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.

Wedding in the West of France

My odyssey continued from Helsinki-Vantaa airport to Paris. From Charles de Gaulle airport, I jumped on the RER and made my way down to Montparnasse, where I was happily reunited with Mathilde. The plan was to then catch the TGV to Angers, where we were attending a wedding on Saturday. We had a couple of hours to kill in Paris, which we spent mainly on a bit of last minute shopping and just walking around, enjoying Paris.

We arrived Angers early evening after a swift TGV journey. We were planning to stay at our dear friend CoCo's parents place near Lac de Maine (just next doors to where Mathilde's parents used to live before they moved to La Rochelle). CoCo was there to pick us up at the station. We had a lovely evening, catching up and enjoying the summer weather (certainly warmer than what I'd experienced in Finland!).

The next day, the girls headed into town to get their hair done, while I opted for a bit of sport (it was a close call between shopping and sport, I must say... ;) ). When we used to visit Mathilde's dad here in Angers, me and Mathilde used to run around the Lac de Maine, so naturally that's what I decided to do now as well. I went for the extended version, which involved running along the Maine river all the way into the town centre of Angers, and then back to the Lac de Maine. A beautiful run!

And then for the wedding. Delphine and Christophe, old friends of Mathilde whom we used to meet regularly when we visited Angers, where the lucky ones today. The proceedings kicked off at the town hall - as they often do in France (in France, it's actually quite common to skip the church bit, which was just fine by me...).

After a short stop at CoCo's parents flat, we headed off to the main celebration venue, a lovely little spot of countryside just a couple of kilometre's outside Angers. Delphine's parents own a spot of land their, which is just the right size for a proper wedding celebration! In the midst of nature, so to speak. Which didn't in any way diminish the quality of the food & drinks provided (always top notch quality in France, as is to be expected).

Things kicked off with a rather extended aperitif (where I had a few glasses of Coteaux de Layon - a locally made sweet white wine which is very good for "socializing"). A lot of Mathilde's old friends had made it - including Aude & Magaye (and little cute Olympe, of course), Stephane & Cervanne (and their kids) and of course CoCo and Dorinne. So it was great catching up - quite a while since I've seen some of them.

After the aperitif there was some "structured activity" involving singing, poetry & literature reading, speeches aches and that sort of stuff. And then of course for the most important bit - dinner! The food was, as always in French weddings, excellent. What was cool about the dinner also was that we were seated next to a German couple, which gave me the opportunity to practice my German! (I've been doing German lessons for a couple of months now). Magaye also connected well with our German friends - he like me is an Octoberfest veteran so we had plenty of things to discuss (in admittedly rather limited German).

Things finished with mad dancing, of course. Even I participated - a rare (and probably awful) sight! We got back rather early in the morning, and I must admit to feeling a bit tipsy. So, that would mean the wedding was a blast, then!

The next day, after lunching with CoCo's parents (who are, by the way, lovely people - which is not really surprising considering they are CoCo's parents!), it was time for us to catch a train again - this time destined for Nantes.

The plan was to meet up with our dear friends Aude and Magaye, and (of course less importantly) watch the EURO2016 final between France and Portugal. But before meeting our friends, we had a couple of hours to kill in Nantes. So, as we usually do, we decided to have a walk around. We started off with the beautiful Botanical garden, which is located just next to the train station, which really is a great place. They've really managed to make the place a joy to visit, with quirky works of art that mix well in with the vegetation, temporary exhibitions/theme activities and so forth.

Then, after consulting Tripadvisor, we decided to visit the Japanese garden - we didn't even know there was one. It's a very nice and peaceful little place to spend some time at, just relaxing. And it was quite nice to get a touch of Japan here in Nantes - to prepare us for our upcoming trip (yes, we are planning to go, again...). Not quite what a Japanese garden is in Japan, but certainly one of the best efforts I've seen outside of Japan!

And then, 'twas time for us to make our way back to the station to pick up our luggage, and head over to Reze, where Aude and Magaye live. We spent a nice afternoon catching up with them and preparing for the Big Game (well, at least me and Magaye where, not so sure about Aude and Mathilde). We picked up the pizzas in Magaye's electric Twizy car (even I got to try it - my first time behind the wheel of an electric car!).

The game itself went rather badly, unfortunately. France were rather dominant during most of the game, with Portugal defending doggedly. Ronaldo had to come off the pitch during the first half, which even I have to admit was a bit of a pity. Plenty of good opportunities for France, but unfortunately they weren't able to capitalize. And then, in overtime, the inevitable happened - Portugal scored after a brilliant strike from Eder.

