Carnival time!

One of the biggest events in the Cote d’Azur calendar is the Nice Carneval, which takes place for two weeks in February. It is actually the most popular one of its kind in France (attracting 1.2 million visitors each year), and dates all the way back to 1294 (when the following was said by Charles II duc d’Anjou « il vient passer les fêtes de carnaval, dans sa bonne ville de Nice »). These days, it's attended by more than 1.2 million people, during its two-week duration.

The Nice carneval is quite a family-oriented affair, so no Rio de Janeiro-like hedonistic madness to be exeperienced here... The most exciting thing likely (actually, certain...) to happen is getting sprayed on... But it’s all great fun, in an innocent and harmless way! The theme for this year was « Roi de la Planète Bleue », evoking the history of our planet, with an ecological twist. Apparently, extra effort has been made to minimize the impact on the environment this year... (with the usage of low-power consumption screen, LED lamps, carbon offsets etc.)

We started off the evening with a cinema, followed by a nice meal in an Italian restaurant on Rue Massena. In addition to the good and reasonably priced food they served, it was quite an authentic-feeling place, with plenty of Italians as partons. Quite surprising to find such a place amongst the tourist traps and pizzerias that dominate Rue Massena.

The carnival itself was good fun, as always. Gave me a great opportunity to make the best possible use of my new camera's excellent low-light performance. Amongst the guest star's was Mr. Barack Obama dressed in Superman costume (holding a copy of the Kyoto agreement, to keep in line with the blue planet theme). But the star of the show was, like on previous years, the frightening, awe-inspiring dragon...

A long weekend in Paris

The next step on our journey took us to beautiful Paris, where we were planning to spend a weekend, meeting up with various friends & relatives.

We decided to make a stop at Le Mans, since it was conveniently on the way to Paris. Le Mans is, of course, mostly known for its 24 hours car race. Since it takes place in June, we had to content ourselves with visiting the also rather well known old-town (known as the Cité Plantagenêt or simply Vieux Mans). It was actually an absolute delight, with its half-timbered houses and cobble-stoned streets. In fact, it’s possibly the most impressive collection of half-timbered houses I’ve seen in France. After a stroll around the old streets of Le Mans, some gloomy clouds appeared in the sky, promising rain. So we decided to seek shelter in the old Cathedral (Cathédrale St-Julien du Mans)… The imposing building is a mixture of Romanesque and Gothic styles, and well impressive. Unfortunately the interior of the church was being restored, so we couldn’t fully appreciate its splendour. After a quick walk along the old streets around the cathedral, it was time to carry on towards Paris.



The plan was to spend Thursday night at Sarah and Bruno’s place in Champigny-sur-Marne, located east of Paris. This unfortunately meant we had to take the Francillienne, the outer ring round of Paris (the Peripherique being the inner one), and in rush hour to boot… So the last 20 kilometres of our journey took about one hour to cover. I suppose it gave us a bit of a taster about what commuting around Paris is like. Non, merci… Well, we finally arrived, and were treated to a great dinner (as always) by Sarah and Bruno. Great to hear about their trips to California and Las Vegas (the Las Vegas one was a business trip of sorts, a bit more glamour than my equivalents…), as well.

After a good night’s sleep, we headed into central Paris. We were planning to stay the next night at Isabelle’s place in Puteaux, so it meant going around Paris on the Peripherique this time. Traffic wasn’t too bad this time, so we made it without too much drama (although driving on the Perif keeps unseasoned Paris drivers like me on the edge…). Having parked, we strolled among imposing skyscrapers to the Esplanade and the imposing Grand Arche (the 20th century version of the Arc de Triomphe).



An RER ride later, we arrived at Les Halles, right in the heart of Paris. We started off our exploration of Paris by visiting the stunning Église Saint-Eustache. It’s not the biggest church in France, but the interior decoration is truly exquisite. If it was good enough for Louis XIV’s first communion, and Mozart’s mum’s funeral, I suppose it’s good enough for us ;-).

