More post-Christmas fun in the west of France

After Christmas eve, things continued more or less as usual… More scrabble, eating delicious meals, opening oysters (one of my favourite Christmas time activities) and just in chilling out with the family, basically.

On boxing day, we were joined by Mathilde’s nephews and nieces. The nephews, Paul and Lucas, stopped to pick up their Christmas presents and then headed on towards Nantes with their grandma, whereas the nieces, Syehm and Alix, stayed over.

Me and Mathilde had a rendez-vous with some friends in Angers in the evening, and we took the rather bold decision to walk to the town center, following the Maine river (it’s actually just 5 kilometers or so…). A nice walk, impressive to see how high the river is – plenty of fields flooded as well.

We met up with Anne, Oliver and their two lovely children, as well as Sandra (unfortunately, Sebastien and Marie had to cancel last-minute). Since it was getting a bit dark, we headed into the nearest coffee shop for some coffee and hot chocolate (and beer, in the case of me and Oliver).

All in all, we spent a very nice evening together, catching up on the latest, as they say.

The next day, the plan was to head out into the Mayenne department with Joel and Alix, to have lunch with Mathilde’s three uncles. The Mayenne is what I would call authentic, real French country-side. So I quite enjoyed driving through the back roads and small villages, until we eventually found Didier’s little farm, located, almost literally, in the middle of nowhere!

All the brothers – Didier, Jacques Gerard and Joel of course, were present for the happy family reunion. Didier had prepared a real feast for us, with things kicking off with foie gras toasts with some proper free-range chicken for a main course. And to top it all off, a buche de Noel we had picked up in one of the villages on the way. This was followed by a rather interesting tour of his farm.

Our stomachs filled, we hit the road and made our way back to Angers. For the evening, we’d been invited over to Delphine and Christophe’s place for dinner & drinks. It was a bit of a university reunion for Mathilde; with Flore, Christian, Aude, Magaye, Servane and Stephane all present. Once again, we had great food, loads to drink, and a lot of fun! Great to catch up with everybody, a real pity Marion and Corinne had to cancel, though (a lot of flue going around, it seems...). Next time!

That brought an end to our wonderful Christmas break in Angers. As always, it was great, even if at least I had picked up a kilo or two, I reckon… A big thank you to Francoise and Joel, and everybody else who fed and lodged us.

Time to hit the road then... After stopping at the rather non-descript town of Vierzon for a lunch (which we have no complaints whatsoever about!), we drove to Issoire in Auvergne, where we were staying the night. We arrived during the afternoon, so decided to have a walk around town before having dinner. Issoire is mostly known for Église Saint-Austremoine d'Issoire – an exceptional example of Auvergne Romanesque church architecture. And indeed it is rather sublime, especially the cloister that is attached to the church. There wasn’t much else to see in the town, and the restaurants we saw in the town centre didn’t really tempt us, so we sadly enough ended up having dinner at the Courtepaille chain restaurant next to our Ibis hotel. Well, to be honest, it wasn’t too bad, actually!

The next day, we hit the road early, crossing the beautiful Auvergne landscapes as we headed southwards. We decided to stop over for lunch at Saint-Guilhem-le-Désert. This small village, stunningly located in the Herault valley. I can honestly say it’s one of the most picturesque villages I’ve visited in France (and that’s saying a lot!). The site really is magnificent, and the village has really succeeded in keeping its medieval character, with its stone-paved streets and rustic houses. Oddly, in spite of the numerous tourist shops and restaurants the place doesn’t have the feel of a tourist trap (probably due to the time of the year – I’m sure the situation is quiet different in summer!). We found a very nice little restaurant for lunch.

The village is a very famous pilgrimage site, and its medieval abbey, a really stunning work of art. After visiting this Benedictine abbey, which was founded all the  way back in 804 AD, it was time to hit the road. We did take the opportunity to visit the UNESCO world heritage rated Pont du Diable, which is located just a few kilometers down the road from the village. Apparently these bridges were built either with the help of the devil, or against his wishes, depending on which legend you believe. Anyways, a most impressive bridge it was!

That brought an end to our trip, as we arrived back in Cagnes!

Christmas in Angers!

