Mont Vinaigre hike

My colleague Philippe has been talking about going for a hike in Massif d'Esterel for a while now (usually we go mountain biking there). It is a very nice part of the world, so we were happy to accept his invitation to join him and his wife Carol for a bit of a Easter Monday hike (?).

The objective was, what else than Mont Vinaigre, the highest peak in the Massif d'Esterel, standing at a lofty altitude of 618 meters (OK, so maybe not so lofty, but the views from up there are still great!). Philippe's original proposal involved a 4-5 hour walk, and two peaks, but we eventually ended up with a slightly more modest hike, taking about 3 hours and just involving Mont Vinaigre.

The hike was pleasant enough - our hike started off like most of our mountain biking trails, but we quickly got off the bike trail onto a narrower footpath, which took us up to the summit after quite a nice little hike. The views were, as expected, magnificent. Mont Vinaigre offers a pretty magnificent 360 degrees panorama around the Esterel and the coastline of the Var department (even Saint-Tropez can be seen from up there).

So a pretty cool way to spend a Sunday afternoon, then!

Walking and dining in Juan-les-Pins & Antibes

This sunny Saturday, the plan was to meet up in Antibes for a bit of a post-birthday celebration (well, actually, more like just an excuse to go out for a good meal) with Marie, Chris and Aurore.

As the weather was rather fantastic (spring is approaching rapidly!), we decided to do a bit of exercise before the meal. So rather than taking the train to Antibes, we decided to get off at Juan-les-Pins, and walk across to Antibes from there, through Cap d'Antibes.

We started off by walking along the glitzy seaside of Juan-les-Pins (it's one of the posher resorts in one of the poshest parts of the world, so there you go, Juan-les-Pins is posh). And on we carried to even posher Cap d'Antibes. This is where the rich and the famous buy there villas (if the rich and the famous buy apartment, they buy them in Monaco) - where they typically spend about 2 weeks per year, I suppose... Anyway, apart from the fancy villas, Cap d'Antibes is blessed with a gorgeous coastal footpath - sadly we didn't have time to walk it this time around.

The arrival into Antibes was timed to perfection, as the sun was just setting when the ramparts and the old town came into view. So the walk from Cap d'Antibes to the old time was pretty amazing, with the old town nicely silhouetted against the reddish sky, with the still-blue Mediterranean separating us from the spectacle.

Upon arrival in Antibes, we had a bit of time to kill, so we decided on a spot of shopping, and an aperitif in the old town.

The venue for tonight's meal was La Cafetière Fêlée, a place reputed for its Japanese-Thai-French fusion cuisine. We started off with a fantastic starter platter, which was covered mostly with various forms of sushi and sashimi, which was just fine with me. I'm a big fan of sushi!

For the main courses, I had a really hard time making my choice, as there were several extremely delicious-seeming options, I ended up going for the Lamb Shank confit (with curry, coconut milk, coriander, and other exotic stuff). It was all predictably delicious. And to finish it off, a mille-feuille.

So as you may have guessed, we had a rather marvellous time. The food was fantastic, but it was great catching up with Marie, Chris and Aurore as well. We don't meet up often enough! (to remedy that, we planned a new Culinary experience involving a monster hamburger - sounds rather promising!).

Moonlight walk in the snow

At the office, we have this insane tradition of doing a moonlight walk in the snow. The idea is basically to choose a ski resort, put on some skis or raquettes, and walk up a mountain, basically. Enjoy the moonlit view, and then head back down. Sounds a bit insane, right? But the two previous moonlit walks were actually good fun (call me a masochist), so I decided, what the heck ? Let's do it again this year.... We chose the ski resort of Greolieres-les-Neiges this time around (where I went skiing a couple of weeks ago)

This time around, the weather forecast was promising a clear sky (mind you, that was the case last year too, but still we didn't see the moon). Also, the temperature was a more reasonable +2 (compared to about -10 last year). Last year was a bit of a disaster for me equipmentwise as well, as I broke both of my walking sticks (yes, you got that, BOTH of them). Well, things didn't start much better this year either, as I had forgotten one of the walking sticks at the office. A good way to start off our expedition, then !?

