Christmas in Finland

Christmas time! This time me and Mathilde decided to spend it apart, Mathilde heading to Angers, and me to wintery Finland. It was all a bit touch and go for me, since European airports were in a rather chaotic state, as I’m sure you can remember. I had a changeover in Frankfurt, which had just reopened the day before my departure… My flight left with an hour and a half of delay, and unsurprisingly, I missed my connection. So I got to spend a night in Frankfurt – yippee! At least they put me up at the Sheraton…

Thankfully I got a seat on the first flight on Christmas eve, so I did get to spend Xmas in snowy Finland in the end. And a snowy Finland it was indeed – nice change compared to the snowless Christmases we’ve had to put up with the last few years. The Christmas eve festivities took place at my brother Tomi’s place in Espoo. The whole clan was there, including my parents, Janne & Katja (who was actually working, and arrived later), as well as all of Tomi’s and Leena’s children (including Mick’s little Mimosa!). What ensured was a rather traditional Finnish Christmas eve celebration, with a traditional meal – prepared to a large part by my god-daughter Julia (who is studying to be a chef). In addition to the normal smoked salmon, rossoli, ham, etc. we were also treated to some French pates and some wild boar. The highlight was, of course, opening up the pressies. I was treated to a Moomin towel, a couple of books, a Finnish DVD, and some clothes, among other things! Top



The next day it was time to celebrate my mum’s birthday. Her birthday was actually already on the 23rd – but better late than never I suppose. I got her a collection of George Brassens records for the occasion – part of her French cultural education, if you will. The lineup for the dinner (French style this one, with Champagne, Foie Gras, smoked duck and some deliciously tender lamb meat, followed by a “nearly authentic” Buche de Noel) was pretty much the same as for the night before – the Turtiainen clan basically. Great evening again, with delicious food and rather vivid socializing (for a group of Finns, anyways ;-). Music numbers from Janne and Nanna’s boyfriend spiced up the proceedings. I finished the soiree playing board games with Janne and Katja (Janne, lucky git, won again. I’m sure he must be cheating or something…). We did have the pleasure of digging Mick’s car out of the snow as well (the joys of the Finnish winter, eh!?).

The rest of my stay in Finland was spent chilling out, going to the cinema (I saw the Town and Rare Exports – a truly classic Christmas movie), a bit of shopping (got myself some gloves, which lasted the whole of 2 days – that’s Stocka quality for ya) and just generally doing nothing. It felt pretty good to just spend some time doing nothing (with the -15 degrees temperatures, I wasn’t all that motivated to do much anyway – not used to real winter anymore I suppose?). I did head out to Grani for a night out drinking with Jani and Jocke – great catching up with them again (not bad, Jocke’s new flat, either). I was quite amazed by the amount of construction that’s happened in Grani since I last went there – I’ve seen that phenomenon in Espoo but didn’t realize it would hit “Kaunis Grani” as much as Espoo. Mind you, the town centre is still dog ugly ;-). Also met up with Aki (who works for Fulbright these days) for lunch at Hakaniemen Tori.

For my last night in Finland, I headed out for a meal with mum, dad, Janne and Katja. The selected venue was a small, cozy place on Museokatu – the name of which I can’t remember for the life of me. Great choice – the place was suitably intimate, tastefully decorated in typical Finnish minimalist style, the service was good if understated (hey, it’s Finland, after all), and the food was great and good value as well (we had the degustation menu – 5 courses for 40 Euros isn’t bad if you ask me). The wine was of course outrageously expensive – but hey that’s Finland for you.

I did have the opportunity to meet up with Maikki, Jarkko and Aapo in Vantaa before catching my flight. Good to see they are setting in well in the Capital region as well, in their nice house. And Aapo is growing up fast!

That’s it, another Christmas gone then. Next, destination Paris, for new year with Mathilde!

Holiday planning soirée part II

As you may be aware, dear reader, should you be one of the (undoubtedly rare) regular readers of my blog, we are planning a holiday to Mexico / California next February. So this weekend, it was time to have our 2nd planning session, this time at our place (the 1st session we had wasn’t particularly efficient from a planning perspective – but boy was it good fun!)

Since xmas was coming up, and everybody knows Finland is the country of Santa Claus (don’t believe those dastardly liars who claim he comes from the north pole or some such place), we decided to organize “the planning session” as a bit of a Finnish “pikku joulu” (little Christmas).

Which meant making all sorts of Finnish Christmas specialties. So we spent most of Saturday and Sunday preparing our feast, coming up with an impressive list of delicacies (that you have most likely never heard of, unless you happen to be Finnish): karjalanpiirakkas (Carelian pies), lohikeitto (salmon soup, not really an xmas specialty but anyways…), piparkakkus (gingerbread cookies), joulutähtis (Christmas stars), korvapuustis (sweet buns?) and luumuvaahto (plum cream). Quite a lineup, then.

