More Bay Area exploration

After rather a long drive from the Sierra Nevada, we finally arrived at San Francisco airport, where we were dropping off the car. At the airport, we had the chance to have a quick coffee and catch up with Aurelien and Julie, who were catching their flight back to France, having also visited Gilles and Valerie (our schedules were just such that our paths didn’t cross until now). They had done a pretty cool “western US” road trip (taking in Las Vegas, Grand Canyon, San Diego and Los Angeles), and from the sound of things they’d had a fantastic time. After waving our good-byes to them, we made our way back to Sausalito.

We started Saturday with a quick visit to San Francisco. Our first stop was at the de Young museum, located in Golden Gate Park. It’s a rather interesting museum hosting an impressive and varied collection, including a fair bit of American art, but also a really impressive collection of art from Asia and the Pacifics. Pretty impressive stuff. There was also a temporary exhibition on Jean-Paul Gauthier, which was actually surprisingly interesting. I can’t say I expected to end up in an exhibition about fashion; oh well… The views from the rooftop over San Francisco and Golden Gate Park are pretty impressive as well.

Our cultural appetite sated, it was time to sate our culinary appetites – and what better place for that than Mel’s Diner? We discovered this lovely little nostalgic diner, decorated with memorabilia from the 50’s and 60’s, during our last visit to San Francisco, and naturally we had to pay a visit there again… A replica of Mel’s Diner was used as a location for George Lucas’ movie American Graffiti. The food is of the honest diner variety, and reasonably priced. I like the place.

During the afternoon, we explored the Marine Headlands, a beautiful piece of Californian landscape, located just next to Golden Gate bridge, near Sausalito. The views from there towards Golden Gate Bridge and San Francisco are simply stunning. We also visited the Marine Mammal Centre, a kind of hospital for marine mammals (mostly harbor and elephant seals). A rather interesting place to visit…

We spent the rest of the afternoon chilling out at the nearby beach, checking out the surfers taking on the big waves, and just enjoying the nice weather…


In the evening, we were meeting up for dinner with Isabelle and Carlol in Sausalito. Isabelle is a good friend of ours from France, who is passing through San Francisco on her way to Seattle, where she’s attending a wedding. Carol is a friend of Isabelle’s, whom I had the pleasure of meeting over in Guildford, where we used to live. Carol (who lives up in Santa Rosa, not too far away) had booked a very nice seafood restaurant for the occasion. It was a great night out, fantastic to catch up with Isabelle, and great to see Carol again.

The next day, it was sadly time for me to say bye-bye to Mathilde, who was heading back to France… I was staying for work for a few days longer, though, so still had the Sunday to kill, after picking up my rental car at the airport. The plan was to meet up with Isabelle and Carol for lunch in Oakland, but since I had a couple of hours to kill before that, I made my way to nearby Berkley. Berkley is, of course, famous for its university, one of the best ones in the USA. Berkley is also famous for its political dissidents – people had very strong opinions about the Vietnam War here, for example.

I really liked the campus area, it’s pretty much exactly how you imagine a university campus. Pompous stone buildings, big libraries, greenery, and an interesting mix of students was all there to be seen. After a brief stroll around there, I made my way to Telegraph Avenue, which is kind of the main street crossing the most “student y” part of Berkley. It was a pretty cool place, I was positively surprised to find some of that famous hippie spirit alive in this part of town. Plenty of old and young hippies, students, dodgy-looking characters, and interesting shops to be found…. (herb shops, second hand record shops, book shops, that sort of thing…).

After my quick visit to Berkley, I made my way to nearby Oakland for our scheduled lunch. Oakland has a bit of a bad reputation, so is not on the usual California tourist trail, but from what I’d read about it, it seemed like a place worth a visit – and since Carol actually has a house there, this was pretty much the perfect occasion.


So we made our way to Jack London Square, the redeveloped port area. As you may have guessed, Jack London was an Oakland resident for some time – so we decided to make our way straight to Heinold's First and Last Chance Saloon – a regular haunt of Mr. London’s. It’s a brilliant little bar, full of cool memorabilia, but the crowd is, somewhat surprisingly, mostly made up of locals rather than tourists. After a drink at this historic landmark, we made our way for a rather late and hurried lunch.


