A Japanese tea ceremony

Dear reader, in case you are one of the select few regular readers of this blog you will most likely have come to realize that me and Mathilde are big fans of Japan. So as a birthday surprise for Mathilde, in addition to our mini-break in the Var the weekend before, I decided to take her to participate in a traditional Japanese tea ceremony at the Museum of Asian Arts near Nice airport.

Now, we are not talking about a proper tea ceremony here, unfortunately (that one lasts several hours and involves a rather sophisticated meal as well). But what we experienced was still pretty fascinating - all the care and sophistication that goes into something as simple as having a cup of tea is just so, hmm, Japanese. And impressive.

We also took the opportunity to visit the museum while we were there - it's one of our favourite ones on the Cote d'Azur, with a very nice setting next to Parc Phoenix. All in all, a very nice way to spend a Sunday afternoon - and a nice way to temporarily sate our appetite for all things Japanese ;-)

Muse live @ Nikaia

I'm not what one would call an avid music fan - my knowledge of modern music of any genre is appalling - I'm not one to drag to a pub quiz for the music round questions, that's for sure. But one of the "contemporary" bands I like is Muse, so when Mathilde pointed out they were in Nice, she had little trouble convincing me to go along to the concert.

This being the Cote d'Azur, and the traffic being pretty appalling at the best of times, but being particularly bad this time of the year (early summer = French people still at work but foreign tourists starting to show up). So with a band of Muse's stature playing at Nikaia, we feared the worst traffic-wise. As a de-risking exercise, we decided that I leave the car back at home after work, and take a train or bike to the concert. In spite of this excellent plan, we nearly missed the start of the concert. Just getting home from the office just took ridiculously long (like 1h15 minutes instead of the normal 15 minutes). We then struggled to find a free parking station for our rental bikes. But, thankfully, we made it in time, although we missed the warm-up act...

The gig itself was fantastic. Muse, apparently, have an excellent reputation as a live band, and with good reason. Really professional show, and pretty impressive special effects too (a bit more subtle than AC/DC that I saw a year earlier... ;-). So all in all, very well spent Euros!

Ilario and Ashish over for dinner

A couple of months ago, me and my colleague Ilario spent a couple of very fascinating weeks in India for work. We very much appreciated the hospitality of our Indian hosts at the time. So when one of our remote team mates over in Noida, Ashish, came over for a couple of weeks to our office in Sophia-Antipolis, I decided to invite him for dinner together with Ilario.

Mathilde was kind enough to cook a very tasty vegetarian quiche for us (Ashish is a vegetarian), and we spent a rather nice evening listening to Ashish's adventures on the Cote d'Azur (he's the only person I've ever heard of who's actually walked from Sophia-Antipolis to Antibes for dinner, and then walked back!). Ashish also seemed to enjoy Mathilde's grandma's home-distilled Calvados... ;-)

Surprise weekend in the Var

Me and Mathilde have a tradition of organizing surprise weekends for each other as birthday presents. This year, I wasn't taking Mathilde far - just down the road to the Var Department.

We started the surprise weekend with a visit at the Domaine de Rayol. It's a kind of botanical garden located by the seaside, not far from Saint-Tropez. The domain was originally built by a Parisian businessman as his retirement home in 1910. The place eventually fell into neglect during the 1960, until it was taken over by the Conservatoire du Littoral in 1989, who have restored the place to its current glory.



And it has to be say it's quite a remarkable place - a real haven of peace and tranquillity on the Cote d'Azur. It's divided into a number of different areas representing habitats from various corners of the world.

After a couple of hours walking around and exploring the gardens, we decided to head down to the beach. We found a rather stunning little place just a couple of kilometres from the domain, surrounded by almost unspoilt coastline. I say almost - this is the Cote d'Azur after all ;-) (although it has to be said that the coastline of the Var Department is considerably less built-up than the Alpes-Maritimes, where we live...). The water was surprisingly chilly considering it was late June, but we (or at least I ;-) didn't mind, the site was just so perfect...

We then headed off to our hotel, located near the medieval village of Grimaldi, a  rather sublime place called Le Verger Maelvi. Pretty much the perfect place for a romantic break. After chilling out for an hour or so at the swimming pool, it was time to get dressed and head off for dinner. For dinner, I'd chosen a place with a nice terrace in Port-Grimaud. Port-Grimaud is a kind of modern-day Venice, built in the 60's (probably one of the rare esthetically successful housing developments from that era...). A good choice, I think - the view from the terrace was pretty much perfect (especially since we were treated to a full moon). And no complaints about the food either - we both fresh, well-prepared fish.