The planning session, I think, was quite a success. The food went down pretty well, all in all; especially the salmon soup always seems to be a success, and even the rather unorthodox-looking Carelian pies (I think their “unusual” shape is somewhat reminiscent of modern art) were nearly all eaten. More down to Mathilde’s cooking skills than any invaluable advice I could offer, I suspect. The snaps drinking and singing (“Helan Går" goes just as well together with Mongolian Chinggis Khan Vodka as with Koskenkorva, it would seem) was also rather popular (the raging headache I suffered from the next day should be evidence enough…). Gilles’ and Valerie’s children especially (but us adults too!) appreciated the “pre-trip xmas pressies” Marie and JayJay had kindly bought us. And the Christmas Crackers acquired from LaFayette brought an Anglo-Saxon slant to the festivities as well.

What’s impressive is that a fair bit of planning was done this time as well – we managed to pretty much sort out the outstanding flights, and even get some hotels booked. But anyway, I’m sure we can find an excuse for yet another planning session ;-).

So great fun, and a success then! But boy did my head hurt the next day… Looking forward to part III already! ;-)

A busy weekend on the Riviera

This looked to be quite a busy weekend, with various meetups organized before the upcomlng Christmas holidays. Things kicked off with Anne visiting us on Friday evening. Anne, an ex-colleague of Mathilde’s, recently moved to Lyon with her kids. Sandra also came along. What ensued was a nice aperitif, which turned into an improvised dinner (we ordered some pizzas…). Anyways, it was great to catch up with Anne, and good to see Sandra as well (due to a rather busy autumn, we haven’t been meeting up for coffee as much as before with Sandra and Stephane…)

For the Saturday, we were invited for some afternoon tea at Claire’s and Antoine’s over in Carros. Since the weather was rather excellent that day, we decided to go for a hike before that; though. After evaluating our options, we ended up going to Saint-Jeannet, a pretty little village located kind of half-way between Cagnes and Carros. We hiked up to the Baou de Saint-Jeannet, a rather dramatic scenic spot, well visible from the coast. It was pretty much perfect for our needs, sporty without taking too long or being too strenuous. The views from up there over the coastline, and the village, where pretty stunning. Nice views towards the snow-covered Parc Mercantour as well…

After this bit of hiking action (which we've been seeing too little of this autumn), we made our way to Antoine’s and Claire’s place, after the usual doubts and difficulties in finding their place. We spent a pleasant afternoon there, meeting up with the usual suspects, drinking tea and coffee, and munching down some rather tasty pastries… Yummie.

We had some vague plans to catch a movie in Nice, and decided to try to go and see the latest Woody Allen flick. Unfortunately, we didn’t quite make it, so decided to do a bit of Christmas shopping instead – good thing to since I was naturally leaving it to the last minute, as always… We finished off the evening with some Christmas drinks in a wine bar with Naim and Nathalie, and enjoying (and in my case, photographing, naturally!) the rather impressive Christmas decoration on Place Massena and elsewhere in Nice.

For the next days, we’d invited Mikko and Marianne for lunch – and they showed up bang on time (as always) with calm and happy young Alexi with them (seems like a pretty content little chap). We had prepared some lamb chops, followed by some delicious Tarte Tatin by Mathilde – yummie yummie (and some Colonel for Mikko). Great to catch up with them – we understandably see a bit less of them these days with the recent arrival of young Alexi.

After our pleasant lunch, wer headed off to Mouins-Sartoux for a bit of modern circus called Volchok. It was quite a curious mix of off-beat humour, acrobatics and old-fashioned circus. Great stuff – a great way to finish off a rather busy weekend….

Last days in South California

Hard to get back to work after a very nice weekend indeed... Thankfully, myself and David had a big even that Monday evening to look forward to. The occasion was the NHL game between Anaheim Ducks and the LA Kings. A live NHL game is one of the things every Finn (male anyway) wants to experience at least once in his lifetime. And the team most Finns my age would want to see is an Anaheim Ducks game – for the simple reason that the two greatest players of my generation are playing there – Teemu Selanne and Saku Koivu. It’s true that they are both a bit over the hill as far as their age is concerned (like me  ), but especially Teemu is still at the top of his game (so far he’s average more than a point per game this season – not bad for a 40-year old).

Driving down to Anaheim in David’s rental car was a bit of a pain – we did get to experience a bit of that legendary LA Freeway madness (Anaheim is just south of LA), but we did get there in time, with minutes to spare. The game was a superb experience, with Anaheim winning 2-0 (both goals assisted by Mr. Selanne), after a pretty tightly-fought 3 periods. The Americans sure know how to please their audiences – the off-ice entertainment was nearly as much fun as the game itself. Have to say though, the atmosphere ain’t quite the same as it’s in Europe – hockey games in the US are more of a “fun night out for the family” than a passionate fan affair, like in Europe. But all in all, an experience well worth the drive!

