Dinner with Danielle and Francis

Danielle, Mathidle's auntie, and her husband Francis certainly picked a lousy time to visit the Cote d'Azur. Rarely has the rain been so consistent... Thankfully for them (and us!) things got a bit better during the last couple of days.

Anyways, since they were on the Cote d'Azur, we were happy that they accepted our invitation to join us for dinner in Cagnes. After a short touristy visit, with Mathilde as a guide, I joined the trio at the flat for dinner.

Mathilde cooked a most delicious Finnish salmon soup for the occasion, which naturally warmed my heart! All in all, we spent a very nice evening together!

Full moon walk in the snow

What do most people do after your typical day at work ? They tend to go home, watch telly, read a book, spend time with their loved once, you know the works. Normally, that's what I would do too - but on this particular day I had the crazy idea to join my colleagues for a moonlight walk at L'Audibergue, a ski station "near to work". Near to work being a 1 1/2 hour drive.

So, we eventually arrived at about 8 PM, ready to start our ambitious hike (there were actually quite a few of us crazies, about 20 in total). There was great hope to see the full moon, as the weather forecast promised a clear sky. So off we set then, heading up the pitch dark ski slope up from the parking. I was rather happy to have my rather powerful frontal lamp (unlike some poor unprepared souls who ventured out without lamp).

An hour or so of rather steady walking up the snowy slopes, we arrived at the summit. The moon ? Nowhere to be seen ? In fact, there was pretty much nothing to be seen, as the summit was shrouded in mist. Oh, well... Thanks god people had brough rhum, home distilled eau de vie, vin chaud and so forth... It truly warmed our spirits.

Not to be let down by the lack of moon, led by Jerome on his skis, we decided to carry on even higher up, following a ridge (being damn careful not to fall off the ridge!) up to another little summit, where once again we could see no moon. Actually, I lie, after waiting for about 15 minutes, the clouds did part for a bit, and we did see a bit of the moon - or a rather nice visual effect, at the very least.

The hike down was rather atmospheric, as we hiked along footpaths in woods. Actually, all sarcastic comments about missing moon and so forth, we had a very nice evening hiking in the snow. Great way to get to know my new colleagues as well. In fact, I would be happy to try a moonlight hike again one day - perhaps during the summer next time?

Dinner in Nice

It's the second week of school holidays, so a night out with Mathilde's colleagues was called for, I suppose. The usual Thursday pub quiz slot was taken up, so we decided to head out to Nice for dinner this Tuesday night instead. We selected Le Comptoir du Marche as the venue for the night, a rather excellent choice as it turns out. Run by the same lot who operate a true Nice institution - Le Bistrot d'Antoine - this place is a true gem in the middle of touristy Vieux Nice. The cuisine is typically local, but with a modern touch. Really excellent choice.

Julie, Antoine and Sarah all showed up, and we had quite a blast, I have to say. After dinner, we made our way to a bar, the name of which escapes me just now, for quite a few drinks. To pay homage to the customary Ma Nolan's pub quiz, which we missed out on this week, I had Guinness all night (apart from a 16-year old Lagavulin). All in all, a very good night out!

Snow on the Cote d'Azur

Just a short entry to describe what happens on the Cote d'Azur when it snows. Life grinds to an absolute standstill. On this particular day, there was maybe 0.5cm of snow at Sophia-Antipolis, where I work. The result - it took me three hours (instead of the normal 20 minutes) to get to work. And this was during school holidays!

I realize there is a rational explanation for all this - too many cars, an overloaded road network, and so forth. Still, being a Finn, it felt a bit silly.

Actually, the snow you can see on the photo here was at the parking at work - it was about the only snow I saw that day, during my three hours stuck in traffic!

Nantes-Angers-Paris in three days!

Due to some long-distance travel planned in a couple of months, I suddenly found myself needing to renew my passport. Unfortunately, the closest place to do that is Paris... So a trip to Paris was called for (not that I mind or anything, Paris is a fantastic city...). Since Mathilde was planning a trip to Western France around the same time, I decided to join her to Nantes, then Angers, and take the train to Paris from Angers. Quite an ambitious programme for three days!