After this brief bit of tourism, it was time for our rendez-vous with Annabelle and Aude. By now, our stomachs were growling, so we decided to head for lunch in what is a truly Parisian institution, Le Tambour (apparently they serve food just about 24 hours a day). The place is a typical-enough seeming Parisian bistro (as if though I’m an expert?). The chicken I had for a main didn’t disappoint, but the desert did… But hey, I was in the heart of Paris with three lovely ladies, so I’m not going to complain, am I ? :-)

The rest of the afternoon gave me an insight into what ladies do on a day out. Without going into too many details or clichés, let’s just say that a few shops were involved. Again, we were walking around the heart of Paris, the sun was shining, so again I’m not complaining! We finished in another Parisian institution, Le Mariage Freres teashop. The teashop has been in business all the way since 1845, when the shop was founded by Aimé and Auguste Mariage. After a fair bit of tea sniffing and contemplation (there are a lot of flavors to choose from!), we got a couple of bags of tea, and headed across the street for a proper afternoon tea. Unfortunately, we weren’t the only ones who had the same idea, so actually had to queue for an hour! I can say with quite a lot of confidence I’ve never queued that long for a cup of tea before… On balance, I’d say the experience (and the cakes!) was worth the wait, although it wasn’t exactly light on the wallet.

The original plan for the evening had been to head back to Puteaux for an apero with Isabelle and her dad, and then make our way back into Paris for our rendez-vous with Philippe and Olivier & co. But due to our longer than expected tea-time, we decided to stay in the centre of Paris and head on for our rendez-vous straight away. The evening proceedings kicked off with a pizza dinner in the 2nd arrondissement. Philippe, Aniko, Olivier, Raphaelle and Karl could all make it. It was especially good to see Karl again after all these years – I think the last time we met up was about 6 years ago! It’s been a while since we’ve seen Philippe and Aniko as well, so great to catch up with them as well (and listen to Philippe’s latest projects – unfortunately I can’t tell you about it since Philippe would then have to kill me). After dinner, we were joined by Isabelle for drinks at a very small, dark yet cozy bar, where one of Philippe’s mates was playing a concert. We arrived a bit late (sort of for the encores, actually), but better late than never, right? All in all, a great night out!

Saturday promised to be a very hectic day, as we had a very busy social visit schedule, with people to see a bit all over Paris. We started by heading down to Bagnolet (once our GPS managed to guide us out of Le Defence, which wasn’t an easy task with all the tunnels and flyovers…), where we paid a quick visit at Milene and Kamel’s, to check out how little Nael is growing up (which we actually failed to do, since he was asleep in the bedroom). From there, we sped back to Pantin, where we picked up CoCo, and headed to Montreuil, where Dorine and Aldo live these days. Apart from getting the lowdown about what they're up to these days (it’s been a while, again…), we naturally wanted to make our acquaintance with little Laia, who was just a few weeks old… And cute she was – and so fragile I was actually a bit scared to pick her up (I have been called clumsy in my life a few times…). After a very heavy “afternoon aperitif” (which handily replaced the lunch our intensive program didn’t allow for…), we had to carry on.

Our next stop was on the other side of Paris, in Montparnasse. As we’d had enough of driving back and forth across Paris, we decided to park our car back in Pantin, since we were staying the night at CoCo’s. From there, we took the metro across Paris, and finally arrived in Montparnasse, where we were meeting up with Muriel and Mathilde’s niece and nephews for a late afternoon crepes session! (Montparnasse is the place in Paris to have crepes, for your information). It was good fun, and the crepes were good (so good, in fact, that I had two helpings). The boys have grown up (they even know on-the-limit-foul language now, coming out with expressions like: “epese de ros peper”), and Alix has grown up to be pretty little girl (this time she had a more feminine look than last time, I guess the tomboy phase is over...?).

Alas, time pressed, so we said our goodbyes and headed back on the metro, and made our way back to CoCo’s place in Pantin. After a quick aperitif, joined by Annabelle and Aude, we headed off to Marina and Nicholas’ place, for a proper Parisian soiree. It was all good fun, and a great way to end a brilliant weekend. I discussed Sweden with Annabelle, cinema with CoCo, Formula 1 and traveling with Marina’s brother and antique furniture with Aude (she had acquired a pretty little antique table in the street, faultless apart from one missing leg). And as always in France, we ate and drank well.

