Cours Saleya and Villefranche-sur-mer

So! Having arrived in Nice just the day before, we started to explore the area. The first stop was the famous Cours Saleya flower market. Why a flower market you may ask? Because in addition to flowers, it has pretty much everything that you could want to eat and more.


Located in Vieux Nice, everyday except Monday, local producers setup their stalls to sell fruits and veggies, spices, eggs, sausages, bread, honey (made from bees that pollenated lavender fields) and jams. This is definitely C's favorite place in Nice.


After shopping, we grabbed a pissaladiere, a local specialty with bread, onions and a little sardine on top and headed to the promenade des anglais, which is the local "board walk" next to the sea to munch on our goodies. At home, we then had a feast, which started with a local melon and some prosciutto made in Corsica. So tasty.

Later on that weekend, we ventured to the small town next door, Villefranche-sur-mer. We imagine that Nice was like this town maybe 100 years ago, but now has been completely built up. In Villefranche we ate at the La Mere Germaine, a fabulous restaurant that we first discovered five years ago during our first trip to the south of France. Our table was right on the water by the little harbor and we thoroughly enjoyed our meal. Q would eat here everyday if our budget allowed! Afterwards, we went for a swim on the beach, a lovely end to the afternoon.

The Trip to Nice!

 Hello World!

Well, maybe not the whole world, but since we traveled through five different countries, it sure seems like we saw a lot of it! We started our two day trip in Denmark where the temperature was around 50F (10C) the morning we left. After 13.5 hours in the car driving through Germany (yes, Germany is a very large country with lots of construction) we arrived in Niederbronn-les-Bains and visited Q's family for the night.

The next day we went through Germany, Switzerland, Italy and France. Sascha was not so happy about the trip at times and is shown here during an emergency "walk" in Switzerland. The weather in Switzerland was a bit warmer, but as you can see from the pics, very cloudy and gray, but still beautiful scenery. 

The photos of Switzerland feature lots of mountains, tunnels, and cute Swiss towns with lots of chalets. Normally the cows are out, but I think that since the weather was bad they were either inside or hiding.

 When we got to Italy, the sun came out. We saw some nice villas and churches in the middle of farms from the side of the road. Also, the driving became a lot more interesting as things like speed limits and lane markings were really just suggestions to many drivers. We also had our first glimpse of the Mediterranean Sea here with a backdrop of orange, pink and yellow houses and blue skies!

The weather in Nice is decidedly nice, with most days now around 26-28C (75-80'sF), not too hot, but not too cold. Our first night in Nice we went to a traditional Nicois restaurant that was featured in the NYTimes, L'Escalinda, in Vieux Nice. Our food was excellent as was the vibrant atmosphere among the wait staff. We took a little walk around some of the old winding streets afterwards and took a few pictures of some nice buildings. There is definitely more exploring that needs to be done here!

Finally, I included some pictures from along the promenade des anglais (walk of the english) where the very fancy hotels are. In the last picture, you can see two palm trees, which grow like weeds here. That's right, we live with palm trees, orange and lemon trees and tons of other very fragrant plants. Each time we walk down boulevard de Cimiez the air is heavily perfumed from all of the Tilleul trees (Linden trees).

That's it for now, these are just the pics we took with the iPhone, more pics from our real camera and other excursions to follow. It's nice here in Nice!

Cherry (and plum?) blossom in Denmark

Spring has been unusually sunny here in Aarhus, with about 4 weeks of uninterrupted sunshine! That was a lot of sun, since it's up around 5am and sets around 9:30pm... We marveled at how everything could be so green, even though no raindrop had fallen for all that time. But make no mistake: it was not necessarily warm and not windy all that time! It was truly pleasant however to be spoilt with sun after the long and cold Winter.

Some rain today and a bit chillier, but it was nice to get shelter from the rain under all these pink flowers... Enjoy!

Wishing the Queen a happy 71st birthday!

Yesterday (April 16th) was the Queen of Denmark's birthday. Quite an event for the Danish folks, with major celebrations all around Denmark, starting of course in Copenhagen. Last year, the Queen had arrived to Aarhus a few weeks later on her famous Dannebrog boat and she had traveled across town on a horse carriage. A concert had been given in her honor in the local stadium.

But this year, "completely against tradition" as we were told, the Queen was in Aarhus and not Copenhagen to celebrate her 71st birthday. Must have been quite shocking to our friends in Copenhagen, but oh well, they'll get over it...

For this special occasion, all of us faithful subjects of her majesty in Aarhus were allowed on the Eastern lawn of the Marselisborg residence. There, it was arranged that the Queen and her dear husband Henri would walk out on the balcony to wave at the crowd and receive happy birthday wishes from us. We would also be treated to a pure display of delightfully old-fashioned tradition with life-size (and alive) lead soldiers like we expect to find them around royal castles, were it in Denmark, England or Monaco.

So sure enough we were present at such an important event (might as well go to see what they do with your taxes when you can ;-). And at 12pm the door opened to let the Queen and her husband be greeted by a chorus of "tilykke" ("congratulations" in Danish), as well as both the traditional Danish birthday song and the more famous one that the rest of the world knows... Of course Danish flags were everywhere...

The Danes really love their Queen, and well, such traditions are growing on us... Q relates to her husband Henri, a fellow French expat in Scandinavia... Wishing we could all get together and have a good time around some glasses of red wine down in his chateau in Sout-Western France... Aren't we all part of the same large family anyway?

We could debate for hours on the purpose and usefulness of holding on to such outdated traditions, but in the meantime, long live the Queen!

Done with the snow in Aarhus: Spring, welcome!

Well, actually it's been a while since we have not seen snow here, and that's good! Spring actually starts on March 1st for the Danes, but we were not gonna get fooled...

In fact, we did get some snow flakes yesterday during our walk (hence the winter jackets...) but that was just a wink from defunct Winter...

Now closer to April, flowers are enchanting us everywhere. Tons of white, purple, and light blue crocuses are spurting on all the lawns, it's just dazzling!

For Q's b-day yesterday we also had a dense bunch of tulips ("like in the movies" said C), which brought the Spring season to our table as well.

Not too many flowers yet in the park around the Queen's summer residence in the Marselis forest. But several bronze sculptures here and there, which complement nicely the elegant landscape of the estate, and contribute to giving it a very romantic atmosphere. So we'll be back when the rose garden will be in bloom!

On a bike ride this afternoon, stop over at the Marselis harbor (where we had seafood for the birthday dinner last night) and at the deer park, a wild-life reservation where people can just walk among friendly animals, and most importantly, where animals can frolic among friendly humans. By jumping around and chasing each others, fawns were truly giving quite a show!

More soon as the Spring unfolds...