Time for that special time of the year again – yes, that would be Christmas! This time, the plan was to spend it with Mathilde’s dad and Francoise in Angers.

We hit the road on Friday evening, with me picking up Mathilde from her school. The plan was to spend the night in Lyon, staying with our friends Karine and Joann (and young Lucas). Apart from some rather heavy traffic (which we expected) on entering Lyon, the trip was thankfully uneventful. Karine and Joann welcomed us with a delicious dinner, followed by “a couple” of drinks (mostly consumed by me and Joann) – especially that Calva from the Sarthe was absolutely lethal. All in all then, we had a very pleasant short stay in Lyon!

We hit the road relatively early on Saturday, with me at the steering wheel (surprisingly, without excessive adverse after-effects after the Calvados from last night). We arrived in Angers just in time for dinner, excellent timing if I may say so! After a game of scrabble and some catching up with Joel and Francoise (and Marcelle, of course, who was also there), we hit the sack, tired but happy.

The next day, apart from the usual activities we get up to in Angers (eating extremely well, jogging, playing scrabble and just lazying about in general), we also decided to jump in the car and head out for some touristy action. Angers (and even more so the area East from Angers – the Loire valley) is famous for its castles, so we decided to visit one of them – Plessis-Macé. This castle was transformed into its current Gothic Flamboyant style during the 15^th century. The castle, still to this day privately owned, is a bit more military in style than a lot of the other castles in the area (which seem more built for pleasure and showing off, than war). Unfortunately, we couldn’t visit the castle, but there is a nice footpath and a big park around the castle, which we took advantage of.

On the way back to Angers, we stopped off at another castle – Plessis-Bourré. This castle is one of the more important ones in the region, and apparently a very popular setting for movies, since it is one of the few castles in the regions that hasn’t had its exterior altered since it was built more than five centuries ago. It looks very impressive indeed from the outside – unfortunately we didn’t have the chance to visit this castle either (it was too late). Another time!

And that brings us to Monday, yep that’s right, Christmas eve! The plan was to spend it over at Nathalie and Herve’s place (Nathalie is Francoise’s daughter) in Angers. Xavier and Aude also made it for the occasion. Xavier had the brilliant idea to make the celebration a fancy dress party; a first one for me as far as Xmas is concerned! Thankfully, Francoise had a bunch of costumes at the house, so we all found something suitable. I was dressed as some sort of Egyptian ruler from the time of the Pharaohs. I think Xavier probably deserved the price as Zorro though, or perhaps Colin as Superman (or Super-Colin?) or Titouan as Spiderman?

The meal was, as always in France, absolutely delicious, from starter (scallops), to main course (somewhat unexpectedly, kangaroo!) to dessert (buche de noel, what else?). And naturally, rather large quantities of wine and other alcoholic beverages were also consumed (including some very nice and smooth Irish whisky, the name of which I cannot remember, unfortunately). And of course the highlight of the evening was the distribution of the pressies (which is still to me a magic moment even though I’m as they say getting on a bit…). No, sorry, correction – the hightlight was the fact that we had a super time in great company!

Christmas spirit in Nice!

Christmas is approaching! Which unfortunately means some inevitable Christmas shopping. So we decided to head down to Nice, taking the velo bleu, naturally (since the weather was rather nice). We cycled down to the port of Nice, taking in the nice views along the Promenade des Anglais, as always (including a rather big hybrid snowman/Santa Claus). Once arrived at the port, we purchased some Anna’s pepparkakor (Swedish gingerbread cookies, yummie) at our favourite (and only?) Nordic food shop on the Cote d’Azur, Fjord.

From there we headed up to Place Garibaldi, where we checked out the rather pretty Christmas decoration. Then we joined the fray for a bit of shopping, not too bad actually, I expected worse, considering we are 10 days from Christmas. We didn’t have much time for shopping though, since we had a cinema to catch.

After the movie, we were meeting up with Mikko and Marianne for dinner, after a quick vin chaud at Place Massena. We’d picked a rather well reputed place called Les Deux Canailles for the occasion. The chef, Tsumoru Takano, used to work his magic at the Michelin-starred Keiusuke Matsushima. And we ate very well indeed at Les Deux Canailles as well, I suspect it won’t be too long until they get their first star either… The nice thing is that you get the excellent food and service without the “stiffness” (for lack of a better word) that you sometimes get at Michelin-starred establishments.