And then it was time to bid my farewells to Isa and Carol, as I had a colleague to pick up at San Francisco airport…. That brought an end to our fantastic holiday, then… To summarize the past few weeks – it was great. We will surely be back!

Hiking in Yosemite

One of the places I’ve wanted to visit for a long time is the Yosemite National Park, located in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. This week, we were going to make this wish come true…

So, early Tuesday morning, we jumped in the car and headed west. It’s quite a drive to Yosemite, so we stopped over for lunch at Jamestown, a gold rush era town, not far from Sacramento, where we’d been just a couple of days earlier. We found a very nice little saloon (which was actually a bit of a historic landmark, dating back to the 19th century – a couple of US presidents had even stopped there for some food).

We arrived in the National Park in the afternoon, and made our way straight to our hotel, in Wawona (Wawona is one of the communities in the national park – the other one being Yosemite Valley village). We were already treated to some rather stunning views over the Yosemite Valley during the drive to Wawona.

Our hotel was quite a historic landmark as well – also dating back to the 19th century. It’s entirely constructed from wood, and has retained a fair bit of its old world charm. We spent the first night in "the lobby room" (a small room located on the ground floor, by the piano bar!), due to an unfortunate mistake in our planning (we arrived a day early!). Not the most convient room in the hotel... But never mind, the most important thing is that we had a place to sleep for the night! (Accommodation in Yosemite is rather scarce).

Before retiring for the day, we decided to visit nearby Mariposa Grove, famous for its Giant Sequoia trees. These giants are not as tall as the redwood trees we saw in Muir Woods, but have much thicker trunks, so are perhaps in the end more imposing. We checked out the main sights in the grove, including Old Grizzly (one of the oldest and biggest trees in the grove – it is indeed an impressive sight!) as well as the tunnel tree (another rather huge tree with a hole in it big enough to probably fit a small car). After dinner at the hotel (the dining options are also rather limited in Yosemite…), we retired at our lobby room.

The next day, it was time for some serious hiking. We started off by visiting the rather impressive bridal veil waterfalls, which are on the way to Yosemite Valley from Wawona. We had chosen the perfect time to visit Yosemite, from the point of view of waterfalls viewing, as the melting slow up in the Sierra Nevadas provide plenty of water for the waterfalls…

We then made our way into the valley, and decided to do a walk up to Yosemite Falls (the highest waterfalls in the park). It’s quite a strenuous walk, representing a height difference of nearly 1000 meters. After some rather strenuous climbing, we finally arrived at our first stop, Columbia rock, from where we were treated to some rather stunning views over the Yosemite Valley (including the famous Half Dome Mountain). From there, the hike leveled off somewhat, taking us towards Yosemite Falls. Finally, the waterfall came into view – a stunning sight, I can honestly say! Our walk took us quite close to the fall, close enough for us to even get wet (the amplitude of the waterfall is quite considerable, considering we got wet, even standing at least a hundred meters away from the waterfall!).

The hike then started another heavy ascent, taking us in parallel up all the way to the top of the waterfalls, where we stopped for a well-deserved lunch. It’s hard to imagine a more perfect spot to picnic, with those stunning views, with the roaring sound of the waterfalls underneath us…

Our appetites sated, we crossed the wild river (on a bridge!) that fed the Yosemite Falls (the huge warning signs warning people not to jump in the river seemed somewhat, erm, redundant somehow…), and continuing up to Yosemite Point, overlooking the valley. The view from there was, as you may have guessed, absolutely amazing.

We then hiked back the way we came, once more enjoying some pretty amazing views over the valley… Before making our way back to our hotel, we stopped to check out lower Yosemite falls (our hike had just shown us the top and middle sections of the waterfalls). That was one impressive waterfall, I’ll tell you that! (I believe Yosemite Falls is the 5th highest of its kind in the world, not hard to believe when you are there!). We were also treated to a wildlife sighting, as a coyote strolled past our car!

