Wintery Finland

Of course, a visit to Finland was kind of mandatory before heading off to the land of the rising sun. As often, I had a pretty full program planned by the time I arrived, the basic idea being having the time to see as many people as possible in one week.

I arrived in Helsinki late Thursday, and spent Friday day just chilling out basically, and enjoying a not very wintery Helsinki. For the evening, I made my way over to Katja and Janne's place, where Rasmus and young Philip joined us for our traditional gaming night (it actually snowed on the way to their place, yippee!!). Let the nerdy times rule - we kept on playing Dominion until about 3 in the morning!).

The next day, I drove up to Turku with dad, where I was planning to meet up with the old gang from Pargas for a few beers. We started in Koulu (where else?), with Oski, Jocke, Tomppi, Jani and Jonas showing up. After some heavy debating about Brexit, Trump and so forth (with Jani being a bit outnumbered...), we carried on to Apteekki, another classic Turku drinking establishment. I ended up crashing at Jonas' place, where we wore off the hangover by watching Family guy and other intellectual stuff on Netflix...

On the way back, we stopped by to say hi to Tomi and his family, and check out Suvelan Kappeli (they chose quite an unexpected location for such an interesting architectural creation - after all, Suvela is a bit like the Bronx of Espoo ;-) ).

I spent Monday doing what I love doing in Helsinki, that is walking around and taking photos. The weather was not the best for it, as it was a bit cloudy, and VERY windy indeed. So it felt like a bit of a polar expedition at times, since I didn't have any gloves. But I was treated to some pretty nice views, especially towards Katajanokka from Tervasaari (a small island located in Pohjoissatama). I also checked out Uspenski cathedral (the orthodox cathedral, in my opinion the prettiest church in Helsinki), after which I headed off for my lunch date with Jocke in Bellevue. Bellevue is, in spite of the somewhat misleading name, actually the oldest Russian restaurant in Helsinki. The reason for this choice of venue was that I wanted to try blinis, and what better place than this to try this Russian delicacy?

On Tuesday, the plan was to celebrate Janne's 40th birthday (OK, a month or so too late, but better late than never, eh?). To mark this milestone, we decided to go to Chef and Sommelier. It's a place I've wanted to try for ages, since the sommelier, Johan, is actually a childhood friend of mine. And they do have a Michelin Star as well. So expectations were high. And Chef and Sommelier surely didn't disappoint! I love the concept - modern nordic cuisine, all made of locally sourced ingredients. There were some real surprises, like pine soup. What I like about the place too is the laid back atmosphere - this is not your typical Michelin starred restaurant at all. Hats off to Sasu and Johan for a great culinary experience!

MK, one more time (well, actually, two...)

So this week was kind of an emotional one - the last week at work. My 4+ years at STMicroelectronics have been great - I've worked on a great project, with some great people, and I've learnt loads of stuff. Yeah, I know, it sounds like standard, formulaic stuff you say when you leave a company, but it's really true in my case. To be honest, I feel a bit less sad about leaving the company STM, than I felt a few years ago leaving Nokia, but the work has really been great the past few years, and I've made a lot of friends. And lost weight, thanks to the fact that my French colleagues seem to prefer sport to drinking beer. So good for me!

Anyways, one place I did go to quite a few times to enjoy beer and food is a place called MK (formerly known as Maitre Kantrer), in Saint-Philippe. So naturally, this is the place I had to have my leaving-do with my soon-to-be ex-colleagues. In actual fact, I decided to have two leaving dos, since I couldn't find a date that worked for everybody. The first one took place on Monday, and I had a pretty good turnout. As usual, I got the table assigned to Mr. T ;-)

On Wednesday, then, for the real, final, leaving do. Now, much to my delight, the good staff of MK had prepared a bit of a treat for me. They gave us the honour of piloting their new burger  - a truffle  burger, no less. And boy, was it delicious. But, even cooler, after having a chat with the chef, the lady actually promised to NAME THIS BURGER AFTER ME! Wow, now that's seriously cool. The "Mr. T Burger", or "Le Teemu Burger". And they even paid for my beer! Now that warmed my heart! Not sure whether they ever kept their promise, but it's a cool story to tell, anyways ;-)

So, all in all, it felt quite wistful to leave ST Microelectronics, especially to say good bye to all those great colleagues. Snif.  

Yoko, one more time

One of our favorite restaurants on the Cote d'Azur is, no doubt about it, a charming little Japanese restaurant in Cagnes-sur-Mer called Yoko, managed by the equally charming Yoko and her French husband (who makes some amazing desserts!). OK, just pure chance it's a Japanese restaurant, right ;-) So anyway, naturally, we had to come here one last time for dinner, before heading off to the land of the rising sun.

Yoko was nice as always - and showed the sort of attention to detail which makes her restaurant such a great place - she actually spotted our wedding rings, and congratulated us! Now that's pretty impressive, considering we eat there maybe twice a year! Anyway, needless to say, the food was as fantastic as always.

