Dinner with the folks

My parents have spent a bit less of the winter months on the Cote d’Azur this year than usually. I guess they chose a good year for it, since the weather hasn’t exactly been brilliant this winter – and on the other hand, southern Finland has for once been blessed by a proper winter.

But, finally, they were able to make it here, if only for three weeks, for starters. So we were graciously invited to their flat in Antibes for a combined “back to the Riviera”/delayed birthday celebration (in my honour). We were treated to a typically delicious dinner; this time lamb chops with broccoli (it’s one of the few things I don’t actually like eating – I guess my mum is still trying to “educate me”) and other veg. Accompanied by a classy Piedmontese red wine, and followed by an impressive chocolate cake. So no complaints in the culinary department ;-)

Otherwise, it sounds like my old folks are getting back into the rhythm of life on the Riviera, having already had their weekly petanque session (followed by a rather long lunch…), and with the 10-years anniversary dinner of the Finnish association and a ballet in Monaco to follow this week still… They’ve got a busier social life than us, that’s for sure!

I was rather happy with the two bags of birthday pressies, as well, especially by the latest book from Kjell Westö (one of my favourite Finnish authors…).

Greolieres encore une fois...

Our good friends Ollie and Raphaelle were visiting the Cote d’Azur this weekend. As always, they were staying at Ollie’s parents place in “the most beautiful village in France”, Greolieres. The plan was obviously to meet up. As we usually do when Ollie and Rapha are over, we were planning to do a night out in Greo, followed by a day of skiing. This time, however, the weather forecast for the weekend looked rather grim, so we were already preparing alternative plans. But thankfully, during Friday afternoon, the weather forecast drastically improved for Saturday, so we decided to stick to the original plan, so up we drove along Le Loup towards the mountains on Friday evening.

Things kicked off with an aperitif at Ollie’s parents’ impressive house. His globetrotting parents were there as well (at the moment they live in China), as well as Marc (a friend of Ollie’s, a real local stalwart, whom I met during my last visit to Greolieres). After a couple of glasses of bubbly, we headed down to the best restaurant in Greolieres (not to mention the only one…). The welcome and food was great, as always. You really get a sense of community at this place; pretty much everybody seems to know each other. Except for the large party of hang-gliding Swedes at the table next to us, they kind of stood out from the crowd. As you may or (more likely) may not know, Greolieres is apparently one of the best places in Europe for hang-gliding. The location of the village, I suppose, sat in the imposing Gorges de Loup, helps…

After a very tasty and entertaining meal (which we finished with some grappa and eau de vie, of course!), the lads decided to head on to the local put “Le Relais”, for a couple of drinks more. Hmm, quite a few, as it turned out. The bar was frequented by a rather strange mixture of folks that night; in addition to our party there were a few of the hang-gliding Swedes, a few local stalwarts (at least one of who by the looks of things spends quite a lot of time at Le Relais), as well as an American who splits his time between Greolieres and Basingstoke (of all places – that’s just down the road from where I used to work in the UK!). It was a blast; I ended up finishing the night with the Swedes, and learning much about hang-gliding no doubt (it was all wiped out of memory by the next morning)…

In spite of feeling somewhat worse for wear, I amazingly managed to get out of bed at a reasonably early hour, and we managed to hit the ski slopes more or less on schedule. The weather was great for skiing, with sunshine and a blue sky, but it does have to be said the ski slopes were in worse shape than last time me and Mathilde came (two weekends ago). It was all a bit icy and slippery. But what was great was the fact that hardly anybody was there, so we pretty much had the slopes to ourselves. And the slopes got a bit softer and easier later on during the day… After a “light” lunch (tartiflette & beer), we carried on in the afternoon – but were somewhat less motivated due to the blistering wind that made even staying upright a downright challenge. So we decided to call it a day relatively early. After a coffee at Marc’s place (who lives in Greolieres-les-Neiges), we said our tearful goodbyes, and hit the road.

Teemu's (and Paddy's) big day

That time of the year again, when I have the privildge to feel yet one year older… Birthdays used to be so much fun; less so these days…. Oh well, at least I get to share mine with Saint-Patrick ;-).

