Everything's just... gone!!