All in all, a great soiree, good to catch up with Mikko and Marianne as well!

A few days of REAL winter

After all the sun on the Cote d'Azur, it was time for me to confront the real winter. Yes, I was going to Finland...

After the usual lost luggage problems flying in (this time, my bag got lost in Amsterdam), I got a lift from dad into Helsinki. The weather was as it was to be for the rest of my – cold, dark, with snow everywhere. I don't think I saw the sun once during my stay! Once we arrived, I headed out to have lunch with mum and dad – we ended up in Rivoletto, a rather decent Italian restaurant with pretty authentic Italian fare (but the prices were decidedly Finnish though!)

In the evening, the plan was to meet up with the lads for a few beers. We ended up going to the rather oddly named English pub – Angleterre. Strange name or not – nothing wrong with the beer selection. The usual suspects showed up – Aki (who recently became a dad), Jani and Janne. Micke even showed up later on, much to our surprise. Several beers later, I stumbled back home, rather happy about this nostalgic gathering.

Next day was actually the Finnish National day. My initial ambitious plan had been to go and take some pictures of one of the ceremonies no doubt taking place, but alas, I was way too ambitious. I got up rather late (getting too old for all-night beer sessions, it would appear...), and just didn't have the energy to do much. Anyways, this afternoon, it was time for our family gathering, so I helped mum and dad in the meal preparations. Pretty much everybody showed up: Janne, Katja, Tomi, Leena, Sofia, Mick and his two children. Julia also showed up later on. We passed a very nice afternoon and evening together: eating, chatting away, catching up, and watching the amusingly appropriate movie “En enkel till Antibes” (my parents live in Antibes). Once the gathering was over, I took the opportunity to watch the latest Bond film with my dad - Skyfall. Not a bad effort from Mr. Mendes and Mr. Craig, I have to say, definitely better than Quantum Solace! (about on par with Casino Royale, I would say)

On Friday, I wandered around town, doing a bit of shopping, and just enjoying Helsinki. For lunch, I met up with Sakari, a former colleague from Nokia (and one of many ex-Nokans who have thrown in their lot with Intel), at Karljohan's. A pretty decent place for a quick lunch, I had some quite good reindeer stew. Later on, in the evening, it was time to grab a few beers again. This time I met up with Frank and Rasse in Bruuveri, a German-style brew-pub located in Kamppi. It was all good fun, we ended up doing a bit of a mini pub-crawl, checking out first O'Malleys, then Aussi Bar, and finally Teerenpeli. Considering the number of venues we had visited, my head was in a surprisingly good shape the next day.

I continued doing the social circuit the next day by heading into “Kaunis Grani” for lunch. Kaunis means beautiful in Finnish, but given the “post World War II lesson in how not to make a charming town center” that Grani town center is, I don't know who came up with that nick-name (well, there are actually plenty of nice houses in Grani, it is after all the richest commune in Finland). Anyway, I didn't come here to enjoy the architecture, I was there to have lunch with Jani and Jocke. We lunched in the rather oddly named MOMS (or perhaps appropriately named, MOMS means Value Added Tax in Swedish – and Grani is after all the “tax heaven” of Finland). After a decent steak and a nice catching up session, I jumped on the train and made my way back to Helsinki.

For the evening, the plan was to meet up with Jarkko and Maikki in Atelje Finne – Janne, Katja and my parents also showed up. Atelje Finne is quite a cozy little eatery, I liked the interior decoration. The food is maybe more style than substance, unfortunately. The dishes are quite well presented, and I enjoyed the starter and the dessert, but the main course was a bit of a letdown. And the place is rather expensive, too... Still, we had a really nice evening, catching up with Maikki and Jarkko, first at the restaurant, and then at my parents' place.

On Sunday, I was invited over to my brother's Janne's place for a late lunch and a bit of gaming. I passed a very nice afternoon at Sockenbacka, first getting hammered by Janne at Magic the Gathering (ah, MTG, what memories my brief moment of humiliation brought from my nerdish youth...), then eating way too much of Katja's delicious lasagne, followed by a short board game session. All in all, a very nice way to spend an afternoon! Then made my way into central Helsinki where I met up with Jose for a couple of beers, first at Vltava, and then at Praha. Good to see Jose again – last time would've been after our trip to Octoberfest.