The next day, it was time to carry on, direction La Rochelle. We did have time to have lunch with Sandra before shooting off - good to see her again.

Weekend in the West of France

Mathilde headed off to the west of France last weekend, and after a week of debauchery at home, alone (that's obviously a joke), it was time for me to join Mathilde at La Rochelle. Unfortunately, it's not that easy to get to La Rochelle from Nice, this time around I ended up flying to Bordeaux, from where I went to La Rochelle by Bla Bla car (a car pooling service that works pretty well, at least here in France). Well, usually works well, this time around, my young driver, busy chatting to her girlfriend, missed the La Rochelle motorway exit. To cut a long story short, I arrived about 1 hour late, sadly missing the big family dinner (but a tete to tete dinner with Mathilde is, of course, even better!).

The next day, we started off with a run in the neighbourhood of Puilbureau (where Mathilde's dad's house is located). Need to prepare for that upcoming semi-marathon! And then, of course, there was the mandatory Scrabble session with Mathilde and Joel (needless to say, I lost miserably to these two pros). And then, a great French traditional beef stew for the family lunch, cooked by Etienette. And for desert, a real treat and surprise - flowers fried in batter! A real delight!

That actually put an end to my brief visit at La Rochelle, as the plan was for us to spend Saturday night and Sunday with our good friends Aude and Magaye (not to forget about young Olympe!) over in Nantes. So, bla bla car it was again, this time we arrived in Nantes in a timely manner, without any hassle or nasty surprises.

Great to meet up with Aude and Magaye again, and seeing how little Olympe is growing up to be a really cute little girl. Aude and Magaye had gotten a baby sitter for the night, so we could go and paint the town red. Well, actually, these days, a night out is more a relaxed dinner, rather than painting the town or anything else red! We did make it out to L.U. for a couple of drinks afterwards. L.U, or Lieu Unique, is a cultural centre, based in the old factory building where the famous LU biscuits used to be made. A pretty cool place.

We started off the next day with a visit to a nearby farmer's market, which is apparently famous for having one of the last proper "buvettes" in France. What's a buvette ? Well, basically it's a ramshackle bar, serving cheap wine and other beverage to the punters visiting the market. I liked the concept very much - it all had a down-to-earth feel to it (much helped by the rather reasonable 1 Euro price tag for a glass of white wine).

After hanging out a bit at Aude's and Magaye's house (it's a very cool place to hang out indeed - Magaye is an architect and they've really created a cool place to live), we headed out into town a bit for a walk. We checked out the Château des ducs de Bretagne - the medieval castle that dominates Nantes town centre. It's my kind of castle - a proper medieval castle, one for fighting wars (the castle was built while Brittany was still trying to resist integration into France - all in vain of course as history would show).

After checking out the impressive cathedral, it was time to say bye bye to Nantes and head off to the airport. It was short, but so sweet!

A great day in Nantes!

To wrap up our little tour of Western France, we headed to Nantes, from where we were flying back to Nice the next day. We decided to go to Nantes by BlaBla car, a new experience for me (it all went rather smoothly, and one of our co-passangers had just come back from spending two months in Lapland, Finland, which was pretty cool!).

Naturally, as we were in Nantes, we were going to hang out with our dear friends Aude, Magaye and little Olympe see Aude I got her name right in the end, if you ever read this ;-) ). Aude was kind enough to pick us up and drive us back to their lovely designer house (Magaye is an architect, and it shows!). We had a great lunch, and played with Olympe and Oishii (an interestingly named rabbit).

We then headed into Nantes, to enjoy the excellent whether (not a given in the West of France). After some contemplation, we decided to head over to Les Machines de l'Ile. It's a really cool place near the city centre, a kind of touristic/artistic project/ensemble visualized around the old shipyards of Nantes. The vision presented here is something one could imagine springing from the cooperation between Lenoardo da Vinci and Julies Verne, a collection of fantastic machines, merry-go-around and the like. Inlcuding a really cool elephant.

We had a nice walk along the pierside, a really nice place to have a stroll around. And to have a beer as well, come to think of it, which is exactly what we decided to do. Magaye then took us on a bit of a private tour around the area, there's actually plenty of quirky buildings and artworks to see around there. Seems like it's a bit of an architect's playground. In fact, Magaye works around there, too. We spent a rather lovely afternoon checking out the place.

For the evening, we decided to go Japanese (great preparation for us, as our next holiday segment for the summer is actully Japan!). We went to a place called Joyi. Pretty nice place, with proper authentic Japanese cuisine. Recommended, should you fancy a bit of Japanese in the West of France!