Well, that was the end of the holiday, then. All that was left was the long, long drive back to Cagnes-sur-Mer, which took us pretty much all of Sunday. It had been a very busy, but great week. And I guess we got a look at life in Paris at its best can be like (just walking around the streets of this beautiful city, and the social life), and what it can be at its worst (the traffic, basically…).

Wintery visit to Angers

It doesn’t seem like such a long time ago since our last holiday (to Japan). But here we go again; off for a week of travelling. This time we had less ambitious plans; the idea was to drive down to Angers via Lyon, and spend a few days with her dad and Francoise there. Then, we intended to continue to Paris, and drive back down to the Cote d’Azur after a weekend there.

Things didn’t start very well, since our 118d was still being repaired at the garage, having suffered a minor road accident a fortnight earlier. So we ended up embarking on the trip in my parents trusty Scenic instead (they were still in Finland so didn’t need it). In spite of leaving a bit later than planned (finding the keys for my parents car, getting the car out, putting our car back, and all that, took longer than expected…), our trip to Lyon was pretty painless (we were a bit afraid of getting stuck in snow or traffic, with all the other holiday makers on their way to the Alps…). We even found Karine and Johan’s place in Lyon (where we were staying for the night) without problems (praise the GPS...).

Karine is an old friend of Mathilde’s from her days of youth in Alencon, who has finally ended up in Lyon (having lived a bit all over France over the last few years), together with Johan and young Lukas. After a very nice dinner (boudin blanc, the real rural French cuisine deal), and quite a few glasses of wine, whisky, and some eau de vie, and some other stuff that all the alcohol I had has wiped off my brain cells, I stumbled into bed. Seems that me and Johan have at least two things in common (the other thing is our interest in nerdy computery things…). Surprisingly, I didn’t even wake up with a headache, so we could continue our journey towards Angers, after a very pleasant stay at Karine and Johan’s.

The journey to Angers took us through a beautifully snow-covered massif central. We felt lucky indeed, going west, as we observed the standstill traffic going the other way (people heading for some skiing in the alps…). The journey was a very smooth one; we weren’t even much slowed down by the snow.

Arriving in Angers, we were naturally greeted by a very tasty dinner a la Francoise. We also had the honour of meeting the latest arrival to Marc’s and Magaly’s family; Iloh (in case you’re wondering, that’s a girl’s name). On Sunday, we were joined by Xavier and Aude (who seem to be enjoying life by the sea in the Vendee very much indeed) as well as Herquise (who seems to be enjoying life in Nantes very much indeed). It was a all a very family-oriented Sunday; with a great sturdy French lunch followed by some Hanafuda (we managed to transmit our addiction to Herquise rather quickly) and general socialising. It was great to see the progress Joel is making, and to see his sense of humour is well intact (I especially liked his remark “Teemu ne boit pas de l’eau normalement”, less so his comment about me being Estonian).

And of course a proper French lunch requires a bit of physical activity afterwards, to get rid of that acquired fat. So we decided to go for a walk around the Lac de Maine (me and Mathilde even scaled the mighty heights of the “Roc de Croix” – or whatever it’s called, where we enjoyed some great views around the surrounding area, all the way to the town centre). Monday was dedicated to more relaxation, the most energetic thing we achieved was a cinema outing at “Le 400 Coups” (a brilliant cinema showing mostly independent films, for a town its size). Unfortunately our first choice, Gainsbourgh, was sold out; so we ended up seeing Une Execution Ordinaire (a very good French movie about communist Russia, with a superb performance from Dussolier as Stalin. In spite of it all being in French, I felt it captured the moment of that time, or at least as I have imagined it, very well).

The following day was gardening day. Cutting the hedge and sawing up firewood, mostly. I very much enjoyed it, believe it or not. Something I miss from the summers back in Finland; where I used to get rid of excess energy sawing up firewood at good old Ragard….). Since we really wanted to see Gainsbourg, we made another attempt, and managed to get seats this time. It didn’t disappoint; and gave me a great lesson about the life of one of great French icons of the 20th century. I suppose he’s a bit of a French Juice Leskinen (or is it perhaps the other way around?), although it has to be said he had better luck with women than old Juice. After this bit of culture, we managed to squeeze in a visit to Delphine and Christophe’s place; where we were treated to some coffee and waffles, yummie yummie. After another filling dinner, we headed back for the town centre with Sandra for a couple of drinks at a nice studenty bar. Good to see her again; one can always count on her to come out for a drink ;-).