In spite of this slight setback, I was still rearing to go, with my equally motivated companions (Lionel, Eric, Alain from the office, as well as Marc who left us a couple of years ago). The hike up was a lot easier than last year, as the snow was harder this time around. And, what's great, the sky was clear, so the moon was well in sight this time around. Which translated our walk into quite a fantastic and unique experience.

We reached Col de Jerusalem after a relatively brisk 1 hour hike up the ski slope (with Alain galloping ahead of everybody like a madman, as usual). The view from there was just amazing, the moon lighting up the surrounding mountain scenery in quite a unique way!

We then carried on to the highest summit at the ski resort, Cheiron, at a lofty altitude of 1778 meters. We stayed for quite a while, enjoying the views with quite a few other wanderers (seems that we're not the only crazy fools on the Cote to do this kind of thing). And then, 'twas time to walk down the mountain back to our car.

All in all, a fantastic experience, one I'm happy to do again next year!

Finnish birthday celebration!

Today, we'd been invited to Henna and Aki's place in Nice for yet more birthday celebrations. The birthday heroes were yours truly, and Henna.

Before making our way to the flat, we met up with Marie for a bit of a pre-celebration - Marie has a bit of a thing about cupcakes, and suggested we try out a cupcake place she'd discovered recently. I fully trust Marie's judgement when it comes to food, and sweet stuff in particular, so immediately agreed to her suggestion. And, as always, our trust was well-founded! The cupcakes were delicious, and so were the drinks!

We then made our way over to Henna and Aki's place, over at Rue de France. They had put up quite an impressive buffet meal, so it's a good thing I still had a bit of space left in my stomach. All the usual suspects were there: Henna, Aki and their two sons, as well as Marianne, Mikko and their son Aleksi.

As always, we had a fantastic time, catching up on the latest. And eating and drinking as well, naturally! And to top if all off, there was a birthday cake at the end of it all!

Great day out with good friends!

Birthday drinks at Cannes

So, seemingly all the pub crawling last weekend was enough - time to hit the pubs again! But of course I at least had a brilliant excuse, as the occasion was to celebrate my birthday. Not that I need yearly reminders of the fact that I'm no longer young - but at least it's an excuse to go and have a drink!

As my birthday happily coincides with that of Saint Patrick's, and also due to the fact that I'm quite partial to Irish pubs in general, we decided to go to Ma Nolan's - possibly the best Irish pub in Cannes. We were joined by our dear friend Julie and Aurelien, and had a predictably great time downing a couple of pints and enjoying a tasty pub meal.

Slainte!

Reunion weekend in Guildford

As I suppose you are aware, dear reader, if you're one of the few frequent visitors of this blog (and/or if you happen to know me personally!), you are most likely aware of the fact that me and Mathilde used to live in England before moving to the Sunny South of France. To be more precise, we used to live in the pleasant town of Guildford, located in the prosperous county Surrey.

For this weekend, our dear friend Isabelle (who also used to live in said town, and thanks to whom I met many of my friends in the UK!) had decided to organize a reunion weekend in said town. An event I've been looking forward to for some time! Preparations for the trip didn't start well, as I'd booked an extra day of parking at Nice airport, and a hotel 4 km outside the town centre by accident (not a handy distance to stumble on the way back from the pub!).

Anyway, we stayed the first night at our good friend Phil's place, as planned, once we'd negotiated the usual hassle getting from Gatwick to Guildford (our flight was delayed, as usual...). No time for a quick drink in the pub, even!

Next day, we started off by wandering over to our hotel (I made a new last-minute booking for a hotel in town centre - the Manderlay). We'd been able to get a room for a relatively reasonable price - which was a surprise given typical hotel prices in this part of the world (and the fact that the booking was made, let's say, last minute). The plan was to meet up at the pub at 1 o'clock, which gave us a bit of time to explore Guildford - happily enough we ran into Isabelle who was also staying at the same hotel. That meant shopping - yoppii!