Tuesday night was Movie night at Alex’ place, good to have a quiet night in and rest them old bones of mine for a bit. Wednesday was French night again – as per the routine established the previous week, Stephane picked me up and drove me down to UTC, where we had our couple of drinks, dutifully. I also met up with Robin, a friend of Stephane’s who works at the French school at La Jolla. After a couple of warm-up drinks at UTC, we headed back to Hillcrest to (yes you guessed it) another French bar, where I got a crash course in how to play with Tarot cards. (funnily enough, the place was next doors’ to the hash house, where we lunched on Saturday).

Thursday marked our last evening in San Diego, so we decided it was time for a bit of Mexican action. No – not Tijuana – just a Mexican restaurant in the old town of San Diego, called Casa Guadalajara. Apparently it’s the place in San Diego where you get the BIGGEST margueritas EVER. So I was obviously looking forward to that. And I wasn’t disappointed, the marguerite I had is certainly by far the biggest one I’ve ever had… No complaints about the meal either – it was of American proportions. It has to be said that the place is a bit of a tourist trap (with “authentic Mexican musicians”), but a lot of fun, all in all. And pretty good value for money too! Perhaps not an authentic Mexican experience – but an experience for sure…

Which brings us to Friday, our last day in San Diego… Although mother nature nearly threw a spanner in the wheels, as we found out our flight from LA to London was delayed by about 4 hours. Which was a bit of a bummer – as it meant waiting for about 6 hours in LA. We played with the idea of skipping the first leg of our flight (from San Diego to LA), and drive up to LA instead and spend a bit of time visiting before catching our flight. In the end we decided not to risk it though, so flew to LA.

We didn’t really fancy spending 6 hours at the airport though, so hopped into a taxi and headed down to Santa Monica (recommendation from the taxi driver). We spent a couple of chilled out hours there, visiting the famous Santa Monica pier, the famous 3rd avenue promenade - a pedestrian shopping street. Pretty nice place, all in all, for those with deep pockets.

That brought an end to our rather long business trip in South California. Sure beats my usual trips to England and Finland – especially at this particular time when most of Europe is covered in snow (apparently the 20+ temperatures we experienced were “pretty damn cold” for San Diego this time of the year!).

Exploring San Diego

After a hard week at work, it was time to enjoy the weekend, Californian style. The weather was, in my opinion, pretty ideal for it, with a temperature of over 20 degrees, and blue skies and sunshine. However, the locals found it rather chilly… So sounds like a pretty nice place to live, then ;-).

We started our lazy Saturday with a lunch at a Greek restaurant with a couple of friends of Alex, Deepika and Noora. From there we headed out to the coastline, out to Torrey Pines State Reserve. It’s a beautiful piece of territory just north of San Diego, by the coast. Next doors is the famous Torrey Pines golf course – one of the most famous ones of its kind in the US. We strolled along the beach up towards the natural reserve, and had a walk, taking in some pretty stunning landscapes. The ochre-colored cliffs kind of reminded me of Massif d’Esterel here on the Cote d’Azur. So a pretty nice place to escape the hustle and bustle of San Diego, then.

We then made our way to nearby La Jolla, another rather beautiful piece of Californian Coastline. La Jolla is one of the poshest areas in San Diego – in fact in the US (apparently La Jolla had the highest property prices in the US 2008 & 2009). It also houses University California, San Diego and other educational institutions (including an international French school – one of Stephane’s mates works there). It was pretty dark by the time we got there, so didn’t really have much time to explore the area, but it seemed nice enough! We did have time to see the sea lions at La Jolla cove – quite amazing to see them “so close to civilization” (the waters around La Jolla Cove are actually an ecological reserve, ‘tis why probably). Having seen how the rich and famous live, it was time to move on and get some dinner.

We decided to dine at a steak house Marko had recommended in Downtown. And we were not disappointed – the taste of the steak was only outdone by its size! After that, we headed down to little Italy for bit of stand-up comedy, organized by David and a Californian lady friends of his, who had come down to meet him all the way from Orange County near L.A. The comedy was excellent; the theme of the night was an “improvisation competition” between two teams of comedians. I’m not always a big fan of American comedians (I prefer the more subtle British humor), but this night was an absolute hoot!