To finish off a really nice day in Nantes, we went for a couple of beers to a cool river boat boor. A pity the place was closing when we arrived, so we only had time for one beer. Or maybe we are old enough to have felt happy to have an excuse to hit the sack early ? ;-)

So, the perfect way to round up a great little excursion in the West of France, then!

New year at Nantes

After my brief adventure in rainy Riga, I finally landed at Charles-de-Gaulle airport at Paris, where I jumped on the Angers-bound TGV train (where I was to be reunited with my darling!). The plan was to stay a couple of days in Angers, and then head to Nantes to celebrate New Year together with our dear friends Aude and Magaye.

I was most delighted to be reunited with Mathilde, and happy to see Joel and Francoise as well. And rather happy to enjoy Francoise's generous and tasty cuisine as well, as goes without saying! Francoise's nieces Colin and Titouan brought a bit of energy to the proceedings! Our brief but sweet time at Angers took its usual course - excellent food, hanging out, and Scrabble of course! To spice things up, we did play a bit of Hanafuda as well.

New Year's eve, we jumped on the train and headed into Nantes. We took the opportunity to have a walk around Nantes, one of my favourite cities in France, since the weather was very nice, for a change. It just feels so young compared to Nice as well... To replenish our energy, we had a nice little crepes meal (Nantes is nearly in Bretagne, after all...).

After a nice day spent in Nantes, Aude and Magaye picked us up and drove them to their flat in nearby Reze. Time for me to finally meet their pet rabbit, Oishi, as well ;-). We welcomed the new year with quite a lot of energy for the bunch of oldies we are! It's rather rare that we stay up partying 'til 6 in the morning, but this time, we did it! We were also joined by Aude and Magaye's neighbours for the fun. If memory serves me, I may even have danced !!??

The next day, we were unable to summon the energy to do anything too energetic. We did head off to the cinema in the evening to see the Wolf of Wall Street, Scorsese's latest (which I have to say disappointed me a bit. I did like the film, but expected more, considering the rave reviews the movie's had...).

The next day, it was time to leave Nantes and head back to Nice (After a nice lunch at Le Lieu Unique in downtown Nantes). 2014, here we come...

Nantes-Angers-Paris in three days!

Due to some long-distance travel planned in a couple of months, I suddenly found myself needing to renew my passport. Unfortunately, the closest place to do that is Paris... So a trip to Paris was called for (not that I mind or anything, Paris is a fantastic city...). Since Mathilde was planning a trip to Western France around the same time, I decided to join her to Nantes, then Angers, and take the train to Paris from Angers. Quite an ambitious programme for three days!

We arrived in Nantes as planned Saturday evening, and were happy to a lift to Aude and Magayes's lovely recently refurbished house where we were planning to stay the night. We spent a very nice evening indeed at their house, enjoying some rather delicious pizza, followed by some equally delicious crepes. Since we still have some illusions of youth, we decided to head into town after dinner for a couple of drinks. After checking out a couple of places that were just too busy (finding a bar "too busy" - a sign of getting old?), we found a nice little bar in the town centre, where we stopped for a couple of beers. I really like the buzz Nantes has - it seems like a much more happening and "experimental" place than Nice (in spite of Nice being a student town, it just feels a bit old sometimes...).


The next morning, we got up, and sat down to a most excellent brunch. Bravo, Aude and Magaye! Our appetites sated, we headed to the Vertou, a village just down the road from Nantes, where we checked out the local market. It's one of the things I really like about France - the fact that most towns have access to a proper farmer's market (we do almost all our fruit and veg shopping at our local farmer's market). After a couple of glasses of white wine at the "buvette", it was unfortunately time to head to the train station, say bye bye to Aude and Magaye, and jump on the train to Angers.

After a nice late lunch in Angers town centre, we headed back to Joel and Francoise's house, by foot (the sun was out, so we wanted to make the best of it). The walk back to the house, along the Maine River, really is great, especially when the sun is out, like it was on this particular day.

Our welcome at Joel and Francoise's house was great, as always. Great to see them, even though in my case it was to be a very short visit. And the dinner we were served was as great as always ;-)

The next morning, it was time for me to say bye bye to Mathilde, and catch the TGV down to Paris. After the raid 1 1/2 hour journey, the train pulled into Montparnasse station without any delay. From there, I jumped on the metro and headed down to Invalides, where the Finnish embassy is located. After the quick and efficient (if rather expensive...) formalities, I headed out to explore Paris.