We were pretty shattered in the evening; having spent all day hiking, basically, but still had enough motivation for a bit more hiking the next day. This time, we decided to hike around glacier point, which is located on the other side of the Yosemite Valley from Yosemite Falls. Our first hike was to Sentinel Dome and Great Taft point. The walk up to sentinel dome took us a bit more than an hour of relatively easy hiking. The views from up there, towards Yosemite Falls, were naturally amazing. The famous El Capitan was also visible (one of the best places in the world for rock climbing, I hear…). What was really nice about the walk was actually the peace and quiet – there are much fewer hikers here, than in the valley.

From there, we walked through some pretty heavy pine forest towards Great Taft point, being quite surprised to find a fair bit of snow still lingering! The views from there over the valley were rather stunning, again. Once more, the peace and quiet made the exertion of the hike well worth it!

Having finished our hike, we made our way to Glacier Point, which is one of the most famous spots in Yosemite National Park, for good reason. The views over the valley from there are just stunning, no other word for it. All the major landmarks are visible from there, including El Capitan, Half Dome, Yosemite Falls, Nevada Falls… So again, a good spot to picnic!

From there, we decided to do another hike, this one taking us down to Illouette Falls. The beginning of the hike was quite pleasant and relaxing, following the edge of the valley, gradually descending towards the valley floor, until we got to the waterfalls. Unfortunately, the waterfalls are partially obscured during the entire walk, but it was still a very nice little hike to end the day with….

After one more night at Wawona hotel, it was time to leave the valley, sad as it felt… It’s certainly one of the most magical and beautiful places I’ve ever visited… I would gladly go back one day, we shall have to see!

Sunny California!

After our 6 hour-flight from New York, we finally touched down in sunny California. Our dear friend Valerie picked us up at the airport, and whisked us down to their house in Sausalito. Gilles, Valerie, Celian and Hector relocated from the sunny Cote d’Azur a last fall, and seem to be very much enjoying their life here in California. No wonder, considering where they live… Sausalito is a very nice little town indeed, stunningly located on the Bay of San Francisco. And the view from their flat towards the bay is pretty cool…

We started Friday by having a look around Sausalito. One of the cool places to see there is the Bay Model. It’s basically a miniature layout, showing the bay of San Francisco, and the surrounding water system. It was built by the US Army for simulating the effects of tides and other natural phenomena on the San Francisco Bay area, and was also used to simulate the effects of civil engineering projects etc. It’s quite a fascinating place to visit…



Apart from that, Sausalito is known mostly for its seafront, and its “hippie boats”. Apparently, Sausalito was popular with the hippies in the 60s, when they lived here on their boats. Well, the boats are still there, moored in the harbor, and have become a bit of a tourist attraction. As for the hippies, well, apparently most of them work in the financial district these days…

After our tour of Sausalito, we decided to take the ferry down to San Francisco. It’s a very nice little trip indeed, going past Golden Gate, Alcatraz, before finally pulling up at the Ferry Building. Once there, we walked up Market Street, and from there up to North Beach and Chinatown. We even had time for a cup of coffee in a real North Beach institution, the Caffe Trieste (this was were the beatniks used to philosophize about life in the 60’s…). Then, ‘twas time to catch the ferry back to Sausalito.

The next day, we all got into Valeries big Chrysler, and drove down to the capital of California, Sacramento. Sacramento is in the heart of gold rush country - and it was during those crazy years that Sacramento was founded. We headed straight to the old town, the main reason to visit the city. It’s quite a likeable little place, the place had managed to preserve its historic buildings, quite unusual for the United States. It is, unsurprisingly a rather tacky and touristy place, but I still liked it.


After a rather disappointing lunch, we visited the railroad museum, which is a pretty cool place, actually. There are plenty of old steam engines to check out, as well as some rather interesting exhibits relating to the history of the railroads in the US of A.

On the way back to San Francisco, we stopped by at a rather interesting place called Locke. It is basically a little Chinese village in the middle of nowhere. It’s the sort of odd-ball place that’s almost too improbable to exist – thankfully it does. These days, it’s inhabited by hippies, artists and I guess some Chinese as well, still… We found a really cool bar there called “Al the Wop”. Al (who was, I guess, Italian) was apparently the first non-Chinese person to open up a business in Locke. The place must be one of the coolest bars I’ve been to in the US, with plenty of odd-ball memorabilia, dollar notes stuck to the ceiling, and an interesting mixture of clients.

