Busy day in Nice and Cannes

The sales are on (it's a kind of regulated thing in France - you can't just have sales all year around here)! So time to head into Nice then for a spot of shopping, then. We also decided to meet up with Aki and Henna, since we've not seen them for a while. We decided to take the velo bleu into Nice - we were treated to rather intersting sights along our cycle ride (the Mediterranean was rather temperamental this particular afternoon - and one of the waves actually ended up flooding a beach restaurant, much to the discomfort of the patrons.

After a bit of shopping, we met up with Aki & Henna at Galerie LaFayette's coffee shop. Great to see them again, and great to see little Emil growing up (happy as always!). Mathilde also got to meet the youngest member of the family. Joel. We really should try to meet up more often - perhaps for a combined birthday part for me and Henna again in March ? ;-)

For the evening, the plan was to meet up in Cannes for dinner with the "usual CIV crowd" (Aurelien, Julie, Rodolph and Daniela). So we jumped on the train, and headed Westward along the coast. Aurelien had booked a place called Couby's Cafe for the occasion. Kind of hard to find, this Couby's Cafe, we ended up walking around for nearly half an hour trying to find the place, located rather far away from the town centre. But we eventually found it, and were actually the first to arrive. And how was it then ? Pretty cool place, actually. Some of the best burgers I've had on the Cote d'Azur, and I really loved their cartoon themed, laid back decoration too. There aren't enough of these informal joints on the French Riviera!

So a pretty nice way to spend a-not-so-sunny Saturday, then!

Back to Finland

This weekend brought me back to Finland for a very sad reason indeed. As I mentioned earlier on this blog, my cousin passed a way just after Christmas, so this weekend it was time to say our farewells to her. Now, I want to keep the tone of this blog cheerful, so no more about that. Suffice to say that I'm glad I'm glad I was there, sad a day as it was. After the funeral we met up at my dad's flat on Fredrikinkatu, where we spent a rather nice evening all together, in spite of the sad circumstances.

Now, in spite of the sad nature of my visit, I decided to do something I've had a notion to do for quite a time - what we call "avantouinti" in Finnish - apparently the correct term in English is "ice swimming". It amounts to making a big hole in the ice, where people then, yes, swim. It might sound crazy, but I've wanted to do it for a while now. And I was actually able to convince my dad and my cousin Jukkis to join me. (apparently my dad was quite happy about it - he'd also been wanting to do it but hadn't found anybody crazy enough to join him apparently).

So off we went then, early on a wintery Sunday morning, to Lake Bodom in Espoo. So how was it then ? Well, you know what they say, if it doesn't kill you it'll only make you stronger. I'm really happy I did it. Saying that I enjoyed it (all 30 seconds of it!) would be an exaggeration, but it does give you a kind of euphoric feeling afterwards. And apparently it's very good for you!

All three of us felt we deserved a reward after our Herculean efforts, and what better reward on a wintery Sunday than some proper blinis accompanied by a couple of shots of vodka ? It was a bit hard to find a place that was open on a Sunday (this is Finland, after all...), so we ended up in Kappeli. Not our preferred choice, but at least we got to enjoy the impressive interior of this historic place. And no complaints about the blinis or the vodka either ;-).

And then, time to head back to France after a rather emotional weekend. I'm looking forward to visiting on more joyous terms next time!

Housewaming party in Antibes!

Our good friend Julien and Charlotte, who work with Mathilde, were kind enough to invite us to their housewarming party over in Antibes. They've had quite a lot of work done at the place, they basically had to renovate the whole place complete, so we were rather looking forward to seeing the end result.

And impressive it is! Their house wouldn't look out of place in a design magazine, it's all very modern and tasteful, with the modern furniture just perfect for the place. Julien and Charlotte are rather keen on good food - so as expected they treated us to a real feast for the taste buds. Especially the appetizers wouldn't look out of place in a gastronomic restaurant. Chapeau, as the French would say!

And naturally plenty of wine was consumed, and both more and less intellectual conversations were had (the attack on Charlie Hebdo and the Jewish supermarket were naturally discussed...).

Merci beaucoup, Charlotte et Julien, pour une soirée très sympa!

A Visit from Japan

We were quite happy to welcome our good friend Matsuoka (who has been a most trusty tourist guide for us during our regular visits to Tokyo) to the Cote d'Azur for a weekend. What followed was a rather intensive couple of days of touristy action.

I picked up Matsuoka at the airport Saturday morning, and after dropping off his bags at our flat, off we went, to start the touristy circuit. For the Saturday, we gave him two main options: either the Gorges du Verdon (one of the most beautiful canyons in Europe) or wine tasting in the Var (with some cultural visits through in for form's sake). Without much hesitation, he opted for the second option ;-).

We started our visit in Frejus, a seaside town located near the beautiful Massif d'Esterel. We started off with one of the main touristy sites in town, a Roman theatre. Unfortunately, for some hard-to-understand reason, they've decided to rework the historical ruins into a sort of semi-concrete shell - I suppose to allow them to explore the site commercially (for concerts and other cultural events). A crap decision if you ask me...

After this slight disappointment, we headed into the town centre. Frejus is pretty much your bog-standard mid-sized Provencal town, with one distinguishing feature: te Saint-Léonce Cathedral. It really is one of the most beautiful churches in this part of France (which in general is less blessed with impressive churches than most part of France).

The touristy bit done, we headed to the marina for a nice lunch at a place called Sepia. Good choice, I had their squid (which is their signature dish, I suppose) - it really was excellent!


The next item on the agenda was wine tasting :-) So off we headed, deeper into the Var, to the area around Les Arcs. We started at Le Château de Saint-Martin, where a nice lady explained the secrets of their art, and let us try quite a few of their tasty wines. Our wallets a bit lighter, but with a few bottles in the car, we carried on to the Chateau Saint-Pierre, where we were treated to more of the same. It was all rather good fun ;-) (I like wine-tasting in the Var - it's less snobbish business than it can be in the more famous wine-regions in France).

Wistfully, we headed back homewards, deciding to drive along the stunning Massif d'Esterel. It's particularly gorgeous late afternoon/early evening, where the the setting sun makes the ochre-coloured cliffs glow with an almost red light. We were just half an hour too late maybe, but were still treated to some pretty stunning views...

To tie up a rather intensive day, we decided to stop at Cannes for dinner. After having a quick walk around the Palais des Festivals (taking the mandatory photo at the famous stairs, of course), we headed off for dinner. To continue the theme of wines, we ended up dining in a rather nice wine bar called L'Enoteca. Nice place, just the sort of cozy and friendly place to wind down over a couple of glasses of wine and some nice food. After a couple of glasses of Japanese whisky back at our flat, we were more than ready for bed!

The next day, we decided to head Eastwards, destination Italy. Our first stop was at Eze, one of the many stunning perched villages this part of France is blessed with. Eze is one of the most famous ones, thanks mostly to its proximity to Nice. Eze's charm is undeniable, perched on its rocky hilltop, overlooking the Riviera, the views from the village are unbelievable, especially on a sunny winter day like today. It's a bit of a tourist trap with all its art shops, but then I suppose that's kind of unavoidable. We headed all the way up to the top of the village, and visited the exotic gardens located around the ruined castle. More importantly, that's where you get the best view from.

We then continued Eastwards, first taking the Haut Corniche (the scenic road that hugs the coastline), then the motorway. Our destination was a small village called Vallebona, and in particular one of our favorite restaurants, Il Giardino. But before that, a bit of sport - me and Matsuoka were crazy enough to go for a wintery swim. Just great, really wakens you up!

And then, time for another lovely 3 hour lunch in our favourite restaurant. Bring on the antipastis (7 or 8 I think), then the pasta (3 plates), and the main dishes (again, 3 types of meat). That's my kind of restaurant ;-) Say what you will about the long lunches people enjoy in Southern Europe - I personally think it's a fine tradition that I hope they manage to maintain! ;-)

After a bit of a digestive walk around the village (got to try to burn off at least some of those calories, right?), it was time to head back to France. Before heading back home, it was time for the mandatory stop at Monaco. We checked out the usual sites, starting with the casino, the driving across to the Rocher, walking through the old town to the palace square. And of course, taking in the beautiful views across the famous port. I suppose it's one of those things most people want to see on the Riviera.

By the time we got home we were pretty nackered, and happy to hit the the bed...

I decided to take my Monday morning off, to show a bit of Nice to Matsuoka, so off we headed in the morning. Again, we started with a hefty dose of culture by visiting the Chagal museum in Cimiez. It's dedicated to his powerful interpretation of passages form the bible. I was quite happy to have taken the audio guide - it really gave a good insight into Chagal's artistic vision. Very much recommended!

We then made our way back to the town centre, where we had a walk around Vieux Nice, before our stomachs started grumbling again. We decided to have a real Nice lunch, sitting down at one of the ouside tables at Lou Pilha, one of the best places in NIce to have the local specialities , in particular Socca.

And then, time for me to head off to the office and do a bit of work. So quite an intensive, but most enjoyable, couple of days then with our good friend from Japan. Welcome back, Matsuoka-san, whenever you want!

Mini road trip with Chie and Geoff

Me and Mathilde had a bit of a dilemma for getting back from Auvergne to Nice - thing were complicated by the fact that we didn't have a car, and there wasn't a convenient train station with a direct train connection to Nice in the vicinity. The perfect solution presented itself, since Geoff and Chie were planning a bit of a road trip around France before heading back to the UK. So our masterplan then, was to drive through Auvergne down to Marseille, from where me and Mathilde could handily catch a train to Nice.

So we got up bright 'n early, and started our drive southward through the gorgeous, snow-covered landscapes of Auvergne. The plan was to stop for lunch in Puy-en-Velay, a town which I've wanted to visit for quite some time. The drive up there was rather magnificent (we were riding in a sturdy Range Rover, and felt quite safe in spite of the somewhat wintery conditions). The highlight on the way to Puy-en-Velay was no doubt the stunning located Château de Polignac, perched on its hilltop. Unfortunately there was no time to visit, so we just enjoyed the view from the roadside, and pushed on to Puy-en-Velay.

We arrived well before noon, so decided to get the mandatory touristy stuff out of the way before getting lunching. Puy-en-Velay is famous for three things, mainly: the cathedral, lentils and lace making. It's also one of the most picturesque towns in France, at least based on photos I'd seen of the place. And for sure the initial impression does not disappoint - upon arrival, we were treated to a nice panorama of the town, with its main sights in plain view (the cathedral, the iron statue of the Virgin Mary overlooking the town on its hilltop, and the Chapelle St-Michel-d'Aiguilhe, seemingly impossibly perched on its narrow rock spire...). 

We crossed the pleasant old town (stopping by in a lace shop - it is after all the local speciality), and climbed up the hill to the famous Cathédrale Notre-Dame du Puy, a UNESCO world heritage site, and a major stop on the Santiago de Compostella. The cathedral still retains features dating back to the 5th century, with the bulk of the construction being from the 12th century. It is indeed a very impressive building, both on the outside and the inside.

Having checked out the cathedral, we made our way up the Rocher Corneille, which houses the famous statue of the Virgin Mary (one interesting historic detail for a pub quiz: the statue is built from 213 Russian cannons taken during the siege of Sevastopol!). The main reason to walk up here are the fantastic views around the city - certainly worth the hike!

The touristy bit done, time for what's really important - lunch! It turned out to be a bit of a challenge to find an open restaurant in Puy - but in the end we found a very nice restaurant indeed called Les Archers. Not a very fancy place, just a nice little place offering typical local fare (well, actually, more Lyon fare than Auvergne fare - but then Lyon isn't that far away actually), run by a very nice couple (Chie actually ended up buying one of their wine bottles, which she took a liking to!).

Time to leave Puy-en-Velay then - the perfect place for a short stop I must say. The place was certainly worth the wait - I'm happy we made it finally! On to Marseille then.

We arrived evening time, just in time to check into our apartment, before heading off for dinner. The apartment, which we'd booked kind of last minute on Airbnb, was rather stunningly located, with a great view over the old port. Can't get much better in terms of location that that in Marseille! We didn't have time to spend much time at the flat, as we were already running later for our dinner reservation.

We'd booked a real Marseille institution for the occasion - Le Brasserie des Catalans, one of THE places in Marseille apparently to have that famous bouillabaisse. And indeed it was quite an experience! The bouillabaisse was rather pricey (as is always the case for proper boillabaisse), but delicious. And I really liked the place as well - the place has a real proper retro-Marseille feel to it. The main attraction being Michelle, who has been operating the restaurant since he was a young chap (apparently he still runs the place the same way as he did 50 years ago). A proper Marseille experience!

The next day, we got up after a good night's sleep, eager to explore Marseille. We started with the classic stuff, walking along the old port, checking out the fishermen selling their fare, not that numerous anymore, sadly enough. Geoff and Chie being architects, we of course had to have a look at Norman Foster's Vieux Port Pavillion as well, a sort of huge mirror suspended by 8 pillars.

Our "architectural walk" continued up to MuCEM (a museum dedicated to the Mediterranean and its inhabitants). The museum itself is nothing to write home about, but the building complex for which its the focal point is pretty nice.

We then made our way to Le Panier, a most charming part of Marseille. It's what could be called "Old Marseille", a really cool place to walk around.What I like about the panier is that in spite of being a picturesque place, it's still retained a real residential, Marseillan spirit (unlike old Nice for example, which is a real tourist trap). We visited the famous Vieux Charite, a former almshouse (a damn impressive one!), which houses an architectural museum these days.

The next stop was obvious - Le Corbusier's Cité radieuse, a housing complex located in the suburbs of Marseille. At its town, the concept was revolutionary, due to a lack of housing, the French State asked Le Corbusier to revolutionalize building construction and invent a new way of life. The concept of the Cite is essentially a big high-rise building, entirely composed of modular "housing units", each housing a family. Optimization of space was of essential importance, and indeed the housing units do that very well. 

Another revolutionary concept was to integrate all the services needed by the
inhabitants (shops, restaurants, schools and so forth) in the building complex itself. It was to be a kind of self-sustained mini-city.

The place is indeed very fascinating - some of the original principles are still maintained (there is a restaurant, a few shops, and an art gallery). And the views from the rooftop are quite incredible. Happy to have visited the place finally, we've wanted to do that for quite some time!

That brought an end to our mini-road trip, as Chie and Geoff continued their trip Westwards towards Montpellier, and we had a train to catch to Cagnes. Our trip back turned out to be a bit of an adventure. As we showed up a bit early, we originally wanted to leave our bags in a locker and walk around a bit in Marseille, but alas 'twas not to be (as the metal detector was broken, nothing to be done...). So we decided to change our tickets for an earlier train. Fatal mistake... Our train did leave on time, but ominously stopped after half an hour or so. After some impatient waiting, the announcement came, our locomotive had broken down. So we waited, and waited, and waited. And finally left, about 2 hours late... (to make things worse, a crazy yoga guy "entertained" us and everybody else in our wagon with his life philosophy and his yoga exercises...). Cheers SNCF!

Anyway, in spite of this anti-climax, we were very happy indeed with our little road trip, but happy to be back home in Cagnes!

New year in Auvergne!

This year, Aniko suggested getting together and spending new year together in Auvergne - an excellent idea which we immediately agreed to. She managed to find a house big enough for our group (12 adults and 8 kids!) in a  place called Cunlhat.

We (me, Aniko and Philippe) where the first to arrive at the snow-covered village. We found the house, and met up with the stern land-lady (I guess the rough weather and landscapes breeds tough people...). The house itself was a real gem - a real French period house, the place could almost qualify as a museum.

As far as meals were concerned, we'd decided to take turns cooking - the idea being that everybody cooks a speciality from his/her country. As we arrived early, I decided to volunteer and make my Finnish salmon soup for dinner on the 1st night. I was a bit daunted by the task, I've never cooked for that many people before. But much to my delight (and surprise?), it all went pretty smoothly, and nobody died or even got sick! What was an even bigger delight than the salmon soup was of course being reunited with Mathilde (who's spent Christmas in La Rochelle).

After dinner, it was PARTY time! Nathalie mixed up some rather psychedilic-looking and -coloured vodka cocktail, which got us all into a rather festive mood! Looks like we can still party, even if we're mostly pushing (or past - as in my case) forty!

The next day, we got up "bright 'n early" (actually, the getting up was neither of those in my case - looks like "I ain't no spring chicken no more" after all...). After a filling breakfast, we decided to check out Culhat. Not much to see, to be honest, but it's got a pretty authentic, rustic village feel to it. And there was a rather lively market taking place at the main square, where we did a bit of extra grocery shopping (I tried a local speciality called Aligot - basically mashed potatoes mixed with cheese). Christian also showed his kids what NOT to do on top of an ice-covered fountain (the results of him standing on the ice were, let's say predictable...).

For lunch, it was Chie's time to cook. She decided to delight us with some Japanese curry. Predictably, it was quite simply delicious. Before starting our new year's eve celebrations, I had a bit of a stroll around the village after sunset, for a bit of wintery night-time photography. Beautiful...

For dinner, it was time for our Savoyards (Christian and Flore) to show off their culinary skills - Tartiflette time! Tartiflette is the kind of hearty, honest cuisine I like: lardons, cheese (and not just any cheese - it has to be Reblochon, from Savoy, of course!) and potatoes. Simple, but simply delicious. Needless to say, I was showing my appreciation by having several helpings. And just to celebrate the festive season a bit, we also had fois gras, oysters and some bûche de Noël for desert.

And then, party time again! I was quite impressed with our capacity to party again, no going to sleep at 12 o'clock after having our glasses of champagne. No, we stayed up at least until a respectable 3 o'clock or something. There was music, air guitar, and I invented a non-existent Finnish dance that resembled rowing... So one could say we welcomed 2015 in a properly festive mood!

And what better way to deal with a post-new-year's eve hangover than a proper English breakfast, cooked up by Geoff. Just what the doctor ordered, I say! Bravo Geoff! After the rather later breakfast, me and Mathilde decided to join Philippe and Aniko (and little Elize of course) for a bit of touristy action in Thiers (which is the closest decent-sized town in the area). There wasn't really anything going on over there (unsurprisingly, given that it's the 1st of January), but it was nonetheless a nice enough to town to stroll around. We checked out the rather impressive cathedral, which was open, and checked out some of the numerous knife shops for which Thiers is famous for.

For our last night in Cunlhoat, it was time for Aniko to prepare some Hungarian food for us. And what's more Hungarian than a goulash soup ? And a tasty goulash soup it was. Actually the next day was Aniko's birthday, so we took the opportunity to do some early celebration in her honour.

That brought an end to a great little mini-new year's break. It was certainly great for me - perfect way to get my mind off the rather sad events of Christmas, too. And a special thanks to Aniko for getting us all together!