Busy day in Nice

My good Portuguese colleague Gilbert has been talking about taking us to a Portuguese restaurant for some time, so we figured this Saturday would be as good a time as any for a Portuguese lunch. We also invited another Portuguese colleague, Martine, for the occasion.

Mathilde and I decided to cycle into Nice, using the excellent Velo Bleu service. We arrived "a bit late" (hmm, 30 minutes) due to some rather optimistic scheduling on my part (the restaurant, Cok Bafa, is located a bit further away compared to where we normally cycle, near Place de la Liberation). Gilbert,  Martine, her boyfriend Xavier and their little baby girl were already having aperitifs...

Anyway, I instantly took a liking to the place. It's by no means a fancy place, rather the opposite in fact (more like the sort of place where you get served "home cooking" type fare), which was just fine for us. The place was jam-packed with mostly portuguese and Cap Verdian people, another very good sign. And the waitress took her orders in Portuguese rather than French by default. So, all very good signs. And what's most important - the food was excellent. What I call honest food - I had some sucking-pig - just excellent.

After this introduction to Portuguese cuisine (a first one for me!), we said our farewells to our Portuguese friends, and headed into the town centre, where we had a rendez-vous with our good friend Marie, whom we see sadly rarely these days. Since we'd had a rather light lunch (I'm being ironic there, in case you didn't realize...), we decided to head off for some coffee and cake to an ominously named Pink Cofee (indeed, everything is very pink there...). I trust Marie when it comes to coffee and cakes ;-). Anyway, the coffee was good and so were the cakes, and it was great fun to catch up with Marie again!

For the evening, it was hockey time, as I met up with Mikko for a game between Nice and Dunkerque. Well, I missed all of the first period and most of the second one as well (including two goals from fellow Finn Karri Koivu), but did see all of the third period. Nice pulled off a well-deserved 4-2 win, and Karri was selected man of the match. Go Nice, go Finland!

And then, time to catch the train back home to Cagnes-sur-Mer. My train was delayed, which allowed me to enjoy some rather surprising piano music played by a young chap (they've decided to put pianos in French train stations - an excellent idea if you ask me!).

A cultural weekend in Paris

Paris is one of those places you can just visit over and over again. Always something new to do, a new museum to visit, a new restaurant to try out. So when we read about a Hokusai exhibition at Le Grand Palais, we decided it was the perfect excuse for a autumnal weekend in Paris.

This time, we decided to book a room through Airbnb - Mathilde found a nice little apartment located in a lovely part of Paris called Le Butte aux Cailles. After arriving at Orly airport, we jumped on the Orlybus and headed for Paris. We were a bit worried about traffic, but turns out it wasn't as bad as we feared. We arrived at the apartment earlier than expected, greeted by our lovely host Isabelle.

After checking out the apartment (which was perfect for our needs), we headed off for dinner. I'd booked a restaurant called l'Avant Gout for the occasion - apparently a bit of a local institution (as confirmed by our host). And we were not disappointed - the place was just wonderful - a really cozy little modern Paris-style bistrot. I particularly liked the main dish - some absolutely succulent deer.

After dinner, we decided to have a walk around Buttes Aux Cailles to burn off some calories. It really is a lovely part of Paris - a bit like a little village in the midst of Paris (very chic and Bo-Bo...).

The next morning, we got up to a cold but sunny Parisian day. After a lovely breakfast (fresh baguettes down the road form a boulangerie, yummie...), we headed off for the Grand Palais, for our first exhibition for the weekend - Niki de Saint Phalle's Nanas and other works of art were being shown (we had a combined ticket for the Nana's and Hokusai). I'm not a huge fan of Niki de Saint Phalle (although I find it more accessible than a lot of modern art, that quite often completely eludes me ;-), but the exhibition was quite good actually. Gave a bit of background and context about her art - and plenty of those big nana's on display of course!

The cultural bit for the day done, we had our first rendez-vous for the day - we were meeting up with Isabelle for lunch. After sort of randomly wandering around Paris (Paris is of course one of the greatest places in the world to randomly wander around), we ended up in (surprise surprise) a Japanese restaurant called Aki. We had to queue for quite some time, but the okonomiyakis (kind of Japanese omelets) they served were more than worth the wait. After our lunch, we continued randomly wandering around, ending up around the Louvre and then walking along the Seine river (a perfect sunny day for randomly wandering around).

From there, we headed off for our next rendez-vous, this time near the Canal d'Ourcq in the 19th Arrondisment. We'd been invited over to Youcef and Ouarda's place for tea and cakes. Youcef and Ouarda are good friends of ours whom we've not seen for quite some time (not much since Youcef moved from Nice to Paris a couple of years ago), so it was a happy reunion indeed. And much to our joy, their family has been joined by a little one as well! Great to see them again!