For the next day, Alex had a hiking trip planned for us around Poway lake, near where he lives (near by San Diego standards – actually means about 20 miles away). We met the crowd at the big car park near the lake – a typically cosmopolitan group (I counted 2 Italians, 1 German, 1 Iranian and one Indian this time in addition to me. Oh, and one American, nearly forgot!). The hike was pretty cool, nothing too strenuous, but no complaints about the beautiful scenery and the company. A pretty good way to start a sunny Sunday, if you ask me.

To offset this burst of exercise, we lunched at the Hash House in Hillcrest – an event I will remember as probably the best value-for-money meal in my life. The burger I had was certainly the biggest one I’ve had in my life, and lone of us also tried to eat a waffle about the size of a family pizza (she impressively managed to finish nearly a third of it. I can proudly claim to be the only one to have finished my meal – doggy bags for everybody else! And the place specializes in breakfasts, would you believe it!?

This ridiculous eat-feast called for some more exercise, so me and Alex headed down to Balboa park for a bit of more exercise. Balboa Park is a vast park (as its name implies!), but so much more than that – it also houses a large number of museums and tourist attractions. We started off by visiting the international houses (including the Finnish houses), and then headed out past the botanical gardens to the Spanish Village. Most buildings and places in Balboa Park are kind of fake-old, but it’s all done in quite good taste. So I would say that Balboa park quite deserves its reputation as the top tourist attraction of San Diego (based on what I’ve seen so far).

Me and David finished the weekend by checking out San Diego Charges win in a bar in Downtown. (the Chargers are the San Diego’s NFL team). Good all-American way to end the weekend!

Welcome to South California!

After all the years I’ve worked for my company, I’ve been “treated” to quite a lot of travelling opportunities (I put it in quotation marks since a trip to dark and cold Oulu in November isn’t really what I would consider a pleasure). But one of the places I’ve never had the opportunity to go to is San Diego – so I was quite happy about the opportunity to spend 10 days there working (especially since the weather here on the Cote d’Azur is a bit chillier than normally).

The flight is quite a long haul, with changeovers in London and JFK. But, as long as I have a good book to read and some quality movies to watch, I don’t mind. So I didn’t find the travel all that annoying (apart from the last leg from JFK to San Diego – US internal flights are pretty crap, and distances are soooo long in that country). I arrived a bit late, with Alex waiting for me at the airport. Alex, whose place I was staying at for the next week and a bit, is an old mate of mine, who used to work with me in the UK, who since emigrated to sunny California. Great to see him after all these years! After some quick beer & grocery shopping, we headed back to his place in Poway, at the outskirts of San Diego.

My rather intensive tour of San Diego started on Wednesday night with my friend Stephane – a good drinking buddy from my days in the UK, who also drew the conclusion that perhaps the UK isn’t the best place to spend the rest of your days in, and decided to emigrate to South California. We started off by driving down to Del Mar by the Pacific Ocean, quite a posh part of San Diego, for dinner. Apparently a very nice spot, unfortunately it was too dark to fully appreciate the place. The restaurant was nice enough though, if a bit haut cuisine for my taste ;-). Our stomachs filled, we headed down to UTC (University Town Centre), where Stephane lives. Unsurprisingly enough, the nearest pub near his place is a place full of Frenchmen – naturally we headed there straight away. What ensured was plenty of beer drinking, catching up, and some pool. And a headache the next morning. So pretty much identical to a night out in Guildford with Stephane – just in a rather warmer climate!

The next day was hard – in addition to having to put up with my hangover and jet-lag, I was also assaulted by a rather painful toothache. Today was thanksgiving, which means everything is closed – including dentists and pharmacies. So I had to live with my pain unfortunately... Thanksgiving also meant some rather serious challenges in finding an open restaurant in the evening – we spent more than an hour driving around San Diego trying to find an open place – in vain. We ended up in Jack in the Box, which is kind of like McDonald’s – so no traditional thanksgiving dinner for us then! After we finally managed to fill our stomachs, Alex took us down to Coronado island to check out the rather impressive Hotel del Coronado. It is, apparently, one of the few remaining examples of the American “wooden Victorian beach resort” type architecture. Well, it certainly impressed us – certainly one of the most impressive hotels I’ve ever laid eyes on (quite a few films have featured this hotel – the most famous one being Some Like it Hot).

Alex then took us over to the other side of the Coronado island, to Coronado pier (where you can catch a ferry to the mainland) from where we were treated to some pretty amazing views over Downtown San Diego. Our trip back to the mainland was kind of adventurous, as we were stopped by an officer of the law for speeding. Thankfully the old sport let us off with a warning… Before heading back for some well-needed sleep, we had time for a quick walk around downtown San Diego. It's the only part of San Diego with sky scrapers, which gives it a more urban feel compared to the otherwise spread out San Diego. Normally it's a pretty busy part of town, but tonight there was hardly anybody around - everybody was eating thanksgiving turkey I suppose.