On Sunday, we decided to do a bit of local tourism. We started off with a visit to Muir woods, which is I guess the most “local” national park for inhabitants of San Francisco. The main attraction of the park are the coastal redwoods, which are part of the sequoia family. These giant trees can grow up to a height of 115 meters. They sure are impressive. We spent a very interesting couple of hours in Muir woods, being guided by an elderly volunteer who knew rather a lot indeed about the old trees of Muir woods…


After our brief forest outing, it was time to head to the beach. We ended up in Stinton beach, a nice little place just north of the San Francisco Bay. After a nice and filling lunch in one of the cozy eateries by the road, we headed down to the beach. In spite of the rather chilly water temperature, I had a dip in the sea, brr….

On Monday, Gilles and Valerie had to get back to work, so me and Mathilde decided to rent a car and do some exploration on our own… After picking up the car at the airport, we headed south of San Francisco, though the Silicon Valley and on towards Monterey. Monterey is, by American standards, quite a historic city, dating back all the way to 1770 (Monterey was the capital of California until 1846). We started our visit by checking out Cannery Row, made famous by John Steinbeck (a local resident). I have to say, it was rather disappointing – there is basically nothing to see at Cannery Row other than the famous aquarium of Monterey (not sure what I was expecting, really, Cannery Row was the site of some sardine canning factories).

We were more impressed with the rugged coastline just outside Monterey, but didn’t linger, since we were very keen to head towards the Big Sur. The Big Sur is a stretch of coastline stretching towards the south from Monterey, made famous by several authors. Unfortunately, our exploration was rather seriously disrupted by the notorious Californian fog, which swept in, and basically ruined the view for us. But I must say, the little we saw of the coastline looked very spectacular indeed…

On the way back, we stopped again in Monterey and had a walk around downtown. It’s quite a pleasant little town to stroll about, and they have a historic walk you can follow. By European standards, Monterey isn’t perhaps that “historic”, but it was an interesting walk nonetheless. We also checked out the Fisherman’s wharf, which is basically an equally tacky bus slightly smaller version of the one in San Francisco…


All in all, a very interesting little roadtrip!

A few days in the Big Apple

New York is, of course, one of the great cities of the world. So even though I’ve been there twice already, I was quite looking forward to a third visit with Mathilde, to kick off our US holiday.

Our transatlantic flight took us into JFK, where we stayed the 1st night, at a hotel in Jamaica, near the airport. After a quick breakfast at the hotel, we jumped on the subway and made our way into New York. Before starting our exploration of the Big Apple, we made our way across the Hudson River into adjacent Union City in New Jersey, where we were staying at a rented flat.

Our exploration of the city didn’t start very well, since we were hit by decidedly dodgy weather. Luckily, this is New York, so there are plenty of museums to visit during a rainy day. After some deliberation, we decided upon the MOMA (Museum of Modern Art), and it turned out to be an excellent choice indeed. In spite of the rather steep admission price, it’s probably the most impressive modern art gallery I’ve been to – they have a truly impressive collection.

We spent the rest of the day wandering around New York (the rain had thankfully stopped), checking out Times Square, Madison Square Garden and Macy’s (which I have to say was a bit disappointing, it basically seems to be some kind of a giant discount store, except with normal department house prices??). We finished off a very pleasant first day with dinner at a Cuban eatery back in Union City. (and I mean really authentic Cuban food – turns out that Union City has a rather large Latino community).

We started the next day with a walk at Chelsea, which is supposed to be the place to be for young and upcoming artists. To be honest, we were a bit disappointed by what we saw. At least the part where we walked around was not particularly charming, and the galleries seemed to be more for people wanting to buy art, than admire it. But what was really cool though, was Chelsea Market, a kind of covered market with loads of cool little shops, restaurants and cafes. Kind of a mixture of the Borough market and Camden town markets in London, but with a New York touch to it.

From there, we made our way to Chinatown & Little Italy. There’s not much Italian about Little Italy, except perhaps the restaurant names – which seemed rather touristy. Chinatown is far more authentic, and we found a very nice little place to have Dim Sum in for lunch. That was an authentic experience indeed – the waiters hardly spoke any English at all! We also visited the biggest Buddhist temple in New York; Mahayana temple.