Barely had we finished our teas and cakes, before it was time for our next social gathering (we always seem to spend a lot of time travelling back and forth across Paris meeting various people!) - this time we were meeting Muriel and the kids for Crepes in Montparnasse! And what better place to have crepes than Creperie Josselin - one of the oldest creperies in Paris. The crepes were great, and we had a lot of fun as well (gosh those kids are growing up fast - soon I'll struggle to fight off those wild twins...). After the crepes we ended up in a bar watching Miss France - how cool is that !?

Sunday promised to be just as busy as Saturday. After tidying up our flat and leaving the keys, we headed off to le Grand Palais again - this time to check out the great Japanese master Hokusai's work. Hokusai is most famous (at least in the Western World) for his ukiyo-e (woodblock print painting). What was great about this exhibition is that it really shows the body of work of this amazing artist - this man was amazingly versatile! And modest too - he famously stated that he only started to begin to understand art at the age of 73... Very  interesting exhibition!

The cultural bit for the Sunday done, it was time for some food! We'd been invited over for lunch at Paula and Beppe's place. Paula is an old friend of Mathilde from her exchange student times in Perugia. Milene and Kamel also came over with their kids. Paula had made a paella for us - very tasty indeed! After several helpings, plus some chocolate cake for desert, we reluctantly just had to go - as we had a flight to catch!

All in all, a fantastic weekend then - as weekends always are in Paris!

Mountain biking in the Esterel

As you may have noticed if you occasionally read my blog, I've been getting some strange sporty inclinations lately (getting up ridiculously early for a morning swim, cycling lunch time with my colleagues and things like that). I've lazed off a bit lately though - so I decided to hesitantly accept Gilbert's and Philippe's invitation to join them for some mountain biking this Sunday.

The weather looked quite promising as I drove down the A8, parking at the Port de la Rague, from where we started. Our trek started uphill, towards the Massif d'Esterel - after a rather steep zig-zagging climb we reached a sort of plateau, from where we had some great views over Theoule-sur-Mer, the Mediterranean and the Cote d'Azur.

The going got a bit easier for a while, as we made our way to the Col de Trayas, from where we carried on to the Col de Notre Dame - with nice views greeting us on the way (with the Pic de l'Ours looming ahead). Our original, rather ambitious plan, had been to cycle up to the Pic de l'Ours, dominating the Massif d'Esterel at a height of 492 meters. (doesn't sound like Mount Everest exactly, but cycling up there would for sure be a bit of a challenge for a part-timer like me!).

In the end (thankfully), we took the collective decision to give it a miss, since Philippe had some DIY to attend to in the afternoon, and well, that gave us a good excuse to postpone it to the next time as well ;-). So me and Gilbert took our time cycling back to the port - thankfully not getting shot by one of the numerous hunters we ran into on our way back.

Nice, sporting way to spend a Sunday! (I even went for a run later in the afternoon with Mathilde, that's like 2/3rds of a Triathlon!)

Cine and Dine in Nice

Our cinema attendance has been rather sparse lately, so we figured it was time to remedy that. After checking out what's on offer, we ended up going for a safe choice - Woody Allen's latest. I used to hate Woody Allen films (I just found the guy annoying), but am growing rather fond of his movies - I guess it's a sign of me getting old or something :-|. His latest directing effort - Magic in the Moonlight -  was appropriately based on the Cote d'Azur. Quite a nice, if minor Allen effort, with a rather good performance form Colin Firth.

Having ticket off the cultural activity bit, we headed off for dinner. I'd booked Cafe Sejour, a very highly ranked restaurant on Tripadvisor (need to be quite critical about TA rankings in Nice though, we've found...). Not to worry - Cafe Sejour is easily one of the best restaurants I've been to in Nice. Everything was just about perfect: excellent, high-quality, creative cuisine (nearly Michelin star-level I would say), laid-back yet attentive service and tasteful internal decoration. OK, not the cheapest place you'll find in Nice - but as I've said before - you can easily end up paying the same in one of the tourist traps on Rue Massena for far worse food.

Highly recommended, then!

Lunch at Cagnes and a concert at Valbonne

Today wrapped up a simply abysmally dismal week (not sure that's a valid expression) weather-wise for Janne and Katja (of course, the weather would turn great just after they left). Since the weather continued on the rainy trend today, we decided to invite them and dad over for lunch.

Mathilde had prepared a very tasty Kitsch for us, whereas I got all creative and make a crumble (well, to be honest, making a crumble doesn't require all that much creativity...). It all seemed to go down pretty well, I'm happy to report. And then it was time for Janne & Katja to head off to the airport. It was nice to have them over, hopefully the weather will be better next time...

For the evening, the plan for us was to go and see a concert in Valbonne (a nice little village near Sophia-Antipolis, where me and Mathilde both work). Jim Yamouridis was playing at the cinema - for free ! It was pretty good fun, the guy's music could best be described (this is obviously copied from the internet rather than an opinion I formed myself ;) as a mixture of Leonard Cohen and Nick Cave. All in all, a pretty nice way to spend a Saturday evening.