The original plan was to have a get-together with some friends in Nice, on the big day itself (17th of March). But alas, ‘twas not to be, due to cancellations and unforeseen circuimstances. So we ended up having a cozy and romatntic dinner, just myself and Mathilde. Which in the end was pretty much the perfect way to celebrate it, of course;-) (especially since the meal Mathilde cooked for me was a true delight; a bit of Maigret de Canard followed by a delicious lemon cake). And no hangover to worry about in the office on the day after, either… ;-)

We did decide to meet up with the "Riviera Finns" on Friday, though. Things kicked off with Pete picking us up with his Volvo convertible, and driving us down to Cours Saleya. We immediately went to pay our respects to mr. Paddy, by having a Guinness in Ma Nolan’s for an aperitif.

The proceedings then continued in a true Nice old town institution, Le Bistrot du Vieux Nice, where we were joined by Mikko and Marianne. We spent a typically pleaseant evening with the gregarious Finns (not an expression often used when talking about Finns…). Pete entertained us with stories from their 3-week visit to Singapore and South-East Asia; and we then got chatting about the others’ plan for two weeks of hockey (Mikko and Pete?) / shopping (Marianne and Anne?) in California… All in all, a very nice evening then!

Sailing, dining, Wii-ing and skiing...

It’s not been a particularly sunny winter on the Cote d’Azur so far… But this weekend, the sun was back with a vengeance! Which boded very well for my sailing session – the second one for 2010. Quite a few members of our group were apparently still in ski-mode, so there were only three of us to brave the might winds of the med. Wishful thinking, that… Unfortunately the winds were nowhere to be seen today, so it was a rather tame sailing session this time. But with the sun shining the way it did, who can complain? And I got to sail solo, which is always a good learning experience.

For the evening, we’d been invited for dinner at Mikko’s at Marianne’s place in Saint-André-de-la-Roche, overlooking beautiful Nice. It was good to catch up with them again, it’s been a few weeks since the last time. After a nice aperitif, we devoured the delicious veal piccata Marianne had prepared for us… Me and Mathilde contributed with the dessert – a Carambar cake (Carambar are French Caramel candy bars, who in addition to being very tasty are also well known for the bad jokes printed on the wrapping paper. Believe me, they really are very bad…).

After this not very light dinner, we decided it was time for a bit of sport – so Mikko and Marianne took out the Nintendo Wii. Believe it or not, but me and Mathilde had actually not played on the Wii before, so it was all a bit of a discovery for us! What followed was a very energetic session of Rayman Raving Rabbids. Not sure what the highlight was – for me it was Mikko and Marianne dancing to “Wake me up before you go-go” by Wham. But apparently my and Mikko’s dance number was even more fun… A good way to get rid of those extra calories; I ought to get myself one of those…!

The weather forecast for Sunday promised more sunshine, so we decided to make the best of it and head to Greolieres for a bit of skiing. We managed to get ourselves out of bed at 7:30 as planned, which meant we were ready to hit the slopes just after 9. We had a beautiful session, enjoying the sun-bather ski slopes. The snow was good, if a bit hard for my taste (but not icy). And since we were there early enough, there weren’t even that many people on the slopes. So we enjoyed ourselves to the utmost, before having an early lunch (hoping to still be able to hit the slopes before the arrival of the afternoon crowds…). The slopes got pretty busy in the afternoon, but we still made the best of it. We finished by about 3 o’clock, very happy with a full day of skiing, in perfect conditions! What a great way to end a weekend…

Carnival time!

One of the biggest events in the Cote d’Azur calendar is the Nice Carneval, which takes place for two weeks in February. It is actually the most popular one of its kind in France (attracting 1.2 million visitors each year), and dates all the way back to 1294 (when the following was said by Charles II duc d’Anjou « il vient passer les fêtes de carnaval, dans sa bonne ville de Nice »). These days, it's attended by more than 1.2 million people, during its two-week duration.

The Nice carneval is quite a family-oriented affair, so no Rio de Janeiro-like hedonistic madness to be exeperienced here... The most exciting thing likely (actually, certain...) to happen is getting sprayed on... But it’s all great fun, in an innocent and harmless way! The theme for this year was « Roi de la Planète Bleue », evoking the history of our planet, with an ecological twist. Apparently, extra effort has been made to minimize the impact on the environment this year... (with the usage of low-power consumption screen, LED lamps, carbon offsets etc.)