We then headed over to Greenwich Village, which we really enjoyed. It’s a very nice place to stroll around, kind of more human-sized than downtown Manhattan. Greenwich village is of course where the hippies of New York used to hang out, and even though most hippies may be long gone, the place has a very nice and laid back feel to it, in part thanks to the large student population living here. Lots of cozy-looking bars and eateries about as well. We ended up having dinner in John’s pizzeria, a real New York institution. And for good reason, the gigantic pizzas are delicious!

The following day, we planned to tackle the financial district as well as Brooklyn. We started by a walk around the financial district, checking out town hall, Ground Zero as well as Saint-Patrick’s cathedral. Actually, we ended up spending most of the time shopping in Century 21, a rather big department store with quite attractive discounts on clothes, watches and all sorts of other stuff. I ended up taking part in a real shopping spree – which is not something I make a habit of, believe me!

We then walked across East River, along the Brooklyn Bridge over to Brooklyn. Now that is one darn impressive bridge, and what’s nice is that there is a pedestrian level on it. So walking across it is a mo

re pleasant experience than for example walking across Golden Gate (which we did last year). And the views towards Manhattan and Brooklyn are of course stunning – especially since we were finally blessed with proper sunshine!



Brooklyn was also a real revelation. It’s obviously an up and coming part of New York, and it is certainly a much calmer place than Manhattan. It’s pretty much a city in its own right…

We started our walk in Brooklyn Heights, a rather posh part of town, with its famous brownstones (it’s what they call houses built from brownstone, a type of sandstone). After a rather nice lunch in a local lunch restaurant, we made our way to Prospect Park, which I guess is the second-most famous park in New York. It’s certainly a very nice place to stroll around (and photograph squirrels!). We finished off a super day with some Japanese food in Easter Village (excellent food, and excellent value for money as well!)

The next day was our last full day in New York. Of course, no visit to New York is complete without taking a bout out to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, so we decided to do just that. Actually, we decided not to stop at the Statue of Liberty (apparently it’s not possible to visit the statue itself due to security measures, and well, you can see the statue pretty well from the boat) and spend our time in Ellis Island, which I reckon is one of the most interesting places to visit in New York. Ellis Island is, of course, the place where a rather large number of immigrants were “welcomed” on their way to the US. The place is a really fascinating place – it just oozes with history.

One other thing we had on our list was doing the High Line. The High Line is basically a 2 km stretch of elevated railroad track that was left to get overgrown after years of abandon. In recent years it’s been “spruced up” and is basically these days a very nice way and scenic footpath in Western Manhattan. Really a brilliant idea – we loved the place.

Next item on our list was lunch at the Spotted Pig, a real New York culinary institution, apparently. What it seemed to be, to us, is more like pretentious, overpriced gastro-pub. I did like my dish, but well, it was just a bit too expensive and minimalistic for what we paid (probably the Michelin star had something to do with that…). Anyway, with our stomachs only half-full, we made our way to the next stop on our visit, New York Public Library, a fantastic place to spend an afternoon. The place is truly monumental – the Rose Reading Room is especially impressive. Certainly one of the coolest free things to do in New York!

Of course, another thing that has to be done in New York is check out the aerial view of Manhattan from one of the skyscrapers. Instead of doing the classic – Empire State Building, we decided to go to the “Top of the Rock” (Rockefeller Centre). Rockefeller Centre itself is a rather interesting complex of buildings (there’s a huge lego shop, an ice skating rink, the famous Christmas tree, the since-removed Diego Rivera painting (that you may remember from the movie Frida). And the view from the rooftop is, well, simply spectacular. We caught out Manhattan just as night was falling, so pretty much perfect timing. We finished off another perfect day in New York with a proper, juicy, American burger at Five Napkin Burger.

That nearly brought an end to our visit – but we did have one more morning to spend in the Big Apple. We decided to finish our visit with another highlight – Central Park. Unfortunately the sun kept hidden this morning – but we still had a very good time strolling around this oasis of peace and quiet in the middle of Manhattan.