The next day at the office was a bit better for me, since I had now recovered from my hangover, and had managed to acquire some medication for my toothache. We started the weekend by heading downtown, into the Gaslamp district. The historic part of San Diego, dating back to 1867, used to be a pretty run-down part of town, apparently, until it was redeveloped during the 80’s and 90’s. Now it’s a pretty good area for going out, plenty of restaurants and bars about. We started off the evening by meeting up with Marko, a mate and ex-colleague of mine from my Southwood years. Like Alex, it seems that he’s settled in pretty well with life in South California (from what I’ve seen so far, can’t really blame the guys!).

After catching up with Marko, we headed over to Pacific Beach to an Italian party. The party demonstrated that San Diego is a pretty cosmopolitan place, I guess, the two Americans were outnumbered by 3 Italians, one Finn, a German, a Mexican, a Spaniard and a Dutchman. It’s kind of an interesting city in that it’s a real melting pot in terms of its ethnical mix (with a strong Mexican touch), but at the same time it’s quite a conservative city due to the strong Naval presence in the city, I suppose. Anyway, a good way to end the working week and start the weekend ;-).

A Cultural afternoon in Nice

During our stay here at the Cote d’Azur, we’ve been enjoyed more the natural pleasures the region has to offer, rather than the cultural games the Cote d’Azur also has to offer. There’s quite a cultural heritage here – seeing as a lot of artists came down this way to take advantage of the considerable beauty this region has to offer (and enjoy a few pastis and bottles of rose, while at it, of course!).

But since the weather’s been a bit rubbish during recent times even here, we figured a bit of culture wouldn’t go amiss. So, this Sunday we decided to head out to Nice and pay a visit to the Museum of Modern and Contemporary art in Nice, which is supposed to be pretty good. Since my parents are always up for a good museum or three, we decided to make a family gathering of it! It’s quite impressively located on the Promenade des Arts, between the town centre and the old town.




I have to say that I’m not normally a big fan of modern art, but this particular museum was a positive surprise. The temporary exhibition by a Chinese chap by the name Cai Guo-Qiang, didn’t really impress me all that much. But the permanent exhibition was pretty cool, with the works being just mad enough to be interesting, without going too far. I particularly liked the mad, out-there, abstract sculptures by Niki de Sainte Phalle. There were also, naturally, quite a few works of the Yves Klein, famous for having invented a colour known as IKB (International Klein Blue), who was born in Nice and worked here for many years. I also liked the little booth dedicated to Ben, another famous chap from Nice, famous for his catchphrases.

But the best thing about the museum, if you ask me, is the balcony on top of the museum. This rooftop balcony, reminiscent of something designed by Gaudi, offers great views over Nice. What was especially nice was that the sun had made its return, so we could enjoy the views to the fullest.

We finished a very nice and cultural afternoon with some coffees and cakes in a nice little tea shop on Place Garibaldi, before catching the tramway back to the train station to catch the train back to Cagnes-sur-Mer….

Holiday planning soirée

We are planning a trip to Mexico and California with some colleagues of Mathilde. The plan is to do a bit of eco-tourism in Baja California (where our good Mexican amigo JayJay has worked as a guide), and combine that with some Urban America (San Diego and San Francisco). Since some advanced planning / synchronization is required to make this all happen, we had decided to schedule a planning session/dinner at Valerie’s and Gilles’ place in far-away Bonson. After picking up Marie and JayJay in Nice, we headed down the Var valley and up the windy road which leads to the dramatically located village of Bonson…



Everybody was supposed to bring something to our soirée, it was up to us to bring the beer and a carrot cake. Logically enough, I was assigned to prepare the beer (ie. buy it and put it in the fridge), and Mathilde was tasked with the more challenging task of baking the carrot cake. Better that way around, methinks… (and that’s not ‘coz I’m afraid the beer wouldn’t be cold…).

The planning soiree was a great success, I feel. It has to be said, that we didn’t actually end up doing a lot of detailed planning in the end – but boy did we have a good time (I did, at least). There was plenty of food on the table – in fact, we weren’t able to finish, hard as we tried… Especially the deserts were, how should I put it, divine… Carrot cake, cheese cakes, and most importantly a huge pile of crepes with “La Preparation”. “La preparation” needs some further explanation – it’s a very special preparation, with nearly magical properties. I cannot tell you more – the recipe is top secret and all that. Suffice to say that I very strongly insisted another planning session is definitely needed in the near future.

So, as I suppose you’ve already realized, dear reader, we had a very good time indeed!

