Quick post-xmas visit in Finland

After a Christmas spent in La Rochelle, I still had enough holidays to briefly pop over to Finland, which I was happy to do. As I was only staying for 3 days and a bit, the program was going to be rather tight, as I was trying to squeeze in meeting as many people as possible.

We started off with a post-Christmas meal at Tomi's place back at Haravakuja. It was great, as always, great to see everybody, including Nanna, Tomppa, their kids and Julia, my dear niece. I naturally ate way too much...

The next day, I was planning to meet Janne, Tomi and my dad in Kallio, where we were planning on having lunch in Oiva, a traditional Kallio haunt located on Porthaniankatu. I decided to walk down to the restaurant with dad - I really love walking around Helsinki. It was particularly nice on a cold, sunny winter day we were lucky enough to experience. A pity there wasn't any snow, though...

Our panoramic stroll took us by the railroad station, through Kaisanniemi park (with the botanical gardens), past Hakaniemen Tori, up Kolmas Linja to the restaurant. Lovely little stroll! The meal itself was your typical Finnish luncheon restaurant buffet deal - pretty good quality. I liked the place - unpretentious, with a retro feel, with a nice mixed clientèle of Kallio hipsters, local old-timers and office workers having their lunch there.

The next day, I had the foolish idea to go for yet another Christmas swim. Clearly, the La Rochelle experience wasn't enough... My dad was foolish enough to join me. We decided to head to Löyly, a fancy new seaside sauna opened a couple of years ago, a pretty trendy place these days, apparently. It's a place I've wanted to check out for some time. It felt like a pretty good plan, since it would've allowed us to combine a nice hot sauna bath with the rather wintery dip in the Baltic. 

Alas, though, Löyly was closed, so we only went for the icy dip in the Baltic part of the plan. Still, a lovely experience - the views from the sea are pretty lovely, and the sunny weather actually made the experience significantly more enjoyable than my swim in La Rochelle. 

The mandatory foolish swim bit done, I decided to walk to Kallio again, where I was meeting Janne, Katja, Yang and Rasse for some escape room action. The walk was lovely, as it was the day before - this time taking me through Eira, past Johanneskirkko, Esplanaadi, the Senate Square and so forth. Each time I walk around Helsinki, I get quite nostalgic and a bit regretful about not living there (the feeling of regret is usually quickly dispelled when I compare the Finnish weather to the Cote d'Azur weather between September and April....).

We did better in the Escape Room than last year (when I had a go at it with Janne and Katja) - we managed to escape with minutes to spare! Yoppii! After a nice lunch in my favourite Middle Eeastern restaurant in Kallio, Sandro, we headed off to Janne and Katja's place, where we had one of our nerdy, and very enjoyably board game nights. 

And then, alas, the next day, it was time to fly back to France. It was short, but oh so sweet!

Christmas in La Rochelle

Time to celebrate Christmas! Most years, we celebrate Christmas apart, which is a real pain, so this year we decided to to do it together. So the plan was to head down to La Rochelle a few days before xmas, spend Christmas even there, and then for me to head down to Paris, from where I was to fly to Finland for a bit of post-Christmas fun.

As we were flying via. Nantes, we naturally decided to pop over at Aude and Magaye's place for a quick visit - they kindly cooked a nice lunch for us. From there, we took Bla Bla car down to La Rochelle (travelling between "provincial towns" in France is a bit of a pain, so a car pooling service like Bla Bla car is really handy).

Our stay in Puilboreau was pretty much as usual - that is to say, very nice. Francoise and Etienette sure know how to spoil us with good food, of the home-cooked, hearty kind, which of course is the best! Apart from that, our routines involved daily games of Scrabble with Joel (where I disgracefully and consistently lost, as usual), and a few runs in the surrounding countryside.

We did pop over to La Rochelle to catch a movie - the excellent, if somewhat depressing Manchester-on-the-Sea. La Rochelle is definitely one of the nicer cities in France, picturesque, yet human sized. I love walking around the old port - even if the rainy weather wasn't the best for outdoors activity.

On Thursday, we went for lunch to a nice restaurant just across the sea from the Ile de Re, a very beautiful, charming island we cycled around last year. After a tasty lunch in the panoramic restaurant (a pity the fog meant the view towards Ile de Re wasn't exactly splendid), we crossed the bridge and walked around for a bit in Rivedoux, the first village on the other side of the bridge. A lovely little place, with its typical white houses, and lovely sea-side views. We also checked out La Flotte, the next village down the coastline, this one even more picturesque, with its beautiful little port.

No Christmas celebration is complete without a Christmas swim. I was a little bit put off by the rather miserable weather, which showed no signs of brightening up. But, filled with foolish pride, I decided to have a swim anyway, accompanied by Mathilde and Herquise (who both wisely stayed on the beach, though). I can't say it was a very enjoyable swim (compared to the winter swimming on a sunny Cote d'Azur). But hey, at least I can now proudly say I did it, right? (OK, fair enough, nobody cares...)

For Christmas eve, we were joined by Nathalie, Herve and their lovely rascals Titouan and Colin, both energetic as usual. The food was, as expected, absolutely delicious (oysters, followed by pearl hen, followed by my favourite - Le Buche de Noel!). And then of course we got to open the pressies - yoppii. All in all, a fantastic Christmas celebration then!