We will miss Yoko, that's for sure!

Skiing in Auron

One sad thing about going to a Japan, a country not exactly famed for being generous about their holiday allocation, and which is also rather far away from Europe, is that before leaving, you get this feeling like it's the last time you go to the places you go to (since we might not come back here during our sparse holidays...). That's maybe over-dramatizing a little bit, but that's the feeling I've started to get...

So, today, then, was "the last time we were going to go skiing in this part of the world". Not the end of the world, and maybe not even true, but I will for sure miss the ski resorts over here, Isola, Auron and Greolieres (although I think skiing in Japan is supposed to be pretty awesome, too!). So, for this "last ski trip of ours", we chose Auron, basically since the weather forecast looked the best there.

All in all, we had a fantastic time. Conditions were just perfect, with the sun shining bright in the blue sky. The snow was good, and in spite of it being school holiday season, Auron wasn't that busy. We spent a rather intensive day doing most of the pistes that were open - we even packed a picnic lunch, which we enjoyed under a pine tree - so that we could maximize the skiing time (since, admittedly, we didn't get up for quite as early a start as we might've wanted to).

So, bye bye Auron, at least for now!

The way back home!

After a wonderful and memorable weekend, it was unfortunately time to head back home... But like on the way to La Rochelle, we decided to make the best of our trip back and make a couple of stops. After all, I have no idea when we'll be back in this time of France next time (Japanese companies not being famous for their generosity when it comes to holidays...)

We started by visiting Santes, one of the more famous historic cities in Charantes. The first impression is one of a typical provincial French capital. Saintes is not what I would call a touristic hot spot, but it does have a handful of quite interesting historic sights . We started with the roman amphitheater, one of the most well-preserved in France.

The Roman heritage bit done, we walked through some quite picturesque medieval streets, crossed the Charante river (briefly checking out Germannicus' Arch de Triomphe, which stands by the river) to explore some of the Christian heritage of Saintes. We started by visiting the impressive Cathedral de Saint-Pierre, and continued on to the beautifully restored Abbaye Saint-Marie-des-Dames (a monastery for women), which was unfortunately shut.

After a pleasant morning spent in Saintes, we carried on our journey towards Bordeaux. We made another stop at Blaye. The reason to come to Blaye (for tourists, anyway), is to visit the impressive Citadel built by Vauban. It's one of the most impressive works by the very busy military architect. Of crucial strategic importance in the defence of Bordeaux, this UNESCO world heritage sight is indeed a very interesting place to visit. It reminds me a bit of Suomenlinna near Helsinki in that it's avery nice place to walk around, and almost like a small town in its own right. Impressive as this place is though, I reckon Seurasaari is even more impressive!

This time around, we spent the night at a rather curious bed and breakfast south of Toulouse. The old farmhouse has been converted to a BnB by a former airplane technician. Clearly passionate about his region (and classic cars too, he owns two vintage mustangs!), each room is decorated based on a particular theme of his region  - we got the airplane room (Toulouse is the aerospace/aviation capital of France, Airbus being heavily present). A special mention goes to the amazing meal our friendly host prepared for us - all about duck (another regional specialty).

The next day, the plan was to arrive not too late back at home, but we did make time for one stopover, at Martigues, near Marseille. It's a small typical Provencal town, one that features in a lot of impressionist painters' work, so it's a place I've wanted to check out for quite some time. It is a quite nice place to walk around, some spots in the town really are very picturesque indeed, and really show Provence as t was say 50 years ago. And today, with the sun out, and a clear blue sky, Martigues was a beautiful place to walk around indeed!

That brought an end to our lovely mini-holiday/road trip... 

Our very special day

Our big day is coming up. Yes, after all these years, we are getting married. The timing - the fact that this happy event coincides with us going to Japan, might suggest we are doing this for pragmatic reasons. And we are - but the fact of the matter is that it was still something I was pretty excited about!

We wanted to keep the affair low-key, so only invited close family, and Aude and Magaye (after all, we need a bridesmaid and a best man, right?). I was happy that Katja & Janne, as well as dad and Berit could make it, in spite of the rather short notice.

Things got underway with the night before the big day, with a big dinner at Francoise and Joel's place, where our Finnish guests also joined. Predictably, great food was served up, a beef tongue pot au feu was on the menu - doesn't get much more traditionally French than that!

Then, as for our special day, we started off, as tradition has it, at the Puilbureau town hall (we didn't do the church bit). We were blessed with fantastic weather and a blue sky, something that's not at all to be taken for granted in this part of the world. Everything went very well in the town hall, Mathilde looked absolutely stunning in her red dress, and I didn't mess it all up by stumbling, losing my nerve, or forgetting how to answer the questions asked by the mayor!