Walking around Cap Ferrat

One of the good things about living in France is that there are quite a few public holidays (11 in total). Today was one of them (remembrance day). Since the sun was out and the sky was blue, we decided there was no excuse not to go for a hike. Since the weather is getting a bit chilly this time of the year, we decided to play it safe and go for a coastal hike. Since we’ve done the Cap d’Antibes walk recently with some friends, we decided to do Cap Ferrat this time. So, after a solid breakfast, and some bumming about during the morning, we jumped on the train down to Villefranche-sur-Mer.

Before the hike, we fortified ourselves with a dessert and coffee in one of the coffee shops in the picturesque harbor, having a look at the fishermen cleaning their nets, and the azur-blue med. We then started our walk, which took us along the Villefranche beach up to Cap Ferrat. We decided to walk towards Pointe Saint-Hospice, on the Beaulieu side, from where we had some great views towards Beaulieu (and Villa Kerylos) and Italy. I like this part of the Cote d'Azur, the steep cliffs luckily make it hard for the property developers to ruin the landscapes, as they've done between Nice and Cannes.

The walk then took us through the port of Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat, which is a surprisingly “proletarian place” (considering Cap Ferrat is, among the other caps like Cap-Saint-Martin and Cap d’Antibes, probably the most exclusive place to live in on the Cote d’Azur). Having said that, all the buildings seem to be occupied either by real estate agencies, restaurants or hotels (any self-respecting Cap Ferrat resident lives in a villa!).

The last bit of the walk took us around the Pointe Saint-Hospice, from where we were treated to a bit of rugged cliffs and more amazing views. Having made the tour of the Pointe, we headed back towards Beaulieu to catch our train back. All in all, a walk like this is pretty much the perfect day to spend an autumnal public holiday in the South of France. I can’t help but add that autumnal days like this are a bit like summer days in Finland… ;-)

German Reggae and How To Eat a Rabbit

We haven’t been to Nikaia for any concerts since my double concert-whammy of AC/DC – Cranberries last summer. Well, in my case, 3 concerts in 6 months is actually quite a lot ;-).

This time the plan was to see Patrice – the German-Sierra Leonean reggae dude. A good crowd had showed up; we decided to sit back in the stands (let’s say because I’m an old fart ? ;-) ). Patrice put up a pretty good show, and the atmosphere was great all around (maybe a bit too good where we were sitting, the teenage brats behind us were getting a bit annoying at times – another sign of me getting old perhaps?). We were pretty impressed with the good French he spoke as well.

The following day, we had the folks over for dinner – an early father’s day dinner, let’s say father’s day in Finland is the following Sunday). We decided to prepare a real French classic for them, a bit of rabbit stew (we found a free recipe in Carrefour Market, of all places!?). Having purchased all the necessary ingredients (at the local market, of course!), we got cookin’. For starters, we prepared a pumpkin soup, and for main course, as already mentioned, a good honest rabbit stew, with some mashed potatoes. With a bottle of Chianti Classico as wine (the bottle we acquired during our trip to Tuscany last summer).

For dessert, we still had the Kouign-aman we’d purchased in Brittany during our recent visit. Kouign-aman is a Brittany recipe, which basically means the only ingredients are flour, butter and sugar. Yummie, my kind of cuisine ;-). I think the dinner was a success – especially the rabbit – my dad had several helpings. And if I may say so, it was rather delicious. Not bad either, the Kouign-aman. The glasses I purchased for a recent 70's party proved a great success too (check out the photo!). A nice end to a nice weekend :-)

Back home via Mont Saint-Michel and Auvergne

After our lovely short stay in Brittany, it was time to move on… Our next stop was in nearby Normandy, where the plan was to visit the legendary Mont Saint-Michel.

Mont Saint-Michel is, of course, famous for its abbey, dramatically located on top of a peak which sits on a tidal island in the middle of a large bay. It’s apparently the 2nd most visited tourist attraction in France, after the Eiffel tower. We arrived early in the morning, a very good idea, since it meant we managed to avoid the worst of the tourist crowds. The sight of the abbey didn’t disappoint – I guess it’s one of the most dramatic sites in the world. The fact that the weather was quite cloudy, even slightly misty, gave the place a suitably spooky atmosphere.

Having parked our car (carefully reading the signs – so as to avoid having our car swept away by the tide!), we made our way upwards through the medieval village sitting beneath the peak (I’m sure it was a very atmospheric place once upon a time – but these days every single building houses either a hotel, a restaurant or a shop, unfortunately), to the focal point of Mont Saint-Michel - the venerable abbey.

The abbey first monastic establishment was built here in the 8th century, but the place has been heavily modified/reinforced over the century – the last major modifications dating back to the 17th/18th centuries. The sobre and imposing nature of the structure certainly made a big impression on us – the place has definitely managed to keep it’s medieval nature. We decided to join the guided tour, but gave up on it after a while (the guide spent more time telling bad jokes than talking about the abbey, so…), and decided to have a walk around ourselves. The interior didn’t disappoint either – I really loved the medieval feel, and sheer majesty of the place. I guess it’s not the most beautiful church I’ve seen, but certainly one of the most atmospheric ones. The views over the bay of Saint-Michel are pretty impressive as well.