I had almost all day ahead of me, before catching my flight back to Nice at 7 in the evening. Since I was lucky enough to have some excellent sunny (if a bit chilly) weather, I decided to make the best of it and walk around and enjoy Paris. I started by crossing the Seine to Place de La Concorde, from where I headed towards the Jardin des Tulieres. To get my mandatory dose of culture, I visited the Orangerie, a museum featuring Impressionist art - including the famous Nympheas by Monet. What can I say ? It's a fantastic museum - I really like Impressionist art, and the place in human-sized (unlike the Louvre located just next to it), it took me about an hour to check it all out.

I then carried on through the Jardin down to the Louvre, and headed towards Pont-Neuf after contemplating the ridiculous queue for the Louvre (and remember, this was a Monday!) for a while. I crossed Pont-Neuf to l'île de la Cité all the way to the Notre Dame. I considered the option of visiting the church for a while, but seeing the length of the queue, decided against it (that's the problem with Paris - the queues to most monuments are just ridiculous...). I decided to have a walk around the Latin quarter instead, on the other side of the Seine. Good choice, it was a bit calmer there. By now, my stomach was starting to grumble, so I decided to grab a bite to eat. The Latin Quarter is unfortunately full of tourist traps, but I managed to find a lovely little Georgian restaurant at a deserted side street. The place was deserted apart from a few people who seemed like regular customers - but the food was excellent and the 13 Euros I paid for the lunch menu felt like a bit of a bargain considering this is Paris.

I still had a couple of hours before catching my bus to Orly, so I decided to check out the nearby Pantheon, which I've not visited. This neoclassical building was originally a church dedicated to St. Genevieve (the patron saint of Paris). After the revolution, the government decided to change the place from a church to a kind of mausoleum where "great Frenchmen (and later French women) were to be buried". The building itself is more imposing than pretty, I would say (it's grandiose but not exactly subtle), but the visit proved quite an interesting summary of French history, as there are plaques summarizing the lives of the most famous people resting in the building.

 My original plan had been to finish my day in Paris with a visit to the Catacombs, since they are located in Denfert-Rochereau, where I was supposed to take the bus to Orly later on. Unfortunately they were closed on Mondays, so I eneded up spending an hour chilling out in the Jardins de Luxembourg instead. Not a bad way to end my day in Paris actually, basking in the winter sun, and watching the Parisians playing chess, reading books, and just basking in the winter sun like me.

All in all, quite a busy, but fantastic day!

Faire la fête dans les Pays de la Loire!

For this weekend, Joel and Francoise had a big party planned – a “party of friendship” if you will. The big occasion was taking part in Angers. It’s a bit of pain to get to Angers from Nice, and after contemplating the many options, we finally opted upon flying to Nantes, and getting a hire car.

That meant staying Friday night in Nantes (our flight was arriving pretty late). Actually, our good friend Aude was just having her birthday that day, so we (well, Mathilde, actually) figured it would be a great idea to surprise Aude in Nantes for her big day. We organized everything very discreetly with Magaye, and managed to pull the surprise off(much to my surprise, har har), showing up at a gelateria in Nantes, calmly chatting with Magaye as Aude got back to the table. After a nice gelato, we made our way to the Biergarten for a couple of cold ones (gave me nice flashbacks from my week in Ulm a week and a bit earlier). I think Aude enjoyed our little surprise too!

The next day, after a bit of a lie-in, we headed back to Angers, just in time for lunch at Joel and Francoise’s place. Since we were treated to truly splendid weather (like everywhere in Europe), we decided to head into Angers town centre for a bit of a walk. After a bit of shopping, and walking around the streets of Angers, we made our way for a quick visit at Delphine’s and Christophe’s, after which it was time to make our way to the party.

We were staying at the Kyriad hotel in Pont-de-Ce, where our parents were also staying (they had made their way to the party all the way from Finland – on their way back to Antibes). The party was just kicking off as we showed up - apero time! It was a super occasion, it really was. The food was fantastic (as always), there was plenty to drink, and the atmosphere was just great, with people of all ages mixing it quite successfully. Great to see all the relatives and friends of both Francoise and Joel united. It was actually a bit like a wedding, but less formal. I think my parents also appreciated the occasion – it gave them a bit of an insight into how French people throw a party.

We got back to the hotel, exhausted but very happy, about 3 in the morning… The next day, we had another lie-in, getting up after 10… After a relaxing morning at the hotel, we slowly made our way back to the party (yes, it was continuing today…), for more food! Yes, it was lunch time. Pretty much the same group as the day before were present, plus Didier and Gerard, Joel’s brothers. My parents had to head back after lunch, but we had a bit more time to spend enjoying the warm sunshine (the weather was positively fantastic this weekend – loads better than it was when we were here during the summer!)