That brought and end to my all-too-short Helsinki visit – time to take the train to Tampere, for what is, I suppose, my last business trip for Nokia.

After a day of meetings, I hit town. Tampere is a nice city, but I rushed past the sights, as it was pitch dark and bloody cold (that's Finnish winter for you – and Helsinki felt positively Cote d'Azurish in comparison to wintery Tampere!). I met up with my colleagues at one of my favourite drinking establishments in Tampere – Plevna (it's a micro-brewery located in the old Finnlayson factories). Pentti and Frank also joined – good fun to catch up with them. I rounded off the night with a beer with my old Riviera-colleague Hannu – very nice to see him as well (seems that he still misses the Cote d'Azur – not a hard thing to imagine especially this time of the year...). The next day, after some more meetings in the morning and some tearful goodbyes (well, I'm kidding about the tear-filled bit – this is after all Finland!), it was time to catch the flight back to Nice.

I have to say, in spite of a great few days spent seeing friends and family, I was rather happy to head back to the warmth. I guess I'm getting too used to the southern climate to enjoy the Finnish winters... ;)

Another beautiful weekend on the Cote d'Azur...

We started this sunny Saturday by going running. I have to say, this was one of those days when one really feels lucky to be living on the Cote d'Azur. To be able to have a jog by the seaside, in shorts and teeshirt, in December. Not bad!

I then jumped on the train and headed into Nice for a lunch appointment. Our good friend Naim, who is working in Brussels at the moment, was visiting for the weekend. So the perfect opportunity for a long overdue business lunch, then! We met up at Cours Salyea, and then tried to find a restaurant big enough to accommodate all of us (10 persons or so), not an easy task on a Saturday!

We eventually ended up in Brasserie l'Opera, unsurprisingly located across the street from the Opera. The place was kind of like a typical tourist trap, so the food wasn't really anything to write home about. But I had a nice time, chatting away with Naim and the others.

After the rather long lunch, I headed towards Avenue Jean Medecin, where I was meeting Mathilde. The plan was to head to the movies – we saw a rather good Italian movie called Piazza Fontana (it talks about a bombing at a bank in 1969 in Milan, putting forward an interesting theory about who was actually responsible for the bombing, and the cover-up that followed...). After the film, we met up with Naim for a coffee near Place Massena, for some proper catching-up.

We finished off a rather busy day at Antoine and Claire's place up in the far-away mountains, in Carros. We met up with the usual suspects (Julie and Aurelien) for a bit of pizza and intellectual socializing. It was all good fun, as always!

The next day, I continued taking advantage of the rather excellent weather, and went scuba diving. I recently completed my CMAS level 2 dive certificate – so time to take advantage of my training with my first autonomous dive. We headed out to my favourite Riviera dive site so far – Caussiniére – located at the point of Cap Ferrat. In spite of the rather mediocre visibility (a lot of storms and rain lately on the Cote d'Azur...), the dive was pretty good. Saw plenty of groupers and quite a few barracudas.

In the afternoon, we made the most of the sunshine by walking along the seaside, pretty much a perfect way to end a great weekend!

Quiet weekend on the Cote d'Azur

A calm weekend coming up – we still needed a bit of rest, after that big road trip of ours. On Friday, we had my parents over for dinner – it was after all a while since we'd seen them last time. For a starter, we prepared a starter we'd tried in Bordeaux – a chestnut cappuccino. Quite a success, I would say. The main coarse, a kind of pork loaf with apples, was less of a success. Not bad, but nothing extraordinary either. To round things off, some pineapple with ice cream, yummie! All in all, a success, I would say!

For Sunday, we decided to head into Nice, to check out Aki and Henna's little boy, who had been born a few weeks ago, and is enigmatically known as “Ihme” (means, quite appropriately, miracle in Finnish). We spent a rather nice afternoon with them, and Aki's parents, admiring the little miracle - and also enjoying the first Glögg (mulled wine) of the year, and also some tasty piparkakkus (a.k.a. Gingerbread). Christmas is approaching ;)

So a rather quiet weekend then, we need those as well!