After plenty of pictures taken in the nice little park outside the town hall, we headed back to Francoise and Joel's place, where plenty of more pictures were taken, and we enjoyed a proper French aperitif. And the bride still looked stunning!

We had the meal at a very nice panoramic restaurant by the Ile de Re bridge, from where the views towards Ile de Re and the beautiful Charantese coastline are absolutely fantastic - especially on a sunny day like this ! (when we tested the restaurant before christmas, the views were considerable less impressive, with a fog obscuring the view). The food was great, the wine was great, in fact, everything was just perfect! There was even a Japanese touch thanks to Aude and Magaye who "made us" perform a Japanese wedding ritual which involves sharing some sake.

After the meal, we all had a nice walk along the beautiful coastal footpath, making the best of the fantastic weather. Sadly, at this point it was time to say good bye to my dad and Berit, who headed back to the hotel to catch some rest. For the night's program, we had booked an Escape room for the "youth" (anybody under 50, basially!). Great fun, actually, and best of all, both groups (we had to split into two groups) completed the mission (which involved WWII submarines - there was a big base at La Rochelle). We then continued partying into the small hours of the morning - a rare thing at my age! ;)

The next day,  alas, it was time to say goodbye to everybody. So how was it, then, to get married ? Well, it was actually quite a magical moment, more so than what I expected. And I'm really happy we did it the "proper way" in the end, together with family and friends. A weekend I will never forget!

Mini road trip to La Rochelle

Time to leave Barcelona, after a couple of wonderful days spent with our great hosts. Time to hit the road, then, destination La Rochelle. The plan was to stop over near Toulouse for the night, but we had a bit of time to kill before then, so we decided to explore Catalunia a bit before heading back to France.

We started by the medieval village of Besalu. It's one of those places (that thankfully still exist) that seems to be stuck in time - kind of exactly how one would imagine a medieval European city. A bit like a smaller, and less touristy version of Girona, if you will. The location is rather stunning, surrounded by the volcanic landscape of La Garotxa. The entry into the village takes visitors across Fluvia river along a beautiful 12th century bridge. The village itself is very picturesque indeed, with medieval cobblestone streets lined up with medieval houses criss-crossing the town. This being a weekday, not many tourists to be seen either...

We carried on our Catalunya tour with a visit of Figueras. The main draw of this decent-sized town is, of course, the Salvador Dali museum. Neither of us is really a huge fan of Mr. Dali, but we decided to pay the museum a visit anyway. I must say the visit didn't really change my opinion of the man nor his art, but it has to be said that the museum is really made in the image of Dali's art - so hats off for that. So it's a bit more than "just a museum". It sort of reminded me of the Ghibli museu we visited in Tokyo in that sense - except that I'm a big fan of the Ghibli films.

We stayed the night in a nice little hamlet north of Toulouse called Parisot, at a lovely country home that a Parisian couple (who decided to retire from their stressful jobs in Paris and become hoteliers in the French countryside!) had converted to rather charming BnB accommodation. For dinner, we decided to head into Gaillac, the nearest decent-sized town, for dinner at the fanciest place in town (tonight was, after all, valentine's day).

The next day, we decided to take our time driving towards La Rochelle. This part of France is famous for its bastides (fortified villages which were built under Royal authority during the middle ages), so we decided to visit a few of them. Our first stop was Lisle-sur-Tarn, a very picturesque little village located between Parisot and Gaillac (where we had dinner the night before).

Even prettier was Castelnau-de-Montmiral. It's one of the more famous bastides in the region, and quite rightly so, the place is pretty much your perfect French medieval village - perched n a hilltop, surrounded by rolling, hilly countryside (almost reminiscent of Tuscany). The village itself is superbly preserved, with cobblestone streets lining up beautiful, well-restored medieval houses. So if you need to visit just one bastide near Toulouse, you wouldn't do wrong choosing this one!

The last bastide on this visit was Bruniquel, as we were leaving Bastide country and approaching the motorway. Bruniquel is perhaps a bit less picturesque and smaller than the other places we went to as far as the village itself is concerned - but the main draw here is an impressive medieval castle that dramatically overlooks the river in the valley below. Talk about a dramatic place to place a castle! Unsurprisingly, several films have used the castle as a location.

Before arriving at La Rochelle, we decided to do one last stopover. Bordeaux, and the surrounding wine country, is quite conveniently located a couple of hours from La Rochelle, so we decided to pay a visit to Saint-Emillion, one of the more famous wine-producing towns in the region.  There is plenty more to Saint-Emillion than its wines, though, as it's a very picturesque town indeed, with its impressive cathedral perched above the medieval town, watching over its citizens. Needless to say, the surrounding countryside with its vineyards make for a pretty much perfect setting. So the perfect place for a coffee and a quick stroll around, before finishing a long drive.

Quite a rewarding little road trip, all in all!