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!