinds on Sunday. Especially since the weather was looking very good indeed! We drew up a very ambitious plan which involved starting with a walk at Villefranche-sur-Mer, and then carrying on to Italy for a nice lunch followed by perhaps a touristy visit, or something along those lines…

We arrived in Villefranche well on schedule, and embarked on the rather unambitious walk. The hike basically took us up from the port at Villefranche; up to the Basse Corniche (there are three Corniches at various levels, which basically follow the dramatic coastline from Nice to the Italian border). We followed the Basse Corniche for a while, and then walked up along the interestingly named Chemin de Madone Noire (sounds almost scary…). All along the way, we had simply stunning views over the coastline, basking in sunshine… Absolutely amazing – once again we had to pinch ourselves to make sure this was in fact an October Sunday and not a dream…

The walk descended down to where Cap Ferrat starts. We contemplated whether we should carry on that way, but decided in the end to stick to the original plan and made our way back towards Villefranche. As we strolled along the beach, busy with people, we decided to modify our plan slightly and have lunch here instead. Felt a bit pointless not to make the most of the beautiful weather then and there. So we sat down for a light lunch (Italian salad for me and Italian sandwich for Mathilde), after which we decided to ditch the plan of going to Italy altogether. Instead we got our swimming gear from the car and continued enjoying the sun on the beach. What a perfect afternoon, with the cloudless, blue skies, crystal-clear water and beautiful views.

After a couple of hours of swimming, reading and sunbathing, we walked back to Villefranche for a bit of tourist action. Although we’ve been to Villefranche before, we’ve not really spent a lot of time visiting it, so this was an ample opportunity for it. It’s a very pretty little port town, architecturally very similar to some of the Italian towns in Liguria. Over the years, it has (nor surprisingly) welcomed some rather famous inhabitants; such as Jean Cocteau and Gregory Peck. Especially Cocteau was very fond of Villefranche.

To honour this famous poet-artist-director, we decided to visit the Chapelle-saint-Pierre. The interior of this small chapel was decorated by Cocteau in 1957. It’s a very beautiful and peaceful place, perhaps slightly less impressive than the Chapelle Notre-Dame-de-Jerusalem near Frejus, which was also decorated by Cocteau. Well worth a visit, both of these chapels!

After a relaxed non-alcoholic cocktail (what’s happening to me?) at one of the bars by the beach, it was time to call an end to a great Sunday. Hopefully the weather stays like this for just a few weeks more… (until the ski season, pretty please with sugar on top?).

Hiking and picknicking at Gourdon

For today, we’d been kindly invited to a picnic at Gourdon, by one of Mathilde’s colleagues. We figured that was a good opportunity for a nice hike, especially since there was a hike which starts at Gourdon we’d attempted once but were forced to abandon due to some uncharasterically bad weather.

We didn’t get up as early as we normally would, thanks to the great Tunisian party we had attended the night before, but did arrive in Gourdon well in time to execute the walk before the picnic. Our walk took us up through the “suburbs” of Gourdon (one could perhaps argue that a village with a population of 437 doesn’t really have suburbs) towards the Plateau de Cavillore, located at the lofty altitude of 1030 meters. It actually made for some pretty heavy going, as the footpath steadily climbed towards the plateau, and the heat didn’t help… But we made good progress, and eventually arrived at the plateau, out of breath but happy.

Once up there, we had some pretty amazing views towards the coast, as well as Gourdon. Gourdon is another pretty Provencal village, possibly the one in the Alpes-Maritimes occupying the most dramatic spot, perched on its cliff overlooking the Loup Valley. It’s a pretty small place, and unfortunately a very popular spot for tourists (so most of the houses either host tourist trinket shops, artisans or a restaurant).

It didn’t take us a long time to cross the barren plateau. During our walk we were treated to the sight of a bunch of people with huge backpacks. We were wondering for a while why their rucksacks were so bloody huge (it’s not as if though this was Mount Everest or anything, until we realised they were paragliders, preparing to off from the plateau. Apparently this is one of the prime spots on the Cote d’Azur for that particular sport… And today was obviously a great day for paragliding – I’ve never seen so many in the sky at the same time before!

The descent down to the village was a breeze, as we walked past yet more paragliders climbing up towards the plateau. The footpath took us past the Chapelle St-Vincent (nothing much to see, the place is in serious need of refurbishment) and back to Gourdon.

We arrived to the picnic fashionably late, just as our stomachs were starting to grumble. All the usual CIV suspects were there; including Stephane, Sandra and Clelia as well as Antoine (the man who writes incomprehensible text messages – can’t believe the man is a French teacher :-) and his army of children. It was all good family fun; one of the older chaps even treated us to some traditional music in Provencal (yes, there is such a language). A pity the weather got a bit cloudy – but I suppose one shouldn’t complain too much considering we were still wearing shorts on an October day (I later found out there had been some snowfall in parts of Finland ;-).

So a nice end to a great weekend, then!

Some sailing and a Tunisian birthday party

Me and my trusty co-worker, Hannu, have been talking about having a go at sailing for quite a while now. So a couple of weeks ago, we finally decided to act and signed up for a six-week catamaran sailing course. Today was the second session for me (I missed the last one due to our weekend in Provence).

After a short briefing by our strict instructor Marie, we prepared our Hobie Cat catamaran (raised the sails and all that...), and set out on the windy Med. The wind was pretty good in the beginning of the session, and we made good headway from the port (Cros de Cagnes) towards the aiport. It was all good fun, our u-turns and stopping manoeuvres were certainly more assured than last time. The wind slowed down towards lunch time, to the point where really we struggled to keep the boat moving, and were playing catch-up all day (Marie assured us our slowness was due to our body mass rather than lack of sailing skill – apparently our body mass should give us an advantage in heavy winds). Towards the end we even had to resort to paddling with our hands to get the bloody catamaran moving. All in all, we had great fun!

In the afternoon, we decided to take advantage of the great weather and go for a swim. On the way to the beach we ran into Stephane and Sandra (and little Clelia, of course), and decided to go for a coffee. Great to catch up with them again, I’d not seen them after our holidays. After our daily dose of caffeine, we carried on to the beach for the swim. Pretty fantastic, being able to have a swim in the sea in October. And the temperature is pretty much the same as it is in Finland at the height of summer ;-).

For the evening, we’d been invited to Hyam’s 30th birthday party at her sister’s flat in Antibes. Things kicked off with a traditional Tunisian dinner, cooked by Hyam’s mum (Hyam has Tunisian origins). And what a feast it was! After some delicious filled pastries called "bricks" for a starter, we were treated to a very tasty and filling couscous for a main course (I think I had three helpings...). And the desert was nothing to be ashamed of either, with a generous collection of oriental sweets, and two cakes if I can recall correctly(including of course the birthday cake). The generosity of our hosts reached a new level when Hyam actually handed out Tunisian souvenirs/presents to us, the guests!

The party was attended by a very nice group of people, including Hyam’s sisters, a couple of colleagues of hers and a Swedish couple (who work for Amadeus in Sophia-Antipolis, obviously!). There was an international flavour to the proceedings which was quite refreshing; Hyam is an English-teacher and her sisters also speak excellent English.

The highlight of the party came last, when Hyam’s treated us all to some oriental dancing. She takes courses in it, and definitely has the moves. What a great finish to a great party. Big thanks to Hyam and her family for organising such a great and unique celebration!