Then, alas, it was time for us to catch our flight to sunny California… Well, it had been an absolutely wonderful few days. New York is definitely up there among the truly great cities in the world – and it seems I’ve barely scratched the surfaces after my three visits. So I reckon we just might be back…

Dinner with Janne and Katja

My brother and Katja have been in France for nearly a week now. Unfortunately, due to my brother suffering from a sore stomach, and some travelling in Provence, we’ve not been able to meet up with them properly yet. Since they are soon making their way back to Finland, we figured we need to at least meet up for a meal (always an excuse for food, eh? ;-) ).


After some deliberation, we selected a place called Les Arcades in Biot. It’s a little hidden gem of a place, located in the picturesque Place des Arcades, serving very authentic local fare, with a touch of originality (my favourite dish are the “naked raviolis”).

It’s quite an intimate little place, so with 4 members of the Turtiainen clan in the party, it’s going to be a bit of a squeeze, but we managed. In addition to the excellent food, the waiter also provides free entertainment in three languages (Italian, French and English).

All in all then, very much a recommended place for grabbing a bit of local food. Apparently the place is a favourite of Alan Ducasse (who heads the Louis XV, the fanciest eatery in Monaco, located just across the street from the casino), so can’t be all bad… ;-) Great to catch up with Katja and Janne as well, and to hear about their travels. A pity we couldn’t meet up properly this time…

Aude and Magaye visiting!

Aude and Magaye, good friends of ours from Nantes, have been meaning to come and visit us for quite some time. Finally, this weekend, we were very happy to have them over! As they arrived on the afternoon Easyjet flight Friday afternoon. I decided to join them in Nice directly after finishing off at the office. After a bit of shopping, having a quick look at the museum of modern art, some strolling around the old town, ‘twas time for a spot of dinner…

After trying, unsuccessfully, a couple of options, we ended up in Le Fran-Calin, a touristy-seeming place in Old Nice serving up typical Provencal fare. Well, it was a rather touristy place, but the food was good, and good value for money as well, so we were rather happy with our choice in the end. Having filled our stomachs, we decided to have a quick drink before making our way back to Cagnes. We ended up in Les Distelleries Ideales, a nice little bar in Old Nice, with a pretty catchy brewery-inspired interior, and a good beer selection. A nice way to end a busy evening in Nice!

The next day, our options for sight-seeing were somewhat limited due to some uncharacteristically bad weather. So, we decided a bit of culture was called for. After considering various options, we ended up in the Musee de Fernand Leger, in nearby Biot. Fernand Leger started his career started off by working mostly with cubist art, and then evolved his style to a more figurative, populist one (yeah, that’s right, I looked that up on the internet). Apparently he’s considered by some as the fore-runner to pop art. Anyway, the museum was pretty cool actually, I liked a lot of his paintings (which is not always the case with modern art…). I do find the museum a bit small for what they are charging (something like 9 Euros for a visit lasting less than 1 hour).

The next stop was the other “major tourist attraction” Biot has to offer – the glass-blowing factory. Glass blowing is a tradition that goes way back in Biot, and is still going strong – although I reckon most people purchasing glass-ware in Biot are tourists rather than locals… The verrerie is quite a nice place to visit, though, the workshop is open to visits, and it’s actually quite fascinating, watching the masters at work. There are also a couple of interesting glassware galleries to check out, and the gift-shop, naturally ;)

After a quick walk around Biot (it’s one of my favorite villages on the Cote d’Azur, not least because it has some excellent restaurants!), we made our way to Antibes, where we were  supposed to pick up my brother Janne and Katja, and then head for dinner. Unfortunately my brother had some stomach trouble, so we ended up just having an apero at my parents’ place instead, before heading into Antibes for dinner.

After checking out the various restaurant options on the internet, we had selected a place called “Le Taille de Gueppe” for dinner. Taille de Gueppe means “wasp waist”, and the restaurant apparently specializes in food that has flowers in it, so I was a bit nervous, actually… Thankfully, my worries were unfounded; the place is a real gem. The interior is very cozy indeed, the cuisine is inventive (it does contain flowers, but thankfully also meat!) and actually pretty good value for money. We will be back, I strongly suspect!