On Wednesday, it was time for our customary visit to Patis au Chat, out in the rural Sarthe department, to say hi to Mathilde’s granddad. Good to see him and his wife are still in good form, able to live autonomously in the countryside the way they do. And trust me, where they live, it’s the real countryside (not like here on the Cote d’Azur, where a lot of the villages are filled with 2nd residences…).

That brought and end to our visit in Angers this time, as it was time for us to continue towards Paris on Thursday. As always, it was great to visit, and rest, and eat very well indeed. Angers really does feel like a 3rd/4th (?) home to me… Hopefully, Joel and Francoise can come and pay us a visit around Easter, as planned!

A snow-covered Cote d'Azur

It's been a crazy winter all over Europe (all over the world, I suppose...). But so far, the weather on the Cote d'Azur has been pretty much normal for this time of the year (meaning about 10 degrees, and pretty warm when the sun shines). As late as yesterday, we were having a pleasent post-work, late afternoon coffee by the beach, with the sun shining...

But today all that changed. I was having a normal day at the office, until I turned my head towards the window. And there it was - the snow flakes were coming down like there was no tomorrow, and the ground was already snow-covered! First time for me during my three years on the Riviera!

All in all, it was pretty nice - but we were still quite happy to see the sunny weather return the next day, and see the snow melt!

Skiing at Greolieres

After a weekend of luxurious gastronomic outings, I felt it was time to do some physical activity as well, to get rid of those extra kilos. The choice was obvious – drive up to Greolieres and meet up with Ollie, Rafa and Isa for a bit of skiing. Unfortunately, Mathilde had developed a bit of a cold, so decided not to join me.

The conditions were absolutely perfect for skiing; the snow was just right and the sky was blue. What more can one ask for? Unfortunately, the great weather meant that quite a few other people had also decided to go skiing on this particular day (the school holidays had started this weekend as well, which didn’t help). But after a fair bit of queuing for the ski gear and the ski lift ticket, I eventually managed to join the others, who had already hit the pistes. We headed straight up to the highest point in Greolieres, on top of the Cheiron summit. After a long-ish photo session with Ollie and Isa (Olivier is even worse when it comes to taking photos than me – especially with his new Sonic SLR toy), it was finally time to do a bit of skiing. Emmanuel (Ollie’s brother) and another childhood mate of Ollie’s also joined us at this point. What followed were a great couple of hours of skiing – as I said earlier, the conditions were absolutely brilliant. I even survived a couple of black runs… And the queues at the ski lifts weren’t that bad in the end…

After a typically light lunch (beer and tartiflette – ah how I like Savoyard cuisine…), we continued skiing in the afternoon, starting with another photo session, this time with Emmanuel’s kids. After a few more great runs, it was time to call it a day, unfortunately (after the mandatory vin chaud, of course). All in all, we’d had a really great day. Greolieres didn’t disappoint. It may not have quite the same variety of runs as Auron or Isola 2000 (and those damn T-bar ski lifts really give me a sore a**). But for a day of skiing it’s more than enough for an enthusiastic amateur such as myself – and it’s very accessible from Cagnes-sur-Mer. Great fun to meet a few authentic Greo locals as well…

After a brief stop at the Most Beautiful Village in France, Greolieres (honest Ollie, I’m not writing this for your benefit at all…) to pick up some luggage, it was time to drive the Parisians (you know who you are :-) ) down to the airport. And that brought an end to a great, sunny, action-filled Sunday…

Back to French gastronomic reality

It feels nice to be back in the glorious sunshine of the Cote d’Azur; even though I did very much enjoy my short trip to a wintery Finland. A weekend packed full of programme was waiting for me upon my return; our friends Olivier, Rafaelle and Isabelle were coming over from Paris for a weekend break (Ollie’s parents have a flat in beautiful Greolieres, not too far from where we live), and a restaurant visit with Sandra and Stephane was also planned for Saturday.