We started off the evening with a cinema, followed by a nice meal in an Italian restaurant on Rue Massena. In addition to the good and reasonably priced food they served, it was quite an authentic-feeling place, with plenty of Italians as partons. Quite surprising to find such a place amongst the tourist traps and pizzerias that dominate Rue Massena.

The carnival itself was good fun, as always. Gave me a great opportunity to make the best possible use of my new camera's excellent low-light performance. Amongst the guest star's was Mr. Barack Obama dressed in Superman costume (holding a copy of the Kyoto agreement, to keep in line with the blue planet theme). But the star of the show was, like on previous years, the frightening, awe-inspiring dragon...

A long weekend in Paris

The next step on our journey took us to beautiful Paris, where we were planning to spend a weekend, meeting up with various friends & relatives.

We decided to make a stop at Le Mans, since it was conveniently on the way to Paris. Le Mans is, of course, mostly known for its 24 hours car race. Since it takes place in June, we had to content ourselves with visiting the also rather well known old-town (known as the Cité Plantagenêt or simply Vieux Mans). It was actually an absolute delight, with its half-timbered houses and cobble-stoned streets. In fact, it’s possibly the most impressive collection of half-timbered houses I’ve seen in France. After a stroll around the old streets of Le Mans, some gloomy clouds appeared in the sky, promising rain. So we decided to seek shelter in the old Cathedral (Cathédrale St-Julien du Mans)… The imposing building is a mixture of Romanesque and Gothic styles, and well impressive. Unfortunately the interior of the church was being restored, so we couldn’t fully appreciate its splendour. After a quick walk along the old streets around the cathedral, it was time to carry on towards Paris.



The plan was to spend Thursday night at Sarah and Bruno’s place in Champigny-sur-Marne, located east of Paris. This unfortunately meant we had to take the Francillienne, the outer ring round of Paris (the Peripherique being the inner one), and in rush hour to boot… So the last 20 kilometres of our journey took about one hour to cover. I suppose it gave us a bit of a taster about what commuting around Paris is like. Non, merci… Well, we finally arrived, and were treated to a great dinner (as always) by Sarah and Bruno. Great to hear about their trips to California and Las Vegas (the Las Vegas one was a business trip of sorts, a bit more glamour than my equivalents…), as well.

After a good night’s sleep, we headed into central Paris. We were planning to stay the next night at Isabelle’s place in Puteaux, so it meant going around Paris on the Peripherique this time. Traffic wasn’t too bad this time, so we made it without too much drama (although driving on the Perif keeps unseasoned Paris drivers like me on the edge…). Having parked, we strolled among imposing skyscrapers to the Esplanade and the imposing Grand Arche (the 20th century version of the Arc de Triomphe).



An RER ride later, we arrived at Les Halles, right in the heart of Paris. We started off our exploration of Paris by visiting the stunning Église Saint-Eustache. It’s not the biggest church in France, but the interior decoration is truly exquisite. If it was good enough for Louis XIV’s first communion, and Mozart’s mum’s funeral, I suppose it’s good enough for us ;-).

After this brief bit of tourism, it was time for our rendez-vous with Annabelle and Aude. By now, our stomachs were growling, so we decided to head for lunch in what is a truly Parisian institution, Le Tambour (apparently they serve food just about 24 hours a day). The place is a typical-enough seeming Parisian bistro (as if though I’m an expert?). The chicken I had for a main didn’t disappoint, but the desert did… But hey, I was in the heart of Paris with three lovely ladies, so I’m not going to complain, am I ? :-)

The rest of the afternoon gave me an insight into what ladies do on a day out. Without going into too many details or clichés, let’s just say that a few shops were involved. Again, we were walking around the heart of Paris, the sun was shining, so again I’m not complaining! We finished in another Parisian institution, Le Mariage Freres teashop. The teashop has been in business all the way since 1845, when the shop was founded by Aimé and Auguste Mariage. After a fair bit of tea sniffing and contemplation (there are a lot of flavors to choose from!), we got a couple of bags of tea, and headed across the street for a proper afternoon tea. Unfortunately, we weren’t the only ones who had the same idea, so actually had to queue for an hour! I can say with quite a lot of confidence I’ve never queued that long for a cup of tea before… On balance, I’d say the experience (and the cakes!) was worth the wait, although it wasn’t exactly light on the wallet.