The next day, after some contemplation, we decided to head off to Saint-Tropez. It's a place I find a bit over-rated (in the sense that there are equally pretty places much closer to where we live), but since we were in the neighbourhood, we decided to pay it a visit. Actually, the peninsula where Saint-Tropez is located is stunningly beautiful - surprisingly untouched by developers (mind you, there are plenty of fancy villas just 10-20 meters from the untouched coastline). 

We spent a few blissful hours walking around the peninsula. The views along the coastline are just stunning (first, towards Saint-Tropez, and the imposing yachts moored in the bay, and then of a more "untouched coastline" type as we left the glitz n' glamour of Saint-Tropez). And what's best, there are plenty of superb beaches along the hike, where we stopped for a quick swim to cool down...

That brought an end to what I hope was as enjoyable a weekend for Mathilde, as it was for me ;-)

Birthday parties at Les Vieux Murs

Today was Mathilde's birthday - and Alix had also turned 12 just a few days earlier. It was also the last day with Joel, Francoise and Alix on the Cote d'Azur, so we figured there were enough reasons to celebrate in class, by booking a table at Les Vieux Murs at Antibes.

Les Vieux Murs is a bit of an institution on the Cote d'Azur - it's where a lot of local companies take customers out for dinner. The location couldn't be much nicer - as the name suggests, the place is located on the ramparts of Antibes. No complaints about the food either - classic dishes prepared with great care, and with attentive service. The place has a slightly old-fashioned feel to it, but I guess it's not trying to pretend to be inventive or revolutionize cuisine either...

After the most filling me, us youngsters headed out to town to check out the Fete de la Musique action. Fete de la Musique is a country-wide (actually I think it exists in a number of European countries these days) party where loads of bands basically play in bars, in the streets and on stages put up for the occasion. All in all, it was all great fun! (in spite of the somewhat unnecessary - if you ask me - riot police presence...).

Happy birthday darling, and sorry to see our dear guests leave after 2 great weeks on the Cote d'Azur!

Teacher partyin' at Claire and Antoine's!

Summer is here - or nearly here anyways (summer officially starts on the 21st of June in France). Which means that the school holidays are approaching - which means loads of teacher's parties! Fine by me, although getting up in the mornings can be a bit of a pain... This evening, the occasion for the get-together at Claire and Antoine's place at Carros was that one of Mathilde's colleagues, Julien, passed his "aggregation exam".

Getting "aggregated" is basically REALLY hard work (some teachers take a year off to study for the exam but still fail...), so seems to be a pretty good excuse for a party to me !? The usual suspects were all there -  meaning Julie & Aurelien as well as us, and naturally Julien and his better half. As always, we ate and drank well, and generally had a brilliant time! Congratulations to Julien for his hard work!

Ile Saint-Marguerite

Joel and Francoise were staying on longer than usual this year - for two whole weeks. So that meant a lot of good meals for us (since we usually had dinner at their rental flat in Villeneuve-Loubet), and also plenty of Scrabble (Joel is quite a keen Scrabble player, to say in the least!), which is a great way for me to improve my French! We were also joined by Mathilde's niece Alix, who arrived from Paris by plane, which livened things up considerable, as always ;-).

On Saturday, we were happy to invite Francoise, Joel and Alix over for lunch at our flat again. After a rather tasty lunch of lamb and oven-baked potatoes, we decided to head down to the beach again to burn off some of those hard-gained calories. Unfortunately, like last weekend, the weather wasn't quite up to the usual Cote d'Azur standard (the water temperature was apparently 17 degrees, brrr!), but that didn't put off a bunch of Northerners like us, so we went swimming anyway (well, me, Alix and Francoise did, anyway).

On Sunday, the weather was thankfully back to its sunny normal, so we decided to head off on a bit of an excursion to Ile Saint-Marguerite, one of the Iles des Lerins off Cannes. It's pretty much the perfect place to spend a day out, especially when the weather is the way it was on this particular Sunday. The isles are all about dramatic cliffs, well-maintained footpaths, plenty of varied vegetation, and best of all, beautiful beaches.

So we spent a pretty much perfect day hiking around the island, stopping by every now and then for a swim and working on those suntans on the many creeks and beaches that litter the island. So, pretty much the perfect way to spend a "family Sunday" then!

Fete de la Renaissance

One cool thing about the Cote d'Azur being a touristy place, is that they organise plenty of festival, village fares, and such like, especially during the summer months. So since Mathilde's dad Joel and Francoise came over for a couple of weeks, and were staying in Villeneuve-Loubet, we decided to check out the Fete de la Renaissance in Villeneuve-Loubet village.

The fete actually celebrates a real historic event that took place in this medieval village (located just next to Cagnes-sur-Mer, where we live) in 1538. That year, Francois I spent three weeks in the castle of Villeneuve-Loubet, the occasion being the signing of the peace treaty with Charles Quint, which put an end to the 8th Italian war (??).