We arrived in Nantes as planned Saturday evening, and were happy to a lift to Aude and Magayes's lovely recently refurbished house where we were planning to stay the night. We spent a very nice evening indeed at their house, enjoying some rather delicious pizza, followed by some equally delicious crepes. Since we still have some illusions of youth, we decided to head into town after dinner for a couple of drinks. After checking out a couple of places that were just too busy (finding a bar "too busy" - a sign of getting old?), we found a nice little bar in the town centre, where we stopped for a couple of beers. I really like the buzz Nantes has - it seems like a much more happening and "experimental" place than Nice (in spite of Nice being a student town, it just feels a bit old sometimes...).


The next morning, we got up, and sat down to a most excellent brunch. Bravo, Aude and Magaye! Our appetites sated, we headed to the Vertou, a village just down the road from Nantes, where we checked out the local market. It's one of the things I really like about France - the fact that most towns have access to a proper farmer's market (we do almost all our fruit and veg shopping at our local farmer's market). After a couple of glasses of white wine at the "buvette", it was unfortunately time to head to the train station, say bye bye to Aude and Magaye, and jump on the train to Angers.

After a nice late lunch in Angers town centre, we headed back to Joel and Francoise's house, by foot (the sun was out, so we wanted to make the best of it). The walk back to the house, along the Maine River, really is great, especially when the sun is out, like it was on this particular day.

Our welcome at Joel and Francoise's house was great, as always. Great to see them, even though in my case it was to be a very short visit. And the dinner we were served was as great as always ;-)

The next morning, it was time for me to say bye bye to Mathilde, and catch the TGV down to Paris. After the raid 1 1/2 hour journey, the train pulled into Montparnasse station without any delay. From there, I jumped on the metro and headed down to Invalides, where the Finnish embassy is located. After the quick and efficient (if rather expensive...) formalities, I headed out to explore Paris.

I had almost all day ahead of me, before catching my flight back to Nice at 7 in the evening. Since I was lucky enough to have some excellent sunny (if a bit chilly) weather, I decided to make the best of it and walk around and enjoy Paris. I started by crossing the Seine to Place de La Concorde, from where I headed towards the Jardin des Tulieres. To get my mandatory dose of culture, I visited the Orangerie, a museum featuring Impressionist art - including the famous Nympheas by Monet. What can I say ? It's a fantastic museum - I really like Impressionist art, and the place in human-sized (unlike the Louvre located just next to it), it took me about an hour to check it all out.

I then carried on through the Jardin down to the Louvre, and headed towards Pont-Neuf after contemplating the ridiculous queue for the Louvre (and remember, this was a Monday!) for a while. I crossed Pont-Neuf to l'île de la Cité all the way to the Notre Dame. I considered the option of visiting the church for a while, but seeing the length of the queue, decided against it (that's the problem with Paris - the queues to most monuments are just ridiculous...). I decided to have a walk around the Latin quarter instead, on the other side of the Seine. Good choice, it was a bit calmer there. By now, my stomach was starting to grumble, so I decided to grab a bite to eat. The Latin Quarter is unfortunately full of tourist traps, but I managed to find a lovely little Georgian restaurant at a deserted side street. The place was deserted apart from a few people who seemed like regular customers - but the food was excellent and the 13 Euros I paid for the lunch menu felt like a bit of a bargain considering this is Paris.

I still had a couple of hours before catching my bus to Orly, so I decided to check out the nearby Pantheon, which I've not visited. This neoclassical building was originally a church dedicated to St. Genevieve (the patron saint of Paris). After the revolution, the government decided to change the place from a church to a kind of mausoleum where "great Frenchmen (and later French women) were to be buried". The building itself is more imposing than pretty, I would say (it's grandiose but not exactly subtle), but the visit proved quite an interesting summary of French history, as there are plaques summarizing the lives of the most famous people resting in the building.