After a quick drink at the Colonial pub, we made our way back to Cagnes to recuperate for the next day (after a bit of Buzz musical & cinema quiz action on the PS 2).

For the next day, we had a kind of agreement that if the weather was bad, we would go for a long lunch to my favourite Italian restaurant; il Giardino, at Vallebona, and if the weather was good, we would cycle along the seaside in Cagnes. Me and Magaye, at least, were desperately praying for bad weather ;)

Not sure whether the weather was strictly speaking bad in the end, but we ended up going to Vallebona, anyways ;) Il Giardino was, as always, a sublime culinary treat. Italian food at its very best: simple, copious, and tasty, just like at your grandmother’s. We had no problems eating our way through the 9 antipastis, 4 plates of pasta, and 3 mains. Yummie, what else can I say ?

Lunch at Il Giardino takes a good three ours out of your day, and leaves you with little energy to do other things. But we did manage to spare the energy to walk around the charming village of Vallebona, check out the seaside of Bordighera and even walk around in Monaco for a bit on our way back to Cagnes.

That brought an end to a very nice weekend with our dear friends. We hope they won’t wait as long until their next visit as they did for this one! ;)

Easter in Piedmonte

Me and Mathilde have a very nice tradition of organizing surprise weekend trips for each others for our birthdays. So, this Easter weekend, it was time for my surprise weekend. My excitement mounted, especially when I realized we were heading East on the motorway – that tends to mean Italy. After a bit more excitement and anticipation, the destination revealed itself to me – Turin. It’s a place we’ve been planning to visit for quite some time; we’ve just not made it so far for some reason.

Mathilde had gotten us a very nice hotel nicely located in the middle of a park, just by the river Po, which kind of traces the outskirts of Turin. We arrived pretty late on Friday night, and since it was raining, we decided not to venture to the town center; rather we dined in the nearby Pizzeria Medusa (where we were served Sicilian, rather than Piedmontese, specialties).

The next day, we got up birth ‘n early, eager to explore Turin. After a rather filling and very good breakfast (which is quite unusual for Italy) at our hotel, we took the tramway downtown. After checking out the beautifully orderly main square, Piazza del Castello (where the Royal Palace, the home of the Savoys, is located), we headed out to explore town. It quite quickly became apparent to us, that the clichés about the north/south divide that people talk about in Italy definitely has some merit to it – Turin could very well be in a different country from Naples or Palermo. Its orderliness has something almost Austrian to it (mind you – Turin is very Italian though, no doubt about that!). We also checked out the Cathedral of Saint John the Baptist, which houses one of the main sights in Turin – the supposed shroud of Christ (well, actually, you are allowed to see a photograph of it, not the shroud itself)

After checking out the shopping district (I ended up buying two trousers and some shoes – what’s happening to me? All that shopping had worked up a healthy appetite in us, so we soon found ourselves in a nice little tavern called Taverna Barbaroux (colleagues of Mathilde will smile at this point ;-) for a very tasty, reasonably priced lunch (I had some wild boar and polenta, yummie!). Our stomachs filled, we continued walking around Turin, finally finding ourselves at the Mole Antonelliana, probably the most famous landmark in Turin. This towering structure of 167 meters was originally built as a synagogue, but these days houses the Museo Nazionale del Cinema (which is, according to Wikipedia, the tallest museum in the world!).

As some of you may know, I am a bit of a cinephile, so naturally I was going to love this museum. IN fact, I would go so far as to say it’s the coolest cinema museum I’ve been to (beating the ones I’ve been to in London and Paris), which actually pretty much makes it the coolest museum I’ve ever been to. It’s a brilliant mixture of film memorabilia, old equipment, films being shown (the only disappointment here being that they are mostly dubbed to Italian) and various other exhibits. The museum makes brilliant use of this unique building as well. Absolute genius, anybody visiting Turin should visit this place!