After a bit more time spent exploring the surroundings of the abbey (during which the sun even peeked out from behind the clouds!), it was time for a spot of lunch. We opted for the classic.choice – Le Mere Poulard, famous for its omelets. We went for the cheap menu option instead, which was perfectly fine. In fact, surprisingly good, considering the place very much felt like a tourist trap. After lunch, we had a short walk around the bay to work off the calories, from where we had some great views towards the abbey (yes, I took rather a few photos…). And then it was time to hit the road.

After a couple of peaceful days in Angers (including a road trip to the Mayenne and Sarthe to visit relatives of Mathilde’s), it was time to make our way back towards the warm South. Since it’s quite a long drive to Cagnes-sur-Mer from Angers, we decided to do a stopover again, this time in Clermont-Ferrand.

Clermont-Ferrand is the capital of the Auvergne region, famous for its volcanoes (including the Puy-de-Dome, which is located just down the road from Clermont-Ferrand). We arrived early in the evening, and headed out to explore the old town, having done our check-in. The place was pretty much dead – I guess due to the rather bad weather and due to it being Sunday, with Monday being a day off as well ?). I guess one could say it gave the place some atmosphere? Anyway, we pretty quickly decided we’d had enough, and decided to go and grab some dinner. Unfortunately, this being Sunday, finding an open restaurant proved to be rather challenging, but we eventually found a rather interesting Auvergne-Tapas type place, where we managed to fill our grumbling stomachs.

The next day, there was no major improvement on the weather front, so we decided to ditch our original tentative plan to head up to Puy-de-Dome, and walk around town instead. Clermont-Ferrand is actually the appy union of two towns – Clermont and Montferrand (we were staying at Clermont). Armed with a pretty good free guide for foot walks we got at the tourist information centre, we headed out to explore town. A couple of hours later, we’d covered pretty much everything there was to see. It’s a pretty interesting town, all in all, but not the sort of place you would make a point of visiting, I guess. The gothic cathedral is impressive, as is the Romanesque church - Notre-Dame du Port (well, the exterior is, I wasn’t that taken by the interior). It’s quite different in nature to other French towns I’ve seen – Clermont-Ferrand is not cute in like towns in Provence, not “rustic” in the Brittany way, nor classy in the Parisian way. I guess you could say the place has a little bit less character, somehow.

Anyway, having done our dose of hiking for the day, it was time to hit the road home… (after a quick visit to Montferrand, the “other half” of Clermont-Ferrand). Good to be back home again, in spite of a very relaxing, if eventful week – and we weren’t sorry to hear we had missed some torrential rains and generally un-cote-d’Azurish weather…

Touring northern Brittany

Our next destination was Brittany. It’s a part of France I’m not very familiar with – although I have seen the famous menhirs at Carnac, and the rather charming city of Vannes already. So I was quite looking forward to exploring this part of France, with its wild landscapes, old towns, and ancient legends. And let’s not forget about the crepes and the cider, either ;-).

We started by heading up towards Cap Fréhel, to explore some of those famous wild landscapes (undeterred by the decidedly ominous-looking clouds in the sky). We stopped for lunch at Saint-Cast-le-Guildo, a nice seaside town, very sleepy this time of the year (but apparently overrun by tourists during summer). We found a charming little creperie, where we had a VERY reasonably priced crepes lunch (10 Euros for three crepes – you would get about 1 crepes for 10 euros on the Cote d’Azur). Our stomachs filled, we headed down to Cap Fréhel – in spite of the lack of improvement on the weather front.

Cap Fréhel is quite a good introduction to Brittany landscapes. It’s a barren, wind-swept, rocky piece of land sticking out into the Atlantic, covered with broom (a yellow flower, in case like me you didn’t know that ;-) ) – which is apparently the symbolic flower of Brittany. The walk was very nice indeed – the fresh air and landscapes did their trick on us. The weather was pretty much OK for the 1st half of the walk, which took us up to the light house at the end of the cape. From there on, things got worse, as the mist got thicker and it started raining. That’s Brittany for ye, I suppose ;-).