Pub quiz time!

One of our favourite activities back in England used to be the weekly pub quizes. Not only is it a great excuse to go to the pub (as if an excuse was needed?), but it was also just one of those English things to do. We never won, and usually did very poorly unless we had a Briton with us (those music questions especially are real killers...)

So, anyways, when Aurelien suggested we join up with them at the pub quiz at the Ma Nolan's in the port of Nice, we jumped at the opportunity. Especially when Aurelien offered to drive ;) We were also joined by Vincent, and another colleague of Mathilde's. We did rather averagely on the quiz – as usually, the music questions got us. Much to my disappointment, I was rather poor with the movie questions as well, which ought to be my strong side. But hey, honestly, who can remember a crappy film like 8mm ?

But, most importantly, we had great fun! So I reckon we will be back for another quiz in the not too distant future. After all, it's a great excuse for going to the pub, right ;)

Food is art

After our rather long road trip, which finished a week ago, we didn't feel too motivated to do anything too ambitious this weekend. But, not wanting to sit home all weekend either, we decided to head Nice-bound for a bit of cinema and a nice dinner to round off the day.

After some deliberation, we decided to see “Apres mai” by Oliver Assayas. A pretty interesting movie, autobiographic apparently, following the lives of some youngsters in the early seventies, with rather strong “post '68“ attitudes. What's best about the movie is no doubt the periodic accuracy – really spot on. I think quite a few of the people in the audience had been touched by the events in '68 and the following years, based on the average age of the audience, at least... (then again, this is the Cote d'Azur – pensioners' paradise!)

For dinner, we met up with Julie and Aurelien and headed for a place called 11eme Art, a place we'd read good things about. And it was quite a nice place. Their cuisine is quite original, well presented, and most importantly, tastes good. Admittedly the place is a bit pricey, and the portions are kind of “nouvelle cuisine-sized” (= small). But all in all, we were pretty happy with our choice. Great to catch up with Julie and Aurelien, as well...

Back home via Paris

The last major stop-over on our trip was Paris. On the way there, we stopped over at Le Mans to say hi to Mathilde's granddad. We also stopped at the outskirts of Paris to say hi to Elodie and her two daughters. Eventually, in the afternoon, after experiencing that oh-so-fun Paris traffic on the periferique , we eventually made it to Clichy, where we were planning to stay the night at Sarah and Bruno's place.

They are temporarily residing in a flat there, with young Ulysse, while they are redoing the house they are planning to move to. From what I could gather from the photos, plenty had been done in the house, and a fair bit still to do before moving in (before chrsitmas, apparently!). Anyways, we had a good time with Sarah and Bruno (and let's not forget about young Ulysse), as always. Sarah had cooked some excellent ossobucco for us.

On Friday, we were staying the night at Paula and Peppe's place, which meant we had to drive our car into central Paris (where their flat is located). Which involved about 1 more hour in rather intensive Paris traffic (apparently traffic was light today due to the school holidays – I don't even want to know what it's like on normal working days...). Having left our car in the hands of Paula's dad, who was visiting from Spain, we jumped on the metro and headed for Madeleine, where we had tickets booked for the Pinacothèque. There were two exhibitions on display, one about the works of Hiroshige, and one about Van Gogh and the influence of Japanese art on his work. We really enjoyed the Hiroshige exhibition – his prints really brought us back fond memories from our trip to Japan... The Van Gogh exhibition impressed us less. Don't get me wrong – we both love van Gogh's art, but we found the connections between his paintings and Japanese art a bit far-fetched...

After a rather disappointing sushi lunch (I suspect about half of Paris' Chinese restaurants have transformed themselves into “fake Japanese restaurants”), and embarked on my favourite Parisian activity – walking around. Paris is just such a great place to walk around... We started off by visiting the surprising Madeleine church. I say surprising, because it resembles a temple, more than a church. Strangely enough, the interior, although beautiful, looks smaller than the imposing exterior.

From there, we decided to walk around kind of randomly. Our walk took us towards the imposing Place de la Concorde, across the Seine river, to the Assemblée générale (the French parliament). We continued walking around the 7^th arrondissement, which is known as the “administrative” arrondissement of Paris (there are a lot of ministries, administrative buildings and embassies there), and then headed towards Montparnasse, where the plan was to meet up with Olivier and Raphaelle.