The original plan for the evening had been to head back to Puteaux for an apero with Isabelle and her dad, and then make our way back into Paris for our rendez-vous with Philippe and Olivier & co. But due to our longer than expected tea-time, we decided to stay in the centre of Paris and head on for our rendez-vous straight away. The evening proceedings kicked off with a pizza dinner in the 2nd arrondissement. Philippe, Aniko, Olivier, Raphaelle and Karl could all make it. It was especially good to see Karl again after all these years – I think the last time we met up was about 6 years ago! It’s been a while since we’ve seen Philippe and Aniko as well, so great to catch up with them as well (and listen to Philippe’s latest projects – unfortunately I can’t tell you about it since Philippe would then have to kill me). After dinner, we were joined by Isabelle for drinks at a very small, dark yet cozy bar, where one of Philippe’s mates was playing a concert. We arrived a bit late (sort of for the encores, actually), but better late than never, right? All in all, a great night out!

Saturday promised to be a very hectic day, as we had a very busy social visit schedule, with people to see a bit all over Paris. We started by heading down to Bagnolet (once our GPS managed to guide us out of Le Defence, which wasn’t an easy task with all the tunnels and flyovers…), where we paid a quick visit at Milene and Kamel’s, to check out how little Nael is growing up (which we actually failed to do, since he was asleep in the bedroom). From there, we sped back to Pantin, where we picked up CoCo, and headed to Montreuil, where Dorine and Aldo live these days. Apart from getting the lowdown about what they're up to these days (it’s been a while, again…), we naturally wanted to make our acquaintance with little Laia, who was just a few weeks old… And cute she was – and so fragile I was actually a bit scared to pick her up (I have been called clumsy in my life a few times…). After a very heavy “afternoon aperitif” (which handily replaced the lunch our intensive program didn’t allow for…), we had to carry on.

Our next stop was on the other side of Paris, in Montparnasse. As we’d had enough of driving back and forth across Paris, we decided to park our car back in Pantin, since we were staying the night at CoCo’s. From there, we took the metro across Paris, and finally arrived in Montparnasse, where we were meeting up with Muriel and Mathilde’s niece and nephews for a late afternoon crepes session! (Montparnasse is the place in Paris to have crepes, for your information). It was good fun, and the crepes were good (so good, in fact, that I had two helpings). The boys have grown up (they even know on-the-limit-foul language now, coming out with expressions like: “epese de ros peper”), and Alix has grown up to be pretty little girl (this time she had a more feminine look than last time, I guess the tomboy phase is over...?).

Alas, time pressed, so we said our goodbyes and headed back on the metro, and made our way back to CoCo’s place in Pantin. After a quick aperitif, joined by Annabelle and Aude, we headed off to Marina and Nicholas’ place, for a proper Parisian soiree. It was all good fun, and a great way to end a brilliant weekend. I discussed Sweden with Annabelle, cinema with CoCo, Formula 1 and traveling with Marina’s brother and antique furniture with Aude (she had acquired a pretty little antique table in the street, faultless apart from one missing leg). And as always in France, we ate and drank well.

Well, that was the end of the holiday, then. All that was left was the long, long drive back to Cagnes-sur-Mer, which took us pretty much all of Sunday. It had been a very busy, but great week. And I guess we got a look at life in Paris at its best can be like (just walking around the streets of this beautiful city, and the social life), and what it can be at its worst (the traffic, basically…).

Wintery visit to Angers

It doesn’t seem like such a long time ago since our last holiday (to Japan). But here we go again; off for a week of travelling. This time we had less ambitious plans; the idea was to drive down to Angers via Lyon, and spend a few days with her dad and Francoise there. Then, we intended to continue to Paris, and drive back down to the Cote d’Azur after a weekend there.

