Jocke visiting!

This week, my good friend Jocke decided to pop over for a short visit. As usually with Jocke, confirmation came rather late – but in the end neither the looming Lufthansa strike nor the last-minute work assignment (Jocke is a pilot) materialized, so he showed up at the expected time at the airport – one bag short unfortunately (Lufthansa seem to do that quite a lot...).

On the first night, we decided to dine in – an oven-baked free-range chicken did the job, with some nice rose wine to wash it down. And that was naturally followed by a couple of glasses of Mathilde's grandmum's, as well as grandfather's calva, and a couple of glasses of the '44 I've also made. More than a couple of glasses, actually... Strange how that home-distilled calva always seems to go down well with my fellow Finns...

The next morning, we didn't get up quite as early as planned (I wonder if it had anything to do with all that calva the night before?). But, we still managed to stick to our plan, which was to go sailing. We rented a catamaran at the sailing club at the Cros de Cagnes, where I sailed for a year. The session went rather well, as we sailed back and forth between the Port de Saint-Laurent-du-Var and the Villeneuve-Loubet Marina. Seems that sailing is a bit like riding a bike – once you learn it, you never forget ? Good fun, maybe I should sign up at the club again ?

All that sailing meant we'd developed quite a healthy appetite, so after some deliberation, we ended up going to one of my favourite restaurants on the Cote d'Azur – the Dame Nature in Saint-Laurent-du-Var. Their concept is to make good food from natural (mostly organic) ingredients. A bit pricey, but the quality of the food is really excellent. I had the Parillada a la Plancha this time – an excellent choice. One of the best seafood dishes I've had for a really long time... The dessert was absolutely delicious as well. Dame Nature certainly didn't disappoint – in fact I reckon it was better than on previous occasions.

After our rather late lunch, we didn't have time to do much after dinner actually. I did want to show Jocke a proper Provencal village, so we decided to head down to Saint-Paul-de-Vence for a quick tour. It's certainly one of the most picturesque villages on the Riviera – but a bit touristy unfortunately. I didn't expect it to be as bad as it was, considering this was a weekday evening in September, but alas, the tourists were there in great numbers. That, of course, takes nothing away from the beauty of the place. And it was a fruitful visit; Jocke purchased some local art, and I finally found Marc Chagall's grave in the grave yard just outside the village (last time we visited, we failed to find it).

For the evening, we'd booked a table at another one of our favorite restaurants, Entre Cour et Jardin, located in Haut-de-Cagnes (the historic village in our dear hometown). After the appetite-inducing hike up to the top of the village (it is located on a hill, with a rather steep cobble-stone street leading to the top), and a short exploration of the medieval village (in my opinion, every bit as pretty as Saint-Paul-de-Vence), we made our way to the restaurant. Entre Cours et Jardin was every bit as good as last time we came. I would say the place is pretty close to deserving a Michelin Star, at least so far as the qulity of the food goes. Both the starter and the main course were excellent, as were the amuse-bouches and their bread. Should you ever find yourself in Cagnes-sur-Mer, this is the place to have dinner (but do book in advance...).

The next day, we had a rather ambitious program. We started off by heading down to Cannes, from where we took the ferry to Ile Saint-Marguerite, the bigger of the Iles de Lerins. It's a very nice place indeed to wonder around, with well-preserved nature and dramatic, rocky coastline. After a short hike around the Western half of the island, we made our way to the Fortress, located on the northern shore of the island. We decided to pay a visit. Quite an interesting place – reminds me a bit of Suomenlinna in Helsinki. What the fortress is doubtlessly most famous for is the fact that The Man With the Iron Mask was a prisoner here for a number of years (we visited his cell). The identity of the mysterious chap has never been established with certainty – there are quite a few theories though... (for example: the brother of Louis XI; Moliere, an Italian spy...). You may recall a movie about the chap, starring Leonardo DiCaprio...

After a rather quick visit, we had to speed back to Cannes for lunch. As we wanted to top the restaurants from the day before, we'd booked a table at a Michelin-starred establishment called Park 45, located on the Croisette (it's the restaurant of the Grand Hotel). And it would be a bit harsh to say we were disappointed – the food was excellent, and the service was pretty good too. But, it's true, the service was perhaps not quite as good as I'd expect from a Michelin-starred restaurant. And the food, although very good, wasn't really better than we'd had the day before. Don't get me wrong – we had a very nice meal, but there are better “fine dining” places on the Riviera than this, I reckon.

Our appetites sated, we then carried on to the Var department – the next item on the agenda was wine-tasting. The Var department is very famous for its Côtes de Provence rosé wines – we decided to make our way to Les Arcs, which is kind of the capital of the Côtes de Provence region. We stopped by at two places. We felt we weren't very well welcomed at the first vineyard we visited – but their rosé wines were really excellent, so I decided to get two bottles. The second place was a bit nicer, with a nice lady giving us a good overview of their wines, and let us sample quite a few bottles. I liked the wines less, but decided to take a bottle of white, anyway.

After a short walk around Lorgues (a typically pretty Provencal village, yet again), we started driving back towards Cagnes. But, since we still had some daylight to enjoy (and the sun was finally out, after a rather grey morning), we decided to take the scenic route – that is, drive by the Massif d'Esterel. There is a very nice road that follows the coastline – the views are just stunning (especially in the evening light, as it makes the ochre-coloured rocks seem almost red).

After dinner at home, we decided to hit the Cagnes-sur-Mer bar circuit. I'm being slightly ironic here è there are hardly any bars, and unbelievable as it may sound, I've never been to any of them, although I've lived here for close to 5 years. Well, better late then never. We hit three of the establishments by the seaside – I think we accounted for about 50% of the customers at each place. Oh, well, at least I can say I've done a pub crawl in Cagnes-sur-Mer now ;)

That pretty much brought an end to Jocke's short but intensive visit. The next day, after a swim on the beach, it was time to take Jocke to the airport. Well, it was good fun, that's the main thing!