 My original plan had been to finish my day in Paris with a visit to the Catacombs, since they are located in Denfert-Rochereau, where I was supposed to take the bus to Orly later on. Unfortunately they were closed on Mondays, so I eneded up spending an hour chilling out in the Jardins de Luxembourg instead. Not a bad way to end my day in Paris actually, basking in the winter sun, and watching the Parisians playing chess, reading books, and just basking in the winter sun like me.

All in all, quite a busy, but fantastic day!

Quick visit from Mexico

We were happy to hear that our dear friend JayJay was coming over for a quick stop-over to Nice, on his way to Liberia, of all places (for a 1 month work assignment)! The life of a marine biologist is adventurous indeed, it seems...

Unfortunately JayJay was only spending one night in Nice, but were happy to hear he was ready to meet up in spite of a rather insane travel schedule. So we all met up in our favourite Irish pub in Nice - Ma Nolan's. Apart from the hero of the night, Marie and Chris were also present.

All in all, we spent a very nice evening catching up, drinking Guinness and eating traditional pub food (er, hamburger). Great to see JayJay again, hope to see him again in one month's time and hear all about his Liberian adventure!

Julia and Sophia visiting

My nieces Julia and Sofia have been visiting for a week, getting up to the stuff young ladies usually do on the Cote d'Azur, I suppose (shopping, going to the beach, more shopping, etc. Well, a bit of touristy stuff as well, apparently ;-). Mostly, I think they were just happy to get away from the cold weather. And they picked a pretty good week to do that too, since the sun has been quite generous these last few days!

So anyways, today it was time for us to meet up with the girls. Mathilde was still down with the flu, so I decided to cycle down to Nice and hang out with them and my parents for a couple of hours, the plan was then to meet up with Mathilde for dinner in Haut-de-Cagnes. Cycling down to Nice is always a pleasure, and today was no exception, as the sun was indeed out. It did get a bit cloudy by the time I arrived, but then again that set the scene for some nice photos (useful for my photography course the next day!).

I met up with the gang at Place Garibaldi, from where we headed down to the old town. After a bit of strolling about in the windy old streets of Nice, we decided to head to Emily's Cookies, a little American-style coffee shop I've heard good things about, famous for their cookies (of course!), cupcakes and cheese cakes. And it is quite a nice place, I have to say, a bit like a laid-back hippy version of Starbucks. And the cheesecake was pretty good... After coffee and cakes we headed to another bar for our aperitif (apparently my parents had promised one to the girls - oh well I'm not one to say no to an aperitif!). After some rather disappointing Mojitos, it was time to make our way to Cagnes for dinner.

We'd booked Le Perousin for the occasion, a new place serving Mediterranean cuisine, which I'd walked past before and that seemed rather inviting. And we weren't disappointed. The food was good, the place cosy, and our host rather entertaining - he seemed to be particularly keen to give career advise to my god-daughter Julia, who is just starting her cooking career. Well, all in all, we spent a very nice evening at the place, that's the main thing!

Great to see the nieces again - seems like they very much enjoyed their stay ;-)

Sushi evening with Naim

Our good friend Naim was visiting Nice this week (feeling a bit lonesome over in cold and Northerly Belgium, I suppose...). So naturally, we had to plan in an evening with him. We had planned to meet up for dinner with him at a Yuzi sushi bar, a well noted little eatery in the centre of Nice. Our choice of Japanese was no accident - we had just booked tickets for our Japan holiday, and were keen to get back into Japanese gastronomy, to prepare our taste buds.

Unfortunately, Mathilde was struck by quite a nasty flu on Saturday, so we had to slightly modify our plans. We didn't want to cancel, as we wanted to meet Naim and were very keen on the sushi. Thankfully, the restaurant does takeway, so we decided to eat the sushi at our place. And what delicious sushi it was - brought back succulent memories from Tsukiji (the Tokyo fish market, where we had the best sushi of our lives a couple of years ago).

To cap of a very nice evening, we saw Margin Call - a rather good movie about the financial crisis with an excellent cast. Great to catch up with Naim as well - glad to hear he should be back in a month's time!