We decided to meet up with Ollie, Isa and Rafa for dinner in Antibes on Friday night. After some surfing on the ‘net our decision fell upon a restaurant on the edge of the old town, called Le Temps des Mets. Great to catch up with our good friends from our days in the UK again; it sadly seems that we meet up more and more rarely (I suppose that’s the way it goes…). Foolishly, I volunteered to taste the wine, and after going though all the motions one is supposed to go through (observing the colour of the wine, scenting the wine, and finally tasting it) announced that the wine was perfectly fine. Much to my surprise, my dear French friends found the wine rather less acceptable than me, and asked for a new bottle. (being Finnish, I suppose my criteria for what constitutes a good wine are lower than for French people – the presence of alcohol is perhaps enough?). The next two bottles went down a lot better than the first one (admittedly they did taste better…), as did the food. The waitress was also very entertaining. So all in all, we had a very pleasant evening, and left the restaurant as very happy customers.

On Saturday, it was time for our luxury lunch with Sandra and Stephane. The venue selected for the occasion was a veritable culinary institution: Le Bastide de Saint Antoine, located in Grasse, awarded with no less than two Michelin stars. They have a very good value lunch (“only” 59 euros for a three-course menu), hence we decided lunch was a better choice than dinner (the dinner menu is a bit heavier on the wallet at 150 euros…). Anyways; the place certainly didn’t disappoint. The restaurant, paired up with a luxury hotel is a veritable mansion; with lush gardens and offering great views over the Cote d’Azur. The decoration of the restaurant is for sure impressive, but not really my cup of tea (I found it an uncomfortable mixture of the modern and the traditional).

But the reason one comes to this place is, of course, the food. And as far as the culinary side is concerned, I have no complaints. After some olive oil (produced at the premises, apparently) tasting, and some nice “amuse-bouches”, I attacked the starter (lobster and prawns with a risotto), an absolute delight. The main course was definitely something to write home about as well; this time I had some deer with potatoes and cauliflower (which I normally strongly dislike – didn’t even realize it was in my plate this time – until I checked the menu on-line afterwards).

And to finish off, I had the Moelleux de Châtaigne tiède, coulant de Marron, glace Chocolat. Again, absolutely succulent. No complaints about the wine either; we eventually (once we found one with a price in the 2-digit price range) went for a red Cote de Provence (nice to go local). Stephane did the tasting this time (I insisted, after last night’s humiliating wine tasting experience). Mr Chibois; the chef, even came over for a brief chat (the proof is in the photo, see for yourself!). All in all, I would say the meal was worth every penny (the final bill finished under the 100 Euro mark per person, including wine, coffee and digestive). Having said that, not the sort of thing we’ll be doing every weekend ;-).

I’m definitely looking forward to the next restaurant visit with Sandra & Stephane – we have yet to be disappointed!

A few days of REAL winter

I’ve read a lot about on the news about the whiter-than usual winter in the South of Finland over the last few weeks. So I was actually looking forward to spending a few days in Helsinki, and experience some real winter (especially considering the fact that the last few wintry visits to Finland have been rather lacking when it comes to snow).

My parents were kind enough to pick me up at Helsinki-Vantaa airport, and we spent a nice Friday evening together catching up on things. I also took the opportunity to hand out souvenirs from our trip to Japan. After a good night’s sleep, I hit the shops of Helsinki – time for some winter clothes shopping (hard to find anything suitable, my size in France…). The session was rather fruitful and efficient, I ended up the happy owner of two pairs of jeans and a winter coat. I also took the advantage of checking out my favourites spots in Helsinki, covered with snow.

The programme for the day was rather packed. Proceedings started with a musical, followed by a combined lunch/dinner, with a birthday party to finish off the day. Having completed my shopping, I headed down to Svenska Teatern for the musical - PlayMe. It was all very light and entertaining, as musicals often are. The plot, as it were, is rather classical for a musical: your typical tale of a Machiavellian music producer trying to seduce and then corrupt the young, innocent starlet. But the musical numbers were well done and entertaining; and the guy playing the bad guy (a Norwegian chap) was very entertaining. A nice enough way to spend an afternoon then! And it was good fun to meet up with all the clan again (Tomi, Leena, Sofia, Julia, Tomppa, his girlfriend as well as Janne and Katja all made it for the show).