Anyway, time goes quickly when you're having fun, so we rather quickly had to make our way over to the Weyside, where we were meeting up. Weyside is one of our favourite pubs in Guildford, idyllically located on the river Wey (as the name suggests). A bit too much of a gastro-pub for my liking, but the beer is still good, and so was the fish & chips I had for lunch!

 
What was most important was catching up with everybody, of course. Thankfully, a really good bunch of people managed to make it, including fellow Finns (Katja and Kari, Kartsa and Reija, and Jaro whom I've not seen for ages), French folks (Flore, Christian, Emmanuelle, Isabelle and of course my darling Mathilde), Czech (Martina), Belgian (Nelle), Japanese (Chie), Malaysian (Sinhung), and OK a few Brits too (Phil, Nick, Geoff, Ben, Spencer). I'm sure I forgot a bunch of people, but anyway, you get the idea - the more the merrier!

After the Weyside, we strolled along the river (enjoying some gorgeous sunshine - which was a nice surprise as the weather forecast hadn't been that promising) over to the next seaside pub on the pub crawl itinerary - The White House. The same old routine (by which I mainly mean beer drinking) continued there, and then in the Star (this one is a bit more of your typical scruffy local English pub, compared to the modern revamped affairs a lot of pubs are sadly turning into).

Things progressively got blurrier as the beer flowed, but if memory serves me correctly, we had dinner at Giraffe (one of those chain restaurants that sadly flourish in the UK), what I do know for sure is that the evening ended in Rogues (where else - that's where a lot of nights out ended when we used to live in Guildford !?). Kartsa, our local host, had booked a private room for the occasion. Our madman  friend had the brilliant idea to order a round of 20 gin and tonics (twice!) to ensure everybody was in a good condition to stumble home afterwards. So, a night to remember,  then (as far as I can remember?) !

The next day, I got up, surprised about the fact that I didn't even have much of a headache. After a nice English breakfast (the perfect antidote against a hangover if there ever was one?) in a cozy little cafe, we spent the sunny morning having a nice walk around town, wandering over to check out the Guildford Castle, with the beautiful gardens being well-kept as ever. We popped over to say hi to Isabelle, Bav and Dave who were brunching just next to the castle, after which it was time to make our way over to the Drummond, where we were meeting up with Nick for lunch.

And then, sadly, it was time to head over to the train stations to catch our train to Gatwick. The stroll along the Wey river, past Dapdune Warf, was very nice indeed. We felt rather nostalgic about leaving - this wonderful weekend brought back so many nice memories about those great years we spent in England! It felt almost sad to head back to France....

Solo skiing at Greolieres

Mathilde had left me for a few days, to go on a school trip to Siciliy with her students. So I was left to my own devices for a while (never a good idea).... As the Cote was blessed with some fine weather this particular Sunday, I decided to hit the slopes for a bit of skiing.

Access to the main stations on the Cote d'Azur (Auron and Isola) was limited due to snow fall and resulting avalanches, so I decided to content myself with Greolieres-les-Neiges. Unfortunately, I wasn't the only person on the Cote d'Azur to have that idea - in fact it seemed as if though pretty much everybody had the same idea as me, given the ridiculous queues I had to endure to get my ski pass and hire my skis. And once I had the skis, I had to queue at the ski lift (things weren't helped by the fact that half of the ski lifts were closed!).

To cut a long story short (too late?), by noon, I had done a measly two ski runs. So not the best day to go skiing, to be honest. The queues got a bit shorter as I headed off to the Western side of the resort, which was, as  usual, less busy. And, there was no denying the fact that the weather was magnificent, the sky was blue and the snow was good!

After lunch (again, a rather long one due to the ridiculously long queues!), I was still determined to make the best of my day, and decided to hit the slopes for a couple of runs, in spite of the deteriorating weather conditions. I eventually gave up and decided to leave at about 4 o'clock, to get ahead of the return traffic.

So not the best ski outing I've done - but still a lot more fun than lying on the sofa watching telly!