After a quick stroll around Montparnasse cemetery (where for example Serge Gainsbourg is buried), we met up with Ollie and Rapha for a coffee, in a rather typical Parisian brasserie. Having had our (overpriced) coffees, we decided to go for a tea next, since the rainy weather wasn't really suitable for outdoors activities. Our friends new just the place to have a bubble tea – something neither me nor Mathilde had never had, but both were eager to try. Bubble tea, which was “invented” in Taiwan, is a mixture of tea, milk and tapioca beans (which is where the name comes from). Very nice, actually!

After our bubble tea, we made our way back to Paula and Peppe's for a happy reunion. After spending a bit of time catching up with them, and admiring their lovely children, it was time to head for Montmarte, where we were planning to have dinner. After an hour or so on the metro and then walking in rather heavy rain, we found the place, were we joined the rest of the group (Milene, Kamel, Ollie and Rapha). We had a super night there, enjoying good food, wine and great company. Great to catch up with Milene and Kamel as well.

On Saturday, it was time to hit the road again, heading southward this time. The plan was to stay the night at Villefranche-sur-Saone, near Lyon. On the way up there, we decided to make a short stop for lunch at Noyers-sur-Serein – a little village in Burgundy recommended in our Lonely Planet guide. And picturesque it was, indeed, with its nice cobble-stoned streets, medieval houses, and the river going through the village. Unfortunately, the place was kind of dead as well – the only restaurants that were open were more or less full (and this was after all a Saturday!), so we ended up having lunch in the Courtepaille near the motorway.

We arrived in our “charming hotel”, “well located” in an industrial zone a couple of kilometer's from the motorway (note the irony on both counts). After having a bit of a rest and freshening up, we headed into the town center, to explore this town that is the focal point of the Beaujolais wine region (know, for better or worse, for the Beaujolais Nouveau wines). Quite a disappointment from a tourist's point of view – there is very little interest in the town, the historic walks takes about 5 minutes to complete, and there isn't much in the way of history involved either... We ended up having dinner in a cajun-themed restaurant. The menu was quite inventive, but the food was a little bit disappointing.

We very quite happy to hit the road the next morning, and head back home to Cagnes-sur-Mer. All in all, we were very happy with our little road trip (well, little is perhaps not the right expression to use for our 3300 kilometers' drive). Thanks to everybody we met up with, and especially to those who put us up, during our trip!

A few days in Angers

After driving through some miserable weather, we finally arrived in Angers, just in time for dinner ;) Great to see Joel and Francoise, and Mephisto the cat, again! As an added bonus, Mathilde's niece, Alix, was also visiting. We spent a very relaxing weekend in Angers – a bit of rest was needed after all that driving around. Not doing much really – eating Francoise's delicious food, doing a couple of runs around the Lac de Maine, shopping in Angers, playing scrabble, going to the cinema. That sort of thing.

On Monday, we had agreed to head off to see with Aude and Magaye at Nantes, bringing Alix with us (the plan was to take her to her grandmum). After a nice tea at their super cool house (which they've spent a lot of time redoing) with Aude, we headed out to Nantes for a bit of shopping. It was pretty nice to walk around Nantes – it really is one of my favourite cities in France. Shopping is not perhaps what I would characterise as my favourite activity, but I had good fun with the ladies, and really appreciated the historic Passage Polleraye shopping arcade.

After dropping off Alix at her grandmum's, it was time to pick up Magaye (who was back from work) and head off for dinner. Nathalie, Patrick, Timotei and my godson Florian also joined us. Nathalie had booked a nice seafood restaurant for the occasion. We spent a very nice time at the restaurant indeed – the food was great, and so was the company, so pretty much perfect then, Great to catch up with Nathalie and Patrick (and my godson as well, naturally!) as well.

We finished off our lovely day in Nantes by having a drink at the top of the Tour Bretagne, which is the highest building in Nantes (and the 3^rd highest in France outside Paris). It's an impressive 144 meters high, and I think putting a bar on top of the tower is an excellent idea! The bar is appropriately called Le Nid - Nid means bird's nest (the interior decoration is very much bird-inspired). The nightly views from the tower over Nantes were naturally pretty amazing...

