A nice afternoon in Nice

I have quite a few trips ahead of me, so we decided to head into Nice to enjoy the sun for a bit. It’s been a while since we’ve met up with Aki and Henna, so we agreed to meet up with them for lunch at Place Garibaldi. Due to the unsuitable train schedule (or normal mode of transport when heading into Nice), we jumped on the bus instead, which took us into Nice unexpectedly quickly.

We met up at a nice out-doors eatery on Place Garibaldi, with a table in the sun. We were once again reminded of how lucky we are to live where we live – having delicious pizza and salad, sitting outdoors in a tee-shirt at the end of November. Good to catch up with Aki and Henna as well – Aki was just on his way to play at a concert at Acropolis.

Naim joined us later for a coffee and ice cream, and a walk around Nice. We ended up visiting the museum of photography as well (a nice little museum, which is free to boot), where we checked out a nice exhibition of “abstract photography”. Modern art is not always my cup of tea, but this exhibition was pretty cool.

All in all, a pretty nice way of spending a warm late-autumn afternoon, then!

Pranzare al Giardino!

As frequent readers of this blog are well aware, me and Mathilde are rather avid fans of Italy. One of the reasons I love about Italy is the food. It’s different from French cuisine – Italian tends to be less sophisticated than French food, but in this case, simple does not equal bad.

One of our favourite restaurants in Italy is Il Giardino, in the picturesque village of Vallebona, just after Ventimiglia in Liguria (so just an hour’s drive from Cagnes). It’s a rather simple place, without any fancy interior design, but damn is the food good there. The concept is rather simple: you show up, pay 30 euros, and eat and drink for about 3 hours. 11 antipasti, 4 plates of pasta, 3 plates of different meats, and up to three desserts should ensure you don’t leave the place hungry ;-). It’s a bit like grand mum’s food; simple, unsophisticated, but VERY tasty.

This time around, we went with Mikko, Marianne and Naim. I think it’s fair to say that everybody very much enjoyed the experience (even Naim, who unfortunately couldn’t try all the dishes since rather a few of them contained pork – but he actually seemed a bit relieved about that). I think it’s also fair to say we shall certainly be back – perhaps with Aki and Henna next time(who had to give is a miss this time) ?

We finished off our Italian afternoon with some grocery shopping in Latte, just on the Italian side of the border. Good opportunity to stock up on the prosciutto, formaggio and wines, among other things… And of course, Christmas is approaching, so we naturally purchased a panettone!

Mont Bastide hike

It’s been a while since our last proper hike (my last one was with Andy, back in September). So since the weather was back to its sunny normal this Sunday, we figured it was the perfect opportunity to have a walk. We picked a walk Mathilde had already done with her dad and Francoise, near Eze.

After catching the down to Eze, we trekked up the footpath, called Nietzsche’s walk actually (he didn’t pioneer the walk or anything – but apparently he was quite an avid hiker and liked this hike in particular). I suppose it’s changed a fair bit since Friedrich’s time – I suppose a lot of those villas we walked by didn’t exist in his day.

But it’s certainly a very nice walk, suitably steep, and offering some pretty stunning views over the coastline. We took the opportunity to walk around Eze for a bit. It’s a very stunningly located village, perched as it is on its hilltop, but we find it a bit touristy for our taste (although it’s more the “Saint-Paul de Vence type” of tourism with art shops and the like, rather than your “Saint-Tropez type” of tourism (with tacky post cards etc.). Anyway, on this particular warm day, we found it a rather pleasant place to stroll around. We found a cute little square with a nice fountain.

From Eze, we carried on up to Mont Bastide, from where we had yet more stunning views towards Eze and the rest of the coastline. Weather like we had on this day is really perfect for hiking – this time of the year the sky can really be crystal-clear, and the sea really Azure-blue. In short, magic.

The descent was pretty easy going, and we made it back to the train station about 1 hour ahead of schedule! Damn we’re sporty. Pretty much a perfect way to spend a Sunday afternoon, I would say!

Dinner with the parents

Mum and dad were coming back to the Sunny Riviera after a few weeks in Finland. So we figured a nice way to welcome them back would be to invite them over for dinner. So, straight from the airport to Cagnes it was then. We had prepared a rather nice menu for them: a little salmon and avocado “amuse-bouche”, followed by some parmantier de confit de canard, with a Tiramisu to finish off the meal. The soiree kicked off nicely with some Glögg (Swedish for mulled wine) – Christmas is after all approaching, right? ;)

All in all, it was great to see the oldies again, it’s been a while. They sure picked the right moment to come back, the weather had just gotten back to normal after some pretty uncharacteristic storms and rainfall over the last couple of weeks… They’ve had a pretty tiring few months back in Finland with all their construction projects (planned and unplanned). Anyway, nice to have them back here in the warm south!

Hockey night in Nice

On this particularly rainy Saturday night, I decided to join Aki and Mikko I Nice for a bit of ice hockey action. The Nice Eagles were matching up against Reims, who are leading the league (or 1st division, rather). I joined Mikko (beer in hand already), just in time for the 1st face off. Aki joined us a bit later.

It was all rather entertaining actually, as sports spectacles go. To be sure, the level of play isn’t much to write home about, it’s not exactly NHL-standard play. A lot of mistakes are made, and there is basically no physical contact. But all the same, it’s quite entertaining.

Especially since we had two real experts at hand to give us all the insights of Nice ice hockey – Mikko (who plays in the amateur team), and his coach mister Juha Rantasila (who is a real legend of Finnish ice hockey – the award for the best defenseman of the Finnish top league is named after him). Nice did pretty well, slaughtering Reims 8-1 or something like that, and the Finns playing in the team did very well as well (recruited by Mr. Rantasila).

After the game, we joined up at the Darlington, a “Finnish restaurant” (the chef is Finnish – or I suppose he’s lived in France long enough to qualify as half-French), where we had a rather nice (and long) meal. Nice to meet a few more “Riviera Finns” as well.

A soiree with the profs'

November is, along with May, a very nice month public-holiday wise in France. Today was one of those days off. We weren’t up to anything particularly energetic, since we’d only just gotten back from Siciliy, but we did manage to muster up the energy to meet up with Stephane and Sandra (and Cleglia & Tristan as well, naturally!) for breakfast by the sea. The weather was still bright ‘n sunny, and it was great catching up with our friends again – it’s been a while.


For the evening, we’d decided to invite some of Mathilde’s colleagues from CIV over to Cagnes-sur-Mer for dinner, since it’s been a while since we’ve met up with them as well. We were joined by Claire, Antoine and their lovely children, as well as Aurlien, Julie and Stephane. It was a very nice and lively soiree all in all, great to catch up with everybody again. A pity some of the gang has moved across the Atlantic, but hey that’s life I suppose…