Nice by night!

After a bit of a lazy day at home, we decided to get off our bums and do something. So cinema and dinner it was, then. We decided to go and see Birdman at our favourite VO cinema (VO as in Version Original - a place showing non-dubbed movies, a rarity in France, unfortunately) in Nice, the Rialto.

Great film, and nice to see Michael Keaton back making proper movies after quite a few very quiet years on that front. One of the best movies I've seen for ages.

We also checked out the fake Brighton pavilion like structure they've put up on the Coule Verte - looks nicer by night than by day!

For dinner, we decided to go for Bistrot Gourmand, a place that I believe got their first Michelin star 2 years ago, but seems to have lost it since. Which at least shows in the prices, in a positive way. Not many fine dining restaurants where you can have a gastronomic 3 coarse meal for 35 Euros for dinner, I don't think? (the lunch menu is even better value for money). It was all pretty excellent, although I think the place is maybe just missing that bit of extra effort (both as far as the food and the service is concerned) to justify a Michelin star (maybe all for the better since the lack of star can be seen in the bill, I reckon...).

Our appetites sated, we decided to enjoy the Nice Carnival by night a bit before heading back home on the velo bleu. A very nice night out in Nice, all in all, then!

Carnival time!

The weather was supposed to be good in the mountains this Sunday, so we'd planned to go skiing with Ilario and Christina. Unfortunately the weather forecast went a bit bad last-minute, so we decided to cancel and have lunch in Nice instead. Since Ilario and Christina are planning to go to Japan soon, we decided Kamogawa - one of the most reputed Japanese restaurants in Nice, was a good restaurant to go for. Actually, we were a little bit disappointed with the place. It's proper Japanese food, for sure, but the service was not (indifferent is the best way to describe the service - not particularly Japanese). But anyways, we had a nice time promoting our favourite tourist attraction to Ilario & Christina ;-)

Nice Carnival is actually on at the moment. It's an old tradition in Nice (dating all the way back to the 13th century, at least), and is also the most popular one in France and possibly all of Euroie, with over 1 million visitors annually. Which is kind of the problem with Nice Carnival - it's over commercialized these days, all about the money so to speak.

Don't expect any Rio de Janeiro style madness either, or the veiled mystery of the Venice Carnival. No, this is all about family-friendly, sanitized fun. They even banned the anti-carnival (the non-commercial version of the carnival) a couple of years ago.

In spite of these slight misgivings, we decided to have a peek - after all, the weather was great and the "corso carnelavesque" is still good fun. Actually, much to our surprise, it was easier to access the corso this year - last year they made it quite difficult to enjoy the carnival with big fences blocking off almost all areas from access.

So it was pretty good fun in the end - this year around the theme was music (last year the theme was the football world cup).

Carnival time!

One of the big yearly events in Nice, and all of the Cote d'Azur is the carnival. OK, I gotta tell you right off the bat – we're not talking about Rio de Janeiro here. The Nice version is more for kids – but it's quite a lot of fun, anyway! One of those things you just have to check out – especially since it's free.



We decided to head down to Nice on bike, where we were meeting up with Aki and Henna. With the wonderful, rather spring-like weather we had that day, it was an easy choice to make, really. Our journey down to Nice wasn't quite as trouble-free as it usually is – after a while we realized that Mathilde had a flat tyre. We swapped bikes at the airport – only to realize that the bike I jumped on had a serious problem with the pedals. So, time to change again, then...

Anyway, we did eventually make it, and even managed to meet up with Aki and Henna amongst the crowd. The theme for this year was sports and the London Olympics. We did spot a few funny figures (I liked the wagon carrying the queen of England and her assorted cohorts, and the coach potato sports fan – reminded me a bit of me watching ice hockey or something?). But I missed the dragon from the previous years. Anyways, no complaints, especially since we were blessed with pretty much perfect carnival-weather!

After checking out the carnival, we ended up in the Hagendass cafe on Place Magenta, where we had some rather decadent desserts along with a couple of cappuccinos. Naim joined us later on as well... A rather good end to a busy weekend, then!

Carnival time!

One of the biggest events in the Cote d’Azur calendar is the Nice Carneval, which takes place for two weeks in February. It is actually the most popular one of its kind in France (attracting 1.2 million visitors each year), and dates all the way back to 1294 (when the following was said by Charles II duc d’Anjou « il vient passer les fêtes de carnaval, dans sa bonne ville de Nice »). These days, it's attended by more than 1.2 million people, during its two-week duration.