The walk finished at the Fort-la-Latte – a castle impressively located on a piece of land sticking into the sea. This castle, dating back to the 13th century was used as a setting for several films, including The Vikings (the 1958 film starring Kirk Douglas and Tony Curtis). It’s a pretty cool place, a proper medieval castle this one (I prefer those to the fancy renaissance castles that you find quite a lot in France). A perfect ending for a nice hike – and best of all the rain even stopped…

The next stop on our tour was Dinard, where we decided to do a short stop since we still had an hour or so of daylight. Dinard is all about the Belle Epoque. The place was made a fashionable seaside resort by British and American aristocrats at the end of the 19th century, and was the most popular European seaside resort until the 1930’s (when the Cote d’Azur took over ;-) ). The Belle Epoque can definitely be seen in the architecture, especially on the two “capes” which flank the beachside. We didn’t have much time to explore the town, as it was getting dark…

This time we were staying the night at Anne and Olivier’s place, who live in a small village (with an typically impossible-to-remember name) located between Dinan and Dinard. Anne and Olivier are globetrotting friends of Mathilde, who used to live in Paris (where I met them), but have since migrated to the wild west of France… Great to hang out with them again – and to meet the youngest family member! And the dinner Anne had prepared for us was top as well.

The next day, we decided to explore nearby Dinan (not to be confused with Dinard, which we visited last night). Dinan is one of the more famous historic towns in Brittany, and I absolutely adored the place, with its cobble-stone streets, half-timber houses and medieval feel. I would possible even go as far as to say it’s my favorite medieval town in France so far (I’m sure the population of Dinan would be so proud to hear that…). We spent a couple of hours in the morning walking around in the old town centre, and then took Le Jerzual (the steep and very picturesque street which connects the old town with the port – the height difference is an impressive 75 meters) down to the river where the port is located.

For lunch, we found a very charming looking creperie (what else!?). The crepes and cider were predictably tasty, yummie – and again we noted the very reasonable bill… After lunch, we continued our walk, this time along the city walls – which are very well preserved and the longest ones in Brittany. The city walls offered us great views over the river, the port, and the old town. After doing the tour of the city walls, we still had time to check out the medieval cathedral. Unfortunately, we didn’t have time to visit the impressively well-preserved castle. Next time, I suppose ;-).

Since it was still kind of early, we decided to catch a movie – and decided upon Biutiful, which was showing at Dinard. So, off we headed to Dinard again. This time we had a little bit more time to explore the faded Belle Epoque glamour of this place, which sort or reminded me of Brighton a bit. The sun came out as well, for the first time during our stay, which was a positive surprise. We were also treated to some rather splendid views towards Saint-Malo, with the sun setting… Magnifique !

The film was pretty good, but rather depressing. It’s a bit like taking all the bad things that happen in life (cancer, domestic violence, crime, illegal immigration, police corruption – I’m sure I forgot something) and putting them all in a film. Good acting, good film, but a bit too heavy for a holiday cinema session…

After another great evening and night spent at Anne and Olivier’s, it was time to bid them farewell, and carry on our Odyssey. The plan for our last day in Brittany was to start with a hike around Cancale. We selected a nice-seeming walk going to the Pointe de Grouin. Actually; since it was a six-hour walk, we only decided to do part of it. Cancale is, as you may or may not know, famous for its oysters. Ands it is actually a very charming little town as well. The seaside is pretty much spot on as I have imagined a port in Brittany, with its pretty little houses, and fishing boats stranded on the beach during low tide. The rows of restaurants on the seafront only slightly disrupt the picture of harmony.

The walk we did was great, again evoking the landscapes one expects to see in this part of the world, with the mighty waves crashing against the high cliffs. The walk took us along the sentier douanier (the custom officers footpath ??) up to the end of the cape- the Pointe de Grouin. What made the walk especially great was that we were actually treated to glorious sunshine for the duration of the hike. So pretty much the perfect way to spend an autumn afternoon in Brittany, I’d say!

The plan was to spend the night in one of the most famous towns in Brittany, Saint-Malo. Thankfully we arrived early enough to be able to explore the town for a bit before it got dark. So after checking in to our hotel, we headed off towards the walled old town. The harbor was extremely busy, since the Route de Rhum was about to kick off. It’s basically the biggest sailing event in Brittany (and in France, perhaps?), taking place once every four years (the race starts in Saint-Malo and ends in Pointe-à-Pitre, in Guadeloupe). After checking out the cool sailing boats, we headed into the old town.

It’s a very different place from the other historic town we’d seen, Dinan. At first glance, I didn’t actually find it that charming. Saint-Malo is all about big, austere, granite buildings, and feels less warm and cozy than Dinan But once you get a feel of the place, the austere harmony of the place gets to you. And a walk along the city walls is pretty amazing, especially with the late afternoon sun we were treated to. The old town was mostly destroyed in World War II; so very good restoration work has been carried out there, as well.

After an aperitif in a cozy bar we found, we headed out for dinner, to a small nice restaurant by the old city walls. We were kind of surprised to find the city relatively calm at night, actually… The meal was great, and the perfect way to end our stay in Brittany!