Sospel and Mont Agaisen

Time to show Jocke some of a typical local mountain village. So we took the car and drove down to Sospel, just about 30 kilometres from Nice (which because of the winding roads took as more than an hour to drive...).






From there, we decided to do a walk around Mont Agaisen, since the weather was so Nice - to start with anyway. Because after we had scaled the heights of the hill (at 751 meters), it started pouring down - and I mean really p***ing it down. (of course we had left hour rain coats in the car, because the weather is always good in this part of the world, right? Wrong...). And we had some thunder to add to the excitement as well.



We made it back to Sospel eventually, to the safety of the local bar, where we warmed up for a while, waiting for the rain to quiet down - which it didn't. So we drove straight to Nice without having a look around the town - the journey was pretty exciting as well what with all the water and rocks on the road. But we survived :-)



In the evening we met up with the clan Turtiainen (including my brother Janne and Katja, who were visiting) in Brasserie Flo for a nice evening meal.

The Italian Riviera

Today I was supposed to run a half-marathon... But due to some organisational difficulties (er, like not registering for it on time - excuses, I know...) I failed...

So instead of this strenuous activity we decided to walk up to the site of the old castle of Nice, for some nice views over the city.

In the afternoon, we jumped in the car and drove down to the Italian Riviera. Our first stop was Bordighera, a seaside town near the French border. I felt pretty certain somebody had recommended the place for some reason, but a quick stroll around didn't excite a lot of interest in us.

So we drove on to Dolceacqua (which came highly recommended in my Eyewitness guide). It was a very nice town actually, with a most impressive bridge and a castle dramatically situated on a hilltop. We also visited a herbal exhibition - which interested Mathilde a bit more than me and Jocke I think ;-)

Wine tasting in Nice and Wappu in Monaco!

My good friend Jocke decided to come over for a visit this weekend, and finally arrived after some eventful voyaging... (a few hours wait in Paris, lost luggage, usual story...).



We started off the day by going wine tasting, to try out some of the local wines. There is actually an AOC (Appellation d'origine contrôlée) in Nice called Bellet (click here for some free advertising :-). It's one of the smallest (if not the smallest) appellations in France (mostly because of the price of land, which as you can imagine is not the cheapest around Nice...). We eventually found a nice little vineyard, and had our authentic French experience (and of course even though the wine tasking was free, we felt obliged to buy 2 bottles for about 30 euros afterwards ;-).





From there we rushed over to Monaco (stopping by in Eze, a nice perched village between Nice and Monaco). After a quick look around town, it was time for the Finnish Wappu celebrations in Stars 'n Bars (a famous sports bars, frequented by such people as Michael Schumacher, Janet Jackson, Jude Law, Britney Spears, just to name a few...) - we were about 15 people altogether. The proceedings were relatively civilised for a Finnish celebrations (although after our "balloon wars", not very adult, one could say...)

Weekend in Toulouse

This weekend we went to Toulouse to visit Philppe and Aniko, who had come to see us in Nice a few weeks earlier. Bravely, we decided to take the night train, which brought us into Toulouse 5:30 Friday morning. In spite of us insisting he shouldn't, Philippe met us at the train station (fortunately he doesn't check his messages very often ;-).






Friday was spent calmly strolling around in Toulouse (although calmly is a kind of relative expression since the thermometer reached +30 degrees...), walking around the river (Garonne) and the canals of Toulouse. Toulouse is the 4th city of France, with a student population of over 100000, famous for it's aeronautics industry, and known as the "pink city". Strangely enough, it kind of reminds me of Manchester (with all the brick buildings) - in a positive way of course ;-). In the evening, we naturally had a couple of pints to cool off... (we were also joined by Marie and Pauline, who are Mathilde's former colleagues from Tormead school in Guildford. They were here on a school trip - small world eh?)





On Saturday, we jumped into the Chevy Philippe had rented (I didn't know they made them THAT small these days...) and drove out to explore the countryside a bit. We visited Cordes sur Ciel (means Cordes "on the sky") - a really pretty little town perched on a hilltop. Quite different from the perched villages of the Cote d'Azur - you can tell people used to be quite well off (and probably still are - what with all the tourists that no doubt come in hordes during the summer). Lovely place!




From here, we headed to Albi (passing by to say hi to one of Philippe's mates on the way), which is famous for its museum housing the most comprehensive selection of Toulouse-Lautrec's work (he was born there). The other famous sight is a massive brick cathedral. Very impressive!

Sunday was spent walking yet more, visiting a Japanese garden. And then spending 7 hours on the train going back to Nice...

Circuit de St. Michel

So time for another walk again... We took the train (well, thought we would, but there were engineering works, so ended up taking a bus) to Beaulieu sur Mer (which means "beautiful place by the sea" in English), and climbed up various staircases and paths, crossing the Moyen and Grand Corniches, up to the Plateau St. Michel (at 384 meters), from where we had some nice views over Beaulieu, Villefranche and Cap Ferrat.



From there we walked down a forested path along the Vallon de St. Michel to Eze-sur-Mer (which is considerably less pretty than Eze Village, a perched village a couple of hundred meters above).

Roller skating on the Promenade des Anglais

After all the walking and dining in fancy restaurants we decided on a different type of activity this saturday - roller skating (we hadn't used our blades yet in Nice so it was about time).

And what better place to do this than the Promenade des Anglais? It was quite an adventure getting there, zigzagging between the cars and people in the streets - but we eventually made it (Mathilde did kind of accidentally enter a cafe at one point ;-).





The promenade was quite busy as well since the weather was nice - but in spite of the look of horror on peoples faces as we hurtled past them at breakneck speed, we killed no one (as far as I know). The way back from the airport (which is as far as we went) nearly killed us - what with the wind in our faces...

More Finns visiting

So time for the next bunch of Finnish relatives to pay a visit :-) This time we had the pleasure of meeting Birgitta (who's my godmother), Ole and Anton, who came over all the way from Stockholm, Sweden.

After my parents took them around the coast for some sight-seeing, we all met up on Friday night for a nice dinner at Le Tapenade in the old town of Nice, a nice and cozy place to try out the local cuisine...