This does of culture put us in the mood for a bit of proper Italian coffee – so we made our ways to one of the beautiful, historic cafes that Turin is littered with - Baratti & Milano, located at Piazza Castello. The coffee was predictably expensive, and so was the ice cream we had with it. Well, to be precise, we had Bicerin, not coffee (Bicerin is a local speciality, basically espresso coffee mixed with drinking chocolate and whole milk). But I would say it was worth it, for the beautiful location…

After a bit more walking around and shopping, it was apero time! Unfortunately, the weather wasn’t a best, but thankfully there are a lot of covered passages in Turin, for finding shelter. So, we were allowed to enjoy our cocktails and munchies outside, while protected from the menace of rain.

We ended up dining at a rather special little eatery – the San Tomasso 10 (rather unimaginative name for a restaurant – it’s the address of the place!). It’s actually the birthplace of the Lavazza coffee brand – and still houses a quite famous café. The interior of the place is rather “interesting” (a rather surprising, almost psychedelic, mixture of red and white), but no complaints about the food at all. I very much enjoyed my veal encrusted in bread, followed by the Tiramisu.

The next day, we planned to start the day with a visit to the famous Porta Palazzo market. Since the sun was out, we decided to make our way there on foot – taking in some rather stunning views across the Po river on our way there. The market itself was rather a big disappointment, for the simple reason that it was shut on Sunday. Doh! So, back to the hotel on the tram!

Our next attempt at doing something cool was a visit to the Lingotto – another rather interesting feature of Turin. This huge building was originally the main FIAT factory (as you may or may not know, FIAT is from Turin) – in its heyday it employed something like 60,000 people. When the factory shut down, it was converted to a huge shopping center, which also houses a famous art gallery as well as a roof-top race track (which you may recognize from the classic Britflick the Italian Job). Unfortunately, well, it was Sunday, though, so the shops were all closed and we never managed to figure out how to make it to the roof-top race track. Oh, well…

We next made our way to the castle of Rivoli (a small town near Turin), yet another rather fascinating architectural concept. This historic castle houses a museum of contemporary art, and manages to very well fuse the historic aspects of the building with the museum. The building is absolutely lovely. On the other hand, the exhibitions left us a bit lukewarm. It was, after all, contemporary art. But, the building itself was very much worth the trip, I would say!

Our next stop for the day was another well-known Turin landmark – the Superga Cathedral. It sits imposingly on top of the Superga hill, overlooking Turin from across the Po River. It’s famous for two things, mainly, the fact that it houses the graves of the Savoy royal family, and the fact that the entire AC Milan football team perished in an air crash in 1949 (the plane actually hit the church, incredibly). What we can mostly remember are the ridiculous traffic jams getting up to the church, and especially leaving it. (I guess something to do with the fact that it was Easter Sunday?). Even though the roayal tombs were quite interesting (I fear my Italian wasn’t quite up to the standards for following the guide’s commentary, though…)

From Turin, we then carried on back towards France. Turns out we were spending the night at a rather stunning agriturismo at the outskirts of another historic Piedmontese town, called Saluzzo. After checking in, we made our way to the old town for dinner. Following the recommendations from the hotel, we found ourselves in a very cozy little eatery, hidden under the porticos of the atmospheric old town. Great choice – the food was delicious, and the prices more than reasonable, especially considering the outstanding quality.

The next day, we got to explore the town properly (after yet another excellent hotel breakfast). Saluzzo is one of those places that could be characterized as a hidden gem – seems like there are places like that all over Italy. In most countries the place would be overrun with tourists, with its cute, cobblestone streets and impressive townhouses. But in Italy, it’s “just another historic town”. That’s taking nothing away from its charm, mind you, we loved the place!

After our bried walk around Saluzzo, we decided to walk to nearby Manta – where there is apparently a nice castle. The hike took us through some very nice landscapes, covered with vineyards. Manta itself was a bit of a disappointment, though. We did find the castle, but there was some sort of Easter fiesta taking place there – which meant an entrance fee of 8 euros, and a wait of 2 hours to visit. So we decided to pay 4 euros instead to visit the gardens – turned out the gardens were just a small park in front of the castle. What a damn rip-off!

Disgusted, we walked back to Saluzzo. A rather nice lunch in Saluzzo calmed us down… By then it was time to make our way back towards France – through some rather nice mountain landscapes (we took the mountain road down the Breya valley... All in all, it was yet another brilliant Easter trip to Italy. Thank you darling for another memorable weekend!