The Nice carneval is quite a family-oriented affair, so no Rio de Janeiro-like hedonistic madness to be exeperienced here... The most exciting thing likely (actually, certain...) to happen is getting sprayed on... But it’s all great fun, in an innocent and harmless way! The theme for this year was « Roi de la Planète Bleue », evoking the history of our planet, with an ecological twist. Apparently, extra effort has been made to minimize the impact on the environment this year... (with the usage of low-power consumption screen, LED lamps, carbon offsets etc.)

We started off the evening with a cinema, followed by a nice meal in an Italian restaurant on Rue Massena. In addition to the good and reasonably priced food they served, it was quite an authentic-feeling place, with plenty of Italians as partons. Quite surprising to find such a place amongst the tourist traps and pizzerias that dominate Rue Massena.

The carnival itself was good fun, as always. Gave me a great opportunity to make the best possible use of my new camera's excellent low-light performance. Amongst the guest star's was Mr. Barack Obama dressed in Superman costume (holding a copy of the Kyoto agreement, to keep in line with the blue planet theme). But the star of the show was, like on previous years, the frightening, awe-inspiring dragon...

More Carnival action

My dear nieces (including my god-daughter Julia) had come all the way from Finland on a visit – so we decided to head down to Nice to meet up with the young ladies as well as my parents. So after a light lunch at the flat, we jumped on our train, and zipped down to Nice.


Elbowing our way thorough the crowd, we found my fellow Turtiainens near the McDonalds on the Promenade, watching the Carnival action from a safe distance. Things were slightly less riotous than last night, but the atmosphere was still great – the crowd really was going mad (a bit to my nieces’ discomfort, who seemed to be slightly annoyed trying to get all that spray out of their hair). And we were once more treated to my favourite Carnival monster - the fearsome dragon (although admittedly it was slightly less scary in the daylight ;-).

Having spent a fairly significant amount of energy ducking wild teenagers trying to spray us down, we figured we’d earned ourselves an afternoon snack. So we headed down to the old town, and sat down at a crepeerie at Cours Saleya for some crepes and coffee. The food was not the best - but at least we got to enjoy the sunshine. After this nourishment, it was time for us to head off, since the carnival action had also finished for the day (we didn’t envy the poor lot who had to clean up after the carnage...).

A great day on the Cote d'Azur

Today started out great, with a blue sky and a blazing sun - perfect weather for a walk. We opted on a walk near the Italian border, starting from the picturesque village of Castellar, located just a stone’s throw away from Menton.

The walk started from a parking next to the strangely named “Voie de La First Special Service Force” (I’m guessing that’s the military unit which liberated Castellar during World War 2?), climb steadily up towards the Plan du Lion. Much to our surprise, parts of the footpath were actually covered by ice and snow! Once up on the plateau, we sat down for a well-deserved lunch (these walks seem to be more difficult than they used to be – must be old age or something?), basking in the sun and enjoying the fabulous views over Menton and Castellar (we could even see the snow-tipped peaks of Mercantour in the distance).

From there we carried on up to our destination – Mont Carpano, at the lofty height of 773 meters. Once there, we had the opportunity to take in both the Italian and French Riviera, and mountains – Mont Carpano is actually situated on the border between France and Italy. The views were once more magnificent. From there on we had an easy walk back down to the village. We spent a good half an hour exploring the village – a typically picturesque little place.

Then we jumped back into the car and headed back home, to fresh up for the evenings activities – the Nice Carnival! Once ready, we jumped on the train, and headed down for our dinner rendez-vous with the Finnish lot at Hippopotamus (Sami was there with Pete and little Jasmine). We were somewhat dubious about the choice of restaurant, but in the end I was quite happy with my steak – not bad at all... We were actually lucky to even get a table – the place was absolutely packed (in fact Hannu and his family had to dine elsewhere...).

Our stomachs filled, we then headed up to Sami’s Famous Penthouse suite – for what was to sadly be our last visit (as Sami was heading back to not-so-sunny Oulu a couple of days later). From there were had a great view over the Carnival action, taking place on Place Massena. Hannu and his clan joined up for the champagne aperitif.