Day out in Marseille

Today was a public holiday, which was pretty good timing given the fact that Janne and Katja are in the neighbourhood. My hope had been to take them off the beaten track to show them some of the amazing local nature we're blessed with in this part of the world.

But alas, the weather decided to stay poor, so we decided to go for a more urban destination - Marseille. It's one of those places that has more to offer than meets the eye - it's a "proper city" with its own distinctive character where there's plenty of stuff to see and do, in spite of the bad press the place sometimes unfairly gets.

We decided to stop off at Aubagne, since it's kind of conveniently located on the way, nice stop before an early lunch in Marseille. Unfortunately, there wasn't really much to do in Aubagne on a rainy day like this (the main tourist attraction, a museum dedicated to the famous Provencal writer Marcel Pagnol, was shut) - we were treated to the rather unique spectacle of the foreign legion (their HQ are actually in Aubagne) parading around the main square (today was a public holiday in honour of the the armistice that was signed to end World War I).

We arrived in Marseille just in time for lunch. I'd booked a restaurant I found on Tripadvisor conveniently located in the port, named La Table du Fort. Quite a good choice again, even if the place had a bit of a pretentious, wannabe feel to it. Quite different from the little, cozy restaurant where we'd eaten in Peillon the other day. Still, no complaints about the food - all excellent stuff (if a bit pricey).

Our appetites sated, we headed off to explore Marseille. We naturally started with the port, walking along the newly renovated quays (Marseille was a European capital of culture last year), checking out the cool mirror construction by the fish market, making our way all the way up to the Fort-Saint-Jean and the newly built MUCEM (an architecturally impressive but otherwise somewhat disappointing museum dedicated to the Mediterranean). We were quite happy in that the constant rain had finally stopped.

Still, we didn't have to wait long for it to start dripping down a bit again, which lead us to the decision to jump on the touristy train, which took us up to what cold be considered the main touristy sight of Marseille  -  Notre-Dame-de-la-Garde. Rather aptly named (translated into English, Our Lady the guard), this basilica perched at the highest natural point of Marseille at 149 meters, literally watches over the port and the rest of the city. The views are quite simply astounding, especially since the sun finally decided to reveal itself! The neo-Byzantine church is quite impressive as well, unfortunately we didn't have a lot of time to explore it, as the little train was waiting to take us back to the port ;-)

Before heading back towards the Cote d'Azur, we decided to have a walk around one of my favourite parts of Marseille, Noailles, just off Canebieres, the main street of Marseille (which, even though it's a word for Cannabis, refers to the hemp rope that was once made here). Walking around Noailles is really like stepping onto another country or continent, the place feels more like Cairo or Marrakesh than a major French city, with its street sellers, shisha bars and tea shops.

That brought an end to a most interesting day out in one of the most fascinating cities of France!

Family lunch in Peillon

My brother Janne and Katja certainly could've chosen a better week on which to visit the Cote d'Azur. The past few days had been positively miserable weather-wise (rather unusual for the Cote d'Azur - especially considering what a fantastic Autumn we've had so far!), and the forecast wasn't promising for the next days either...

But, they arrived this weekend, so clearly we had to do something on Sunday, in spite of the rather heavy rain. So, clearly the best option was a nice family lunch (any excuse to check out another good restaurant eh?). As we wanted to include a bit of tourism into the package, we eventually decided upon a well-rated little eatery called "Les Plaisirs", located in one of our favorite villages on the Cote d'Azur, Peillon.

Peillon is a real medieval gem, a tiny village perched on a seemingly unassailable hilltop, located just a few kilometres from Nice, amazingly off the tourist trek. The absence of touristy trinket shops (yet another reason to like the place!) that overwhelm some of the more touristy places like Eze probably contributes to this lack of tourists.

Anyway, the village was just as pretty as we remembered from our last visit, and the views just as great, in spite of the insistent rain (which kept the touristy part of our visit rather short...). And the restaurant ? What an amazing place - really nice to still find places like this.

The place is operated by a young, enthusiastic and friendly chef, who's clearly passionate about what he does. Everything on the menu is made of locally sourced, mostly organic, ingredients, amazing given the reasonable prices. Since the young chef also does most of the waiting (helped by an equally friendly lady), one can forgive a somewhat slow service. Not much on the menu - a couple of starters, a couple of main courses and a couple of deserts - but I'm more and more of the opinion that fewer dishes on the menu is a good sign. So to summarize, one of the nicest restaurants we've been to on the Cote d'Azur.

After lunch, since the weather unfortunately decided to stay miserable, we headed back to Cagnes to hang out for a bit. We kicked off with a coffee and cake session (a Finnish tradition I cherish!), during which we watched photos from our recent trip to Japan. After the photo session, dad decided to head off home, whereas us "youngsters" decided to spend the rest of the afternoon (and evening, as it turned out) playing board games whilst enjoying a delicious Japanese chestnut rice dish prepared by Mathilde.

A very nice family kind of Sunday then, in spite of the insistent rain.