The next day, 'twas sadly time for me to say bye bye to Mathilde and the others, jump on the train, and head down to Paris, from where I was catching a flight to Helsinki.

Circuit de Castellet

One of the things we missed during our 4 month absence from the Cote d'Azur is for sure the nature. Asia in general, and Japan in particular, can feel rather crowded at times. Hiking in Japan was quite a relevation - on our hike up Mount Tsukuba, we sometimes had the feeling of being stuck in a Parisian traffic jam or something...

So, this sunny weekend, we decided to do a hike. After some deliberation, we decided to do a hike called "Le Circuit de Castellet" near Saint-Jeanette we'd already done a few years back (we've done all the coastal walks available in our hiking books already!). We started off by walking around the village for a bit, trying to find the start of the trail - which in itself was pretty nice, since the French medieval villages is something else I missed in Asia (there is sadly quite little left in terms of historical buildings in Japan). Saint-Jeanette is not one of the most famous ones on the Cote d'Azur, but it's certainly a charming place to stroll about.

We eventually found the footpath, and headed off. The hike took us around the Baou de Saint-Jeanette (rising up to the lofty altitude of 802 meters) - a popular spot for people doing hang-gliding. This hike didn't go to the top, rather we walked around it, ending up at a nice ruined medieval sheepfold, where we stopped for a picnic lunch.

From there, the footpath took us back to the village. All in all, quite a fantastic way to spend a wintery Sunday afternoon.

Le 44

It's been a while since we've been to a proper restaurant in France, what with our 4 month absence 'n all (ahem, I forget myself, we were in Lyon a couple of weekends ago weren't we?

So I was more than happy to accept when Julien and Charlotte (who are very much up to speed with the best places to eat on the Cote d'Azur) suggested joining them as well as Aurelien and Julie to check out a nice new restaurant in Antibes they'd tried and enjoyed.

The place is called "Le 44" - since their menu (with starter, main course & desert) costs 44 Euros (does that mean they will have to rename the place when they have to raise prices due to inflation and the place just being so darn popular - which will inevitable happen when people discover this gem of a place).

I loved the place - the food was really excellent. Almost Michelin-star quality, but without all the fancy pancy stuff that sometimes comes with those Michelin Star establishments. We had a rather lengthy chat with the young, energetic, friendly and extremely friendly chef. I rather like his approach to cooking - using local, reasonably sourced ingredients.

So, should you ever find yourselves in Antibes - do come here - but remember to book (the place is popular, and when people find out just how good it is, it will become even more so!)

A weekend in Lyon

So it's just been a couple of days since I've been back in France, and needless to say, I'm finding it just slightly difficult adjusting back to our daily routines, having to go to the office, and all that...

Actually, while we were in Japan, we'd signed up to participate in the JLPT exam (JLPT stands for Japanese Language Proficiency Test), which just so happened to be taking place in Lyon on the first weekend after my return. So, time to pack the bags then and hit the road for Lyon! (great excuse to check out Lyon again, one of my favourite cities in France).

Our hotel was a rather unexciting chain hotel called Le Campanile in a rather charmless suburb of Lyon. So after checking in, we jumped on the metro, and headed into the town centre. We spent the morning walking around in the lovely old town, checking out all the cozy-looking restaurants (many of them Bouchons, traditional Lyonnaise eateries). We settled on a nice-seeming restaurant in the old town, where we had an unsurprisingly delicious French meal! Nice change to get back to French food, after 4 months of Asian grub.

We spent the afternoon randomly walking around town - we've been to Lyon a couple of times already, so didn't feel an overwhelming need to go to any museums or similar (well, we were planning on visiting one the next day, actually). Lyon was pretty busy on this Saturday, with some sort of festival going on, involving a lot of students putting up various spectacles in the streets. Some police demonstrations going on as well....

For dinner, we decided to try our hotel's buffet restaurant - not one of the best ideas we've had, I have to say. The buffet was unsurprisingly unappetizing, so I decided to order something from the menu instead - pizza. It was definitely the worst pizza I've had for years - and that's saying a lot. One of those Micrwave pizzas you can get at the supermarket tastes better! A bit of a fail then...

The next day was our Big Exam Day. But before that, we decided to check out a fancy museum they've recently built in Lyon, Le Musee des Confluances. It's quite a masterpiece of modern architecture (if you are into strange geometric shapes made of glass, metal and wood, which I obviously am then, since I rather liked the building!). The museum itself is pretty interesting too - it's apparently a science centre and anthropology museum.

I loved the place - this is how modern museums should be like. Basically they've found the right balance between what traditional museums used to be like, yet using modern technology where appropriate. And most importantly, it's a place where you learn a lot - which to me is the most important thing when it comes to museums like this. A much more interesting museum than for example MUCEM -  the new museum in the port of Marseille.

And the Japanese exam, then ? Well, given that we were doing the N5 exam (the lowest level), I would've expected it to be easier, given our 6 weeks of intensive studies in Tokyo. Actually, I found it a bit tough, so fingers crossed, results are out end of January....

Anyway, nice to be back in France! ;-)