After the musical, we sped down for lunch/dinner (a la Turtiainen) at Tony’s Deli. Blinis were the order of the day, since the Helsinki blini weeks were on. We were also joined by Marja-Terttu, Jarkko and little Aapo who have recently relocated to the Helsinki region (well, I’m not actually sure Vihti counts, actually!). It was all good fun, catching up on the latest, and munching down a few tasty blinis. Afterwards, we carried on at my parents place (again the Finnish way, meaning coffee and cakes were involved). Ah, sometimes I do miss my homeland... :-)

After a couple of games of Hanafuda (I decided to give a deck of these very addictive Japanese flower cards to Janne, my brother, who’s definitely the card shark of the family…), it was time for me and Janne to hit the road again. The plan was to meet up with the boyz to celebrate Riku’s birthday. The selected venue was Gallow’s Bird, an Irish pub in Niittykumpu. Taking down the bus to good old Espoo (which is where I’m born and grew up), I found myself quite impressed by the Finnish public transport. Buses every 5 minutes, all on time in spite of the unusual amount of snow. The pub itself was pretty good, with an impressive selection of beers from various part of the world. Aki, Riku and Jani M. arrived and things developed as a night out with these lads usually does. Meaning that Jani got, let’s say, a bit negative, and was put in a taxi (after a couple of subtle hints from the bar staff). Next, the birthday hero Riku got a bad case of the hiccups (prompting another subtle hint from the staff – resulting in Aki and Riku taking the next taxi). A couple of pints and some brotherly bonding later, me and Janne also got in the taxi and made our way back home… Typical night out, then! :-)

Sunday morning was a bit of a lazy one for me (surely nothing to do with last night?)- until it was time to head for my lunch date with Aki and his lovely fiancée Maija. Aki kindly enough picked me up in Ruoholahti and drove me back to Espoo (picking up his brother Riku on the way). As a little aperitif, Aki treated us to a brief history lesson at Porkkala (professional hazard for Aki…). Porkkala (located in Kirkkonummi, west of Helsinki, near to where Aki and Maija live) is actually quite an interesting place historically. It was a very strategic location, since its coastal batteries covered more than half of the Gulf of Finland (so one could block access to the Baltic from St. Petersburgh if one was to also control Estonia). Hence, after our honourable defeat to the Soviets at the end of World War II, we had to hand over control of Porkkala to the Russians, a state of affair which lasted until 1955. Interesting historical anecdote, that… The lunch was very tasty indeed, creamy chicken being on the menu (followed by coffee and cakes, of course!). Later in the evening, I drove down to Viherlaakso in Espoo to pay a brief visit to Jani and Katja, and acquaint myself with the latest family members: the twins Robban and Nelly. Good to catch up with them as well, it’s been a while since we last met (they’ve been quite busy with the newly arrived twins, so our paths have not crossed during my recent visits to Finland).

That was the end of the weekend, then. Since I was spending half of the week working in the Helsinki area; I had a couple of evenings to spend doing two of my favourite activities: photography and cinema. On the cinema front, I was quite busy, managing to see: Arn - Riket vid vägens slut (not a bad film, a bit of Kingdom of Heaven inspiration visible, though), Tali-Ihantala 1944 (a somewhat disappointing Finnish war movie, even if it was quite interesting as a history lesson), Sherlock Holmes (quite a quirky take on the old detective; and Robert Downey Jr. was brilliant, I thought) and finally Luftslottet som sprängdes (a worthy ending to the well-made Millennium trilogy). As for the photography part, I had great fun photographing a snow-covered Helsinki by night. People must’ve found me quite entertaining; crawling about as I was in the snow, trying to find the optimal spot for my new SLR (purchased in Japan) for that long-exposure shot…

All in all, it was a great trip! But to be perfectly honest, 5 days of real winter was enough for me, so I felt quite happy to travel back to the relative warmth of the Cote d’Azur… ;-)