To digest the delicious lunch, we decided on a bit of sport. And what better sport than Petanque, that most French of sports (well, some would perhaps argue that Petanque doesn’t fulfil all the criteria of a sport – but that’s just nit-picking if you ask me ;-) ). I started off with a one-on-one game with Xavier. It was close, but in the end I managed to beat Xavier – must’ve been beginners luck. For the next couple of games, the pros joined the fray, and predictively, the games ended up in complete massacre – in fact the second match was disastrous enough for our team that we would have, under normal circumstances, had to kiss the fanny (for an in-depth explanation about what a Fanny is in the context of petanque, check out this link).

Thankfully, there was no fanny around, and the suggestion to kiss Michel’s bum was thankfully withdrawn after some pleading by us (mostly me). ‘twas enough humiliation for one day, so we decided to say good bye to everybody and head back to Nantes. And say our most genuine thanks to our host and hostess for an absolutely fantastic party!

After dropping off Herquise at Nantes, we made our way back to Aude and Magaye’s place, where we spent another night before catching the morning flight to Nice (after an improvised dinner and a bit of telly). That brought an end to a rather hectic, but fantastic, weekend in the west of France!

House-warming(s) in Nantes

Friday morning, after bidding farewell to Joel and Francoise, we headed down to Nantes for the culmination of our trip, a couple of house-warming parties.

We started at Aude and Magaye’s, good friends of ours we’ve not seen for a while. Aude and Magaye went all out in their property ambitions, buying a nice old town house, but one in serious need of an overhaul. So that’s pretty much kept them busy since the start of the year, then… (our little bathroom project we’ve just started seems somehow insignificant in comparison). Magaye’s actually an architect, which helps. In fact, the house warming is perhaps a bit premature, since a bit of work remains. But hey, any excuse for a party, right?

We were also joined by another couple of good friends – Sarah and Bruno (and of course Ulysse, the newly arrived family member we’ve not yet had the pleasure of meeting!), who happened to be visiting Nantes (they live in Paris). We started off with some crepes for lunch at Trentemoult, a nice little part of Nantes (it used to be a fishing village, but is now a pretty trendy place to live). For the evening festivities, we were joined by a few friends of Aude and Magaye, and it was all good fun! All in all, great to catch up with Aude and Magaye, it really was too long since the last time…

The next day, we had another house warming to attend to, Nathalie’s and Patrick’s – good friends of ours from our years in England. A good bunch of the old group from England made the effort as well, so it was all a bit of a reunion for us! We met up in Nantes, and made the best of the sunny weather to explore Nantes (taking in the famous Sultan’s elephant, the cathedral and the castle). Pretty much everybody from the “good old days” were there: Flore, Christian, Nick, Philippe, Aniko, Olivier, Raphaelle, Manue and of our hosts Nathalie and Patrick, of course!

Having gotten the mandatory touristy stuff out of the way, we made our way down to Suce-sur-Erbe (naughty plays on words possible here….), where the Rabu clan has settled. They have gone all out with their house – having built an ecological “Maison de Basse consummation” all by themselves (well, I suppose they had a bit of help – but very impressive nonetheless). To keep with the ecological theme, we had bought a solar BBQ as a gift (hopefully it’s usable “up north” in Nantes ;)). We had a great time, as always when we get together – the neighbors livened things up as well. Unfortunately, our reunion was a bit short this time… (thankfully Nick’s 50th birthday party is just a couple of months away, eh?).

After chilling out a bit, and having a late lunch, it was unfortunately time to bid farewell again, and hit the road. But we did have time for a quick stop-over in the Sarthe, where our good friend Stephane was spending a couple of days at his parents place (Stephane immigrated to sunny San Diego a couple of years ago). Great to catch up with him as well, even if it was just for a quick beer.

We then sped onwards to Bourges, where we were staying the night. We arrived too late to visit the town; but decided to do quick tour of the town the next day. Bourges is the capital of the Berry region, and there is actually a fair bit to visit. The old town is very picturesque, with quite a few impressive half-timber houses on display (not entirely unlike Le Mans). The main sights are the imposing Gothic cathedral (unfortunately covered in scaffolding), Jaques Coeur’s palace (also in the Gothic style) and, perhaps most interestingly a marsh area, where we walked around for a good hour or so (an area of 135 acres, basically covering some marshlands, just next to the town centre, which are now cultivated). All in all, a pretty interesting city – unfortunately our short visit really didn’t do it justice. Perhaps another time.

That brought an end to our last week of holidays… Snif. At least it’s certainly been an active and eventful summer!