We were very impressed with the show the locals had put up! There were medieval workshops, archery demonstrations/competitions, sword fights, and loads of other fun activities for children and adults alike. Not to mention loads of folks in period costumes. The festivities culminated with the royal parade that finished at the big parking (cunningly disguised to look like an, erm, mediaval square or something) next to the old village.

After enjoying some refreshments and enjoying the spectacle, we headed into the old village where there was more entertainment to be had, products on sale and so forth. We walked all the way up the medieval castle, which wasn't open to the public, unfortunately...

Nonetheless, and impressive spectacle, and great fun!

The next day, we invited Joel and Francoise over for lunch. After devouring a rather huge chicken (naturally purchased at the Cagnes-sur-Mer farmer's market) , we headed down to the seaside for a bit of exercise (had to burn off all of those calories, after all...). The weather was a bit weird, with ominous clouds making an appearance - which actually resulted in some pretty nice pictures!

Virtual Photo Exhibition ;-)

Over the past year, I've been trying to improve my photography skills, attending a course at the cultural centre of Cagnes-sur-Mer. The culmination of our year was the exhibition we put up at the cultural centre. Unfortunately, I was not present for the opening "event" (which was even witnessed by the local news paper - Nice Matin), due to my business trip in Edinburgh... But anyways, please find a virtual version below ;)

Back in Edinburgh!

I have some very happy memories from Edinburgh, where I spent a year studying very hard (yeah right ;-) a looong time ago (1998-1999). So I was quite happy to accept the opportunity to go there for a couple of days with the new job.

I arrived Wednesday noon, somewhat surprised (positively) to observe some rays of sunshine on a typically cloudy sky... After a short taxi drive, I arrived at our office, nicely located just off Costophine Road. Since the temperature was above 10 degrees, most of my colleagues were naturally wearing shorts ;-).

After a rather efficient day at the office, I dropped off my bags at the hotel, and headed downtown, eager to "rediscover" Ediburgh. Unfortunately the sunshine was gone by the time I arrived, but at least it didn't rain... I spent a good hour or so walking around this fascinating town, starting in the new town, crossing Prince's street and heading into the old town, where I walked up to the castle, and then down the Royal Mile to the Palace of Hollyrood house (which is the official resident of the Regent of the United Kingdom in Scotland).

The touristy bit done, I made my way back into the new town, for my rendez-vous at an old haunt of mine, The Guildford Arms. As you may have guessed, it's a pub (where the mountaineering club, which I was a proud member of, used to meet up each week). Quite appropriate choice, since most of the folks I was meeting up with were members of that esteemed club. Jenni and Andy made it, as well as our former president, Iain. I was also happy that Julia, my niece, could make it (she is working there), as well as my former crazy Scottish colleague from my Nokia years, Colin. It goes without saying that it was an excellent night out, almost emotional... ;)

I got up relatively early the next morning, surprisingly without a pounding headache. After another most efficient day at the office, it was time to hit town again, this time for an "official team meal". Before the meal, I naturally had a couple of pints with my colleagues Stewart and Andrew, a kind of Scottish aperitif if you will. (I did actually manage to squeeze in a bit of sightseeing as well - the sun was out so the conditions were just perfect for a few piccies). A couple of pubs, quite a few beers and an excellent steak later, I got the taxi back to the hotel...

After another day at the office (interrupted by a pub lunch - a tradition I was happy to observe is still well and live...), it was time to head back to Nice. Nice to have been back - the couple of days spent there confirmed my impression of Edinburgh being my favourite city in the UK overall!

Happy birthday, Cros-de-Cagnes

We've not exactly been blessed with brilliant weather so far this year (considering our geographical location, at least), but the last week or so has been giving us hope for better times. As this Saturday was no exception, we decided to jump on our bikes and head down to Nice for our dinner rendez-vous with Mikko and Marianne, whom we've not seen for a good while...

We stopped by in Cros-de-Cagnes, where we checked out the celebrations to honour the 200th anniversary of this "little fishing port" (quotation marks since there are more commuters living there than fishermen these days - but there are a few left, and even a fish market during weekend mornings). The city council had put up a pretty good effort for the occasion, with processions making their way down the seaside boulevard, and some rowing boats near the beach putting up a bit of a show as well. Even Louis Negre, the mayor, showed up and made a speach.

After checking out the show for a while, we cycled on to La Ville de Sienne, a nice Italian restaurant in the old town of Nice, where we met up with Mikko and Marianne. A pity Aki and Henna had to cancel last minute - but anyway it was great to see Mikko and Mairanne again. After a nice meal, we headed to Akathor pub in Cours Saleya - a bit of a nostalgia trip (the waiter's still don't speak a lot of English there...).