Things didn’t start very well, since our 118d was still being repaired at the garage, having suffered a minor road accident a fortnight earlier. So we ended up embarking on the trip in my parents trusty Scenic instead (they were still in Finland so didn’t need it). In spite of leaving a bit later than planned (finding the keys for my parents car, getting the car out, putting our car back, and all that, took longer than expected…), our trip to Lyon was pretty painless (we were a bit afraid of getting stuck in snow or traffic, with all the other holiday makers on their way to the Alps…). We even found Karine and Johan’s place in Lyon (where we were staying for the night) without problems (praise the GPS...).

Karine is an old friend of Mathilde’s from her days of youth in Alencon, who has finally ended up in Lyon (having lived a bit all over France over the last few years), together with Johan and young Lukas. After a very nice dinner (boudin blanc, the real rural French cuisine deal), and quite a few glasses of wine, whisky, and some eau de vie, and some other stuff that all the alcohol I had has wiped off my brain cells, I stumbled into bed. Seems that me and Johan have at least two things in common (the other thing is our interest in nerdy computery things…). Surprisingly, I didn’t even wake up with a headache, so we could continue our journey towards Angers, after a very pleasant stay at Karine and Johan’s.

The journey to Angers took us through a beautifully snow-covered massif central. We felt lucky indeed, going west, as we observed the standstill traffic going the other way (people heading for some skiing in the alps…). The journey was a very smooth one; we weren’t even much slowed down by the snow.

Arriving in Angers, we were naturally greeted by a very tasty dinner a la Francoise. We also had the honour of meeting the latest arrival to Marc’s and Magaly’s family; Iloh (in case you’re wondering, that’s a girl’s name). On Sunday, we were joined by Xavier and Aude (who seem to be enjoying life by the sea in the Vendee very much indeed) as well as Herquise (who seems to be enjoying life in Nantes very much indeed). It was a all a very family-oriented Sunday; with a great sturdy French lunch followed by some Hanafuda (we managed to transmit our addiction to Herquise rather quickly) and general socialising. It was great to see the progress Joel is making, and to see his sense of humour is well intact (I especially liked his remark “Teemu ne boit pas de l’eau normalement”, less so his comment about me being Estonian).

And of course a proper French lunch requires a bit of physical activity afterwards, to get rid of that acquired fat. So we decided to go for a walk around the Lac de Maine (me and Mathilde even scaled the mighty heights of the “Roc de Croix” – or whatever it’s called, where we enjoyed some great views around the surrounding area, all the way to the town centre). Monday was dedicated to more relaxation, the most energetic thing we achieved was a cinema outing at “Le 400 Coups” (a brilliant cinema showing mostly independent films, for a town its size). Unfortunately our first choice, Gainsbourgh, was sold out; so we ended up seeing Une Execution Ordinaire (a very good French movie about communist Russia, with a superb performance from Dussolier as Stalin. In spite of it all being in French, I felt it captured the moment of that time, or at least as I have imagined it, very well).

The following day was gardening day. Cutting the hedge and sawing up firewood, mostly. I very much enjoyed it, believe it or not. Something I miss from the summers back in Finland; where I used to get rid of excess energy sawing up firewood at good old Ragard….). Since we really wanted to see Gainsbourg, we made another attempt, and managed to get seats this time. It didn’t disappoint; and gave me a great lesson about the life of one of great French icons of the 20th century. I suppose he’s a bit of a French Juice Leskinen (or is it perhaps the other way around?), although it has to be said he had better luck with women than old Juice. After this bit of culture, we managed to squeeze in a visit to Delphine and Christophe’s place; where we were treated to some coffee and waffles, yummie yummie. After another filling dinner, we headed back for the town centre with Sandra for a couple of drinks at a nice studenty bar. Good to see her again; one can always count on her to come out for a drink ;-).

On Wednesday, it was time for our customary visit to Patis au Chat, out in the rural Sarthe department, to say hi to Mathilde’s granddad. Good to see him and his wife are still in good form, able to live autonomously in the countryside the way they do. And trust me, where they live, it’s the real countryside (not like here on the Cote d’Azur, where a lot of the villages are filled with 2nd residences…).

That brought and end to our visit in Angers this time, as it was time for us to continue towards Paris on Thursday. As always, it was great to visit, and rest, and eat very well indeed. Angers really does feel like a 3rd/4th (?) home to me… Hopefully, Joel and Francoise can come and pay us a visit around Easter, as planned!