Diggin’ the pubbin’
Sunday, May 15th, 2011 at 10:34 | categories: Travel
While I’ve thoroughly enjoyed my time in the Riviera, there’s something about the British culture that seems to fit my mindset. I visited my hometown friend in Bristol just after the trip to Oslo, having been home (well, my French home) for about 15 hours in between. A direct EasyJet flight from Nice to Bristol during the off-season shouldn’t set you back more than 40 euros. At the moment the prices seem to be almost tripled, though, probably due to the Cannes film festival.
Bristol is a city with a population of around 433,000 characterized by loads of old churches and concrete houses built in the 60’s after the damages of WWII. Even the newer ugly houses often have a British pub-kinda vibe to them, as some of the facades are covered with a wooden surface painted black or dark green. There’s also a floating harbor with a few pub boats, one of which had an open mic session on Friday where we performed some Finnish music.
In addition to Bristol I got to see a place by the sea called Weston-super-Mare, which for some reason looked a bit like Coney Island with old looking ice-cream parlors and random gambling machines. The views were nice, but the totally brown water was a bit less compelling than the clear turquoise Mediterranean counterpart. We also visited Bath, which is an old spa city founded by the Romans back in AD 43 and even got to taste the hot spring water. It was warm and tasted funny.
River Avon (Avon means river in Welsh, so River River)
Bristol Cathedral and a dude
In Weston-super-Mare
Fish & Chips
The Finnish company
Hey, let's cross the bridge! Splash. Hey, let's not cross the bridge!
The Royal Crescent in Bath
Musical performance
In Norway
Tuesday, May 10th, 2011 at 9:01 | categories: Travel
After the trip to Italy it only made sense to fly to Oslo, Norway. Since the flights in Europe are so affordable nowadays and I seem to have time to spare at the moment, it’s nice to go around and see places. Of course having a girlfriend in Oslo made this particular decision a little bit easier.
I thought it would be cold and miserable in the land of fjords, and at first that’s how it was. After a couple of days it changed totally and the temperatures were well over 20C. I found my thick sweaters a tad too much.
It’s funny how one starts to see the differences the other way too, not only what’s strange in France compared to the Nordic countries. For example, there’s a lot more public benches to sit on in the Riviera. Although for a sporty person like I am that doesn’t really matter.
A castle in Oslo
Cinque Terre
Tuesday, May 3rd, 2011 at 23:00 | categories: Travel
During the time my parents were in Antibes most people I got to know returned to their homes, and the following weekend pretty much every one else did the same. However, the American dude is still here for a month and so we felt we needed to come up with things to do. He had heard good things about a place called Cinque Terre and without thinking about it too much we decided to go.
The following morning we hopped on a train in Juan-les-Pins and 6 hours later got into Riomaggiore, one of the Cinque Terre’s towns. We had to change the train in Ventimiglia and Genova.
Map
While every single person you see on the streets seems to be an American tourist in the area, the scenery really makes the place worth a visit. As the name implies, Cinque Terre consists of five little towns built close to each other. Tourists travel between the towns either by train, boat or by hiking pathways that have in my estimation about a gazillion stairs. As one hiker we bumped into put it, it’s ridonculous.
Since we didn’t really plan the trip at all, finding accommodation proved to be challenging at first since all the hostels and hotels were fully booked way in advance. We were already planning on sleeping under the stars when we realized there were lots of rooms for rent in all towns. We slept the first night in Manarola and the second in Corniglia.
The experience would’ve probably been better off-season, but even with all the tourists Cinque Terre was definitely worth the visit.
Riomaggiore
They tried and they failed
Manarola
Yes mother, I was athletic
Eddy was trying to keep up with my pace. Turns out he could. Easily.
Vernazza
A philosophic moment
A road trip
Tuesday, April 26th, 2011 at 19:21 | categories: Travel
Because of my brother’s interests in random things, we took a road trip yesterday to Millau, some 420km away from Antibes and back. The reason was to see the tallest bridge in the world spanning over 340 meters, 343m to be exact. And I must say, it was pretty impressive.
We drove through Arles twice, and it seems to be a town where you’re going to get stuck regardless of the time of day. We also stopped at Nimes on the way to see a miniature (not so small) version of the Colosseum and a Greek looking building that turned out to be Roman. On the way back we stopped at Aix-de-Provence for a nice dinner.
The weather aspect on the trip was somewhat interesting: we had everything from 25C degree sunshine to crazy rain showers and even a hailstorm up in the hills. The only thing missing really was snow.
The mini Colosseum
A Roman Greek building
I felt almost at home just then
The Millau bridge
Hello, goodbye
Saturday, April 23rd, 2011 at 16:32 | categories: People, Travel
While everyone’s saying their goodbyes in the exchange bunch, I say hello to my family who’s visiting the Riviera for a week. Many people seem to be leaving this week and the next, and I’ve apparently missed out on a couple of cool parties due to various reasons. But on the other hand I’ve had the chance to experience the French motorways and see places I haven’t seen before.
Yesterday we drove down to Marseille and some of the scenery on the way was almost like in Arizona, albeit a bit more cloudy. The city itself is what you’d expect from the oldest and the second largest town in the country with its old stained buildings and narrow streets. With all the history, however, they’ve still had to steal the Finnish flag.
Sadly the weather’s turning worse and rain is expected for the days to come. I guess the plans for a nice holiday on the sunny coast aren’t probably going to work out for the fam.
On the road again
Marseille harbor
Coast of Marseille and Château d'If on the background
On the buses
Sometimes the narrow streets provided a challenge
P.S. To everyone who has left or is leaving Antibes in the near future and I haven’t had the chance to say proper goodbyes: thanks for everything and have a safe trip home! I’ll leave it at that ’cause everything else would be clichéd mush.
1 comment »
