Finnish dinner

It's school holidays, which means Mathilde and her colleagues are off for two weeks. So we thought we'd invite our dear friends Julie and Aurelien over for dinner to celebrate that fact. As a bit of a change from French cuisine, we decided to organize a Finnish dinner (as Julie and Aurelien at least claimed to have liked the Finnish food they had when they visited my home country this summer!).

I decided to pay a visit to Nordic Temptations, an excellent Nordic/Finnish shop located in Antibes, to buy some real, authentic Finnish products. In the end, I got some Finnish beer (Lapin Kulta, not my favourite Finnish beer but as they say, beggars can't be choosers...), some excellent archipelago rye bread, and some pulla for desert! Mathilde prepared the main course, a salmon soup (always a success with foreigners)!

The dinner went rather excellently, I would say. Great to have Julie and Aurelien over, as always!

Cagnes-sur-Mer = Shopping heaven

Now, I'm not what you would call an enthusiastic shopper - in fact, rather the opposite, some could argue. So I suppose one could say I had mixed feelings about the construction of the Polygon Riviera right in our hometown, Cagnes-sur-Mer.

What is the Polygon Riviera? It's the biggest shopping centre on the Cote d'Azur. But, apparently, it's not just a shopping centre - it's a "Lifestyle centre". Meaning, you can find everything (or nearly everything) your heart desires here: entertainment, shopping, artworks, restaurants. And it's all open-air, by the way. We were a bit sceptical about it all - and quite afraid of the traffic jams the place would results in.

But, of course, we had to check it out, anyway, just a couple of days after it opened. The first impression wasn't great, as we walked to it from our place (it's about 15-20 minutes walking, so doable). Predictably, people parked all over the pedestrian sidewalks, which made it all quite an unpleasant experience.

And Polygon Riviera then ? Well, I have to admit I was quite impressed. Aesthetically speaking the place is quite impressive, offering quite a well-thought out mixture of nature (they planted a thousand trees there!), art works and some impressive, modern architecture. It's actually quite a nice place to walk around. (even if on this particular day, it was very crowded). There's a pretty big selection of shops (including Uniqlo, which Mathilde has been waiting for eagerly!), but something other than clothes shops would've been nice (I suppose people buy there books on the internet these days...).

Really looking forward to going to the cinema, as they will apparently show undubbed mainstream movies, something I've had to go to Nice for so far. So, all in all, much to my surprise, I actually found myself enjoying a visit at a shopping centre!

Boyz Night out

As Mathilde was away this week, it seemed natural to suggest another Boyz Night out to Aki and Mikko. Thankfully, they both accepted.

Things kicked off, as usual, with burgers n' beer. We decided to go to Woody's Diner at Nice, a place we already sampled earlier this year. It's a pretty good attempt at an American style diner (the French aren't necessarily very good at imitating things American, as a general rule). And what's most important, the burgers were good - and so was the beer (as you can see, we went for the "giraffe" option).

The food bit out of the way, we decided to finish off the night out the same way as last time, a bit of pool in a bar just off Rue Massena. It was good fun, as last time. Me and Mikko had to grudgingly admit to Aki's superiority, again. What's more important, again: the beer was good.

This time, we didn't finish off the night playing loud musical instruments at Aki's place (possibly since Henna and the their two sons were sound asleep this time around? ;-). I again cycled back home on the Velo Bleu. Looking forward to the next edition of Boyz Night out ;-)

Weekend in Paris

It's been a while since our last visit to Paris - in fact almost exactly one year (we came about the same time of the year last year). So I was rather looking forward to visiting Paris, a city we truly love.

Like last time, we booked a flat for the weekend via Airbnb, this time in the 15th Arrondisement, at Rue de Commerce. As I'd taken the afternoon off from work, we arrived quite early in Paris. The area where we were staying was rather nice - a busy commercial street (obviously, given the name!) with plenty of cafés and restaurants. The flat was basic, but suited our needs perfectly. We could even see the top of the Eiffel tower from one of the windows.

After having a walk around the area, we made our way to Le Table Libanaise, where we're meeting our dear friend Isabelle for dinner. Great restaurant, with excellent, friendly service and great food (well, I'll have to trust Mathilde and Isa on that, as I was suffering from a bad cold, so my taste buds were not up to the job of assessing the quality of the food). Great to catch up with Isabelle as well, as always!

The next morning, after a breakfast at the flat, we headed off towards Petit Palais, where the plan was to check out an exhibition. We took the metro to Hotel des Invalides, and crossed the Seigne to the Petit Palais (quite a scenic walk, it has to be said!).

Naturally, the exhibition we were checking out had a connection with Japan - the exhibition covered the art of a certain Kuniyoshi, a master of Ukiyo-e (woodblock prints). I loved the exhibition - even more than Hokusai exhibition we checked out one year ago in the Grand Palais! The emphasis of the exhibition was on his depictions of the Japanese legends - so plenty of samurais, legendary monsters and so forth - cool! There was also a second exhibition about fantasy art in Europe, to make the connection between the West and the East, which was pretty cool as well.

We then made our way over to Montparnasse, where the plan was to pay a visit to Muriel and Mathilde's nieces and nephews. We stopped by for lunch at a local favourite of ours -le cantine de Trouquet, which features Parisian/Basque bistrot type food signed by  Christian Etchebest (e chef who's made numerous appearances on various cooking shows on telly).

Our appetites sated, rendez-vous at Muriel's flat, where we spent a rather intensive hour or so with Muriel and the kids (for a moment, I thought Paul and Lucas had calmed down - for a while they seemed to be more interested to play on their tablets/phones than messing with me, but in the end they proved me wrong). Great to see the kids and Muriel, as always!