After a digestif at Aude and Magaye's place, it was time to hit the sack. After a somewhat slow morning, and a quick visit to Magaye's office (which must be the coolest office I've ever been to – it's like a little artists' den located in a former squat), we headed over to Alix's grandmum's place, to pick up Mathilde's nephews, Paul and Lucas. We also took the opportunity to play a bit with the youngest member of the family – Siem (who was rather scared of me for some odd reason). The reunion with Paul and Lucas was very nice – I actually get the impression they have calmed down a bit! (mind you, just a bit, they still have plenty of energy!)

Back in Angers, we continued with the same “family activities” as before (with the added activity, for me, of spending half of my time wrestling with the spirited twins – what was that about them having calmed down again ? ;) ). In the evening, we escaped to Delphine and Christophe's place for dinner. Great to catch up with them again, it's been over a year since the last time, I believe...

I started Wednesday morning with another run, this time to Angers town center. Didn't realise it was actually only 4 kilometers there, and a very pleasant 4 kilometers at that, with a footpath crossing Park Balzac, and following the Maine river into the town center, with a stunning view of the medieval castle. For the evening, we were invited for dinner at Marc and Magaly's. We had an excellent time, as we always do with them (and very much enjoyed the fondue they had prepared for us). Now that I have my CMAS level 2 diving level, I could talk shop with Marc (although he's just gotten his level 3, so I've got some catching up to do...)

That brought an end to our short visit at Angers, as it was time to carry on towards Paris. As always, we'd had a very nice stay in Angers, looking forward to going again for Christmas!

Short stopover at Bordeaux

Our next stop on our Hipsano-French odyssey was Bordeaux. Bordeaux is, of course, one of the main cities in France, and the center of one of the most prestigious wine-growing regions in the world. I've never been there, and there were quite a few years since Mathilde's visit to the place, so we figured it was a logical place for a stop-over on the way to Angers. Bordeaux is divided into two parts by the mud-coloured Garonne river – we were staying near its banks on the other side of the city center. In spite of the ominously gray sky, we decided to head out to explore the city on foot.

Bordeaux is, more than typically French architecture-wise than any other city, apart from Paris. The architecture is basically classical French architecture form the 18^th century. Personally, it's not an architecture I find particularly inspiring (apart from, undeniably, in Paris), but one has to admit that Brodeaux is one of the most harmonious cities I've been to, architecturally speaking. It all has a very prosperous and clean feel to it, but the place also came across as a bit, I don't know, boring, after what we'd seen in Spain. Don't get me wrong though, we very much enjoyed our walk around historic Bordeaux, but the place just didn't give us the same kind of positive vibes we had in say Bilbao.

Things got better as we checked out a film at the most famous independent cinema in Bordeaux, Utopia. The cinema itself has a pretty interesting history, being located in a former church building in the middle of historic Bordeaux. The movie we saw, Cesare deve morire, by the Taviani brothers, was also excellent, so our evening was off to a good start. Things got even better as we had dinner. After checking out numerous places that all seemed to serve very classic French fare, Mathilde discovered a place called Karma, where we decided to dine. An excellent choice – well cooked, original food, for a quite reasonable price.

The next morning, we were blessed with sunshine, so we decided to hike around some more. It's true that we got a more positive picture of Bordeaux, lit up by sunlight. Our hike took us around all the main sights; Le Place de la Bourse, the cathedral, la Grosse Cloche, the riverside, even some Roman ruins. I read later that quite a lot of money has been spent to clean up to brighten up Bordeaux: the facades of the previously soot-covered houses have been cleaned up, a tramway has been built, the riverside has been redeveloped, and so forth. And it does show! We particularly enjoyed the Basique de Saint Michel, with its modernist stained-glass windows. Or possibly the excellent lunch we had at a Japanese restaurant in the old town, near the Utopia cinema.

The sky was looking ominously gray, a sign for us to hit the road, which we did (so far, it's basically rained all the time we've been driving during our trip in France). All in all, we very much enjoyed our short stop-over in Bordeaux. Although I still wouldn't rank it among my favorite cities in France.