After a while at the flat, the kids got impatient, so we went out to Place Massena to check out the action from close range. We really had a great time – this kind of thing always brings out the little child in me (or something like that...). The highlight was, once again, the fearsome dragon we already saw last year... We then continued the festivities at Sami’s place – until it was time to catch the last train home. The farewells to Sami were tearful indeed...

Days on the Cote d’Azur really don’t get much better than this!

Aude and Magaye visiting

It’s been pretty quiet on the visitors’ front recently, so it was about time for somebody to pop over. This time it was Aude’s and Magaye’s turn, who came on the night train all the way from Nantes for the weekend.

After a steady breakfast of baguette, croissants and other French delicacies, off we set on our tour of the Cote d’Azur. Our first stop was Dolceacqua, a picturesque village on the Italian side of the border, about 10 kilometres north of Ventimiglia (which is about as far as most visitors from France make it, Ventimiglia has about the same role for the French as Calais for the English and Tallinn for the Finns - which is to say it's a place for cheap shopping). Dolceacqua, which is one of the prettiest villages on the Italian Riviera we’ve been to, is famous for its medieval bridge which links the two halves of the town, and for it’s castle. After aimlessly wandering around on the narrow and charming alleys, and having tasted some of the local delicacies with some proper Italian coffee in one of the bars, we headed on to the afore-mentioned Ventimiglia for a bit of shopping (it’s a great place to stock up not only on wine & any other alcoholic beverage you can imagine, but also on pasta and other Italian specialities).

After this, Catherine (our selected TomTom voice) guided us back over the French border to Menton. We made a brief stop here to take in the Fête du Citron, which is, as the name suggests, a lemon festival (coinciding with the Nice carnival). Since we didn’t want to pay the 10 euro entrance fee for the exhibition area (where people have put up various statues and constructions made of lemons and oranges), we had to contend ourselves with a few dodgy, out of focus and badly framed photos blindly taken by yours truly over the exhibition fence (sometimes being tall has its advantages…).

The next stop on our tour was Eze, one of the prettiest and most dramatically located (sitting on a cliff overlooking the coastline between Monaco and Cap Ferrat) – not to mention touristy - perched villages on the coast. After a quick walk around the cobble-stoned streets, we pushed on towards Nice.

Our stomachs (not just mine!) were growling by now, so we decided to stop for a Socca (a Nicois speciality made of chickpea flour and olive oil) in Lou Pilha’s (a real Nice institution for Socca). Fortified by this tasty snack, we headed on and spent half an hour or so exploring Vieux Nice. After a quick look at the Promenade des Anglais, our stomachs (or at least mine) were growling again, so we decided to go for dinner. We chose La Tapenade, another Nice institution serving up all the local specialities.

After a filling meal, we headed off for the main event of the evening, which was of course the Nice Carnival. We had a great time looking at the procession of mice (which was the theme this year – interesting choice). There was a rather impressive dragon as well, quite scary contraption. Most of the time was spent ducking kids (including Sami, who even attacked me from behind, bloody coward) spraying sticky stuff at us. After this exhausting activity, we had well-deserved Belgian beers at Mori’s bar, and headed back home to catch some sleep (graciously, Aude offered to drive, faithfully guided by Catherine).

After a night of very little sleep (I had nightmares about my TomTom and Andorra – don’t ask…), and another solid breakfast, we set off to show our guests Haut-de-Cagnes – our very own old town (and one of the prettiest on the coast, I feel obliged to add).

In the afternoon, we headed off towards St-Paul-de-Vence, which is without doubt the most famous historic village on the Riviera. In spite of Catherine’s most confusing driving instructions, we eventually arrived, and parked in a car park with no less than ten levels underground! (I guess that says something about how popular St-Paul is…). Well, there is a good reason for St-Paul’s fame, it is an incredibly picturesque place, a pity about all the shops… On the other hand, you can’t claim the shops are your average tourist traps; what rules the day here are art shops, most of them for people with a fair bit more purchasing power than us.

Having spent an hour or so walking around and making all the appropriate comments about what a charming and lovely place St-Paul is, it was time to head to Antibes, from where Aude and Magaye were catching their train. Before that, we did have time to have a quick walk around the port and the old town, though. And of course stop for a refreshing coffee and a tasty cake ;-). All in all, a nice finish to an exhausting but great weekend!

More photos here.