After that, we decided to do what we love most to do in Paris, kind of stroll around randomly. Well, the plan was to check out a furniture shop (we're planning to buy a sofa!) but that was kind of just an excuse for strolling about. We started our stroll, by crossing the Montparnasse graveyard (a bit less famous than Pere Lechaise, but still, quite a few famous people buried here). From there, we strolled towards Saint-Michel and the Latin quarter, where we crossed the River Seigne, and found ourselves at the Louvre. 

We then made our way to the Opera, and then to Gallerie LaFayette (the big one, in Paris), where we finally checked out some sofas. No luck finding what we were looking for, though. The shopping bit done, we made our way down Boulevard Montmartre to le BAT, where we were meeting up with our good friend CoCo for dinner. Excellent venue, excellent company. Le BAT specialize in tapas, and they were really excellent (if a bit pricey, but that's Paris for you I suppose). I still felt a bit hungry, so went for a main course - excellent as well. Afterwards, we went to a nearby bar for a drink. Great night out - as it always is with CoCo!

The next day (sadly our last day in Paris), we had a rendez-vous at our friend Sarah's place in the 16th arrondisment (la classe - the 16th arrondisment is a rather posh part of Paris!). Being avid walkers, we decided to go by foot. As we were meeting for lunch, we had quite a bit of time to explore Paris in the morning. 

We decided to start with the Parc Andre Citron (yes, that would be the car manufacturint pioneer). This was actually the site of the original Citroen manufacturing plant, which was torn down after production ended in the 1970's. The park is very modern (dating back to 1992), but didn't really impress us. It feels somehow cold and not like a particularly inviting place, with a big lawn in the midlde (with a panoramic balloon being the main attraction. Plenty of joggers having a run around the concrete corridors that line the central lawn. 

We then crossed the Seigne and ended up in the 16th arrondisment. We still had an hour and a bit to kill, so decided to do part of a walk I'd found on the internet. Quite a pleasant stroll, we particularly enjoyed Rue Boileau, with its various Art Nouveau buildings. There are some quite cosy little private (gated) cobble-stoned streets as well, where one could almost imagine being in a village. All in all, I didn't get the feeling of a particularly posh part of town, appearances can be deceiving, I suppose...

Time for lunch, then! Sarah, an ex-colleague of Mathilde whom we often met in the port of Nice for great dinners & nights out, moved to Paris this autumn. Present were also Julie and Aurelien, who just arrived in Paris, and were planning to stay for a week. 

So, pretty much like a standard night out in Nice, then... The lunch Sarah had prepared for us was predictably delicious - she'd prepared a Dal Bhat, a traditional Indian/Nepalese recipe. Actually, it's been a while since my last Dal Bhat (I had plenty of Dal Bhat during my 3 week hiking trip in Nepal - in fact that's about the only thing I ate for 2 weeks during the amazing Annapurna trek I did). 

So a great finale for a great weekend in Paris then! Felt rather sad to head back to Nice, especially as Mathilde was off to La Rochelle for a week.

A few days in Germany

It's been a while since my last business trip, but this week, I was off to Germany. The plan was to visit clients in Stuttgart and Munich. Kind of nice to be back in Germany, it's been a while. Finding a hotel room turned out to be quite a challenge, due to the fact that there was a beer festival and a conference at the same time.


So I ended up in the not-so-glamorous Hotel Espenlaub. Let me put it like this, the only place cheaper available was a youth hostel. Anyway, I was expecting a bit more than what I got, considering I paid 130 Euros per night! The room was noisy (due to the non-existent noise isolation, and location next to one of the main thoroughfares in Stuttgart - I could hear the buses, trains, tramways and drunken beer-festival goers all through the night!), the bed was hard and creak, and I didn't have a private shower/toilet!

Oh well, I'm not one to complain about such details. We were, anyway, very busy working most of the time, so I spent very little time in the hotel room. I did get up one morning to visit Stuttgart for a bit with my camera. I started off by checking out the Altes Schloss, the old castle, dating back all the way to the 10th century. The castle in its current form dates back to the 16th century, when the dukes living there converted the castle into a renaissance castle. These dates, it's a museum.

From there, I headed off to the nearby imposing Schlossplatz (the Castle Square). It's the home of the new castle (Neues Schloss), which was built during the 18th century. A former parade ground, it was opened to the public in 1918, and much revamped after world war 2 (when this area, like most of downtown Stuttgart, was heavily damaged by Allied bombings).

All in all, a nice little walk, before heading into the office, in nearby Leonberg (a small town, which is heavily associated with the mathematician and astronomer Johannes Kepler). One evening, after a long day in the office, I did decide to head out again with my camera to do some nigh-time shots. After redoing a couple of shots of the old castle, I headed to nearby Schillerplatz (named after the famous poet and philosopher). It's a nice little historic square, with the principal buildings being the old castle, the main lutheran church in Stuttgart as well as the old chancellery. This is the spot where the yearly Christmas market also takes place.

I then redid quite a few photos at Schlossplatz, also checking out the new castle - built in baroque style. I must say, I rather prefer the old castle. I'm not a big fan of baroque, as a general rule. But the square on the whole is rather impressive. I also like the fountains in front of the castle, especially lit up as they are at night-time.

I finished my nocturnal walk by crossing the castle gardens, heading over to the city theatre and opera.

The next day it was time to head off to Munich, so we had to get up rather early in the morning. Unfortunately, our work schedule didn't allow us any time to visit Munich, as it was time to catch the plane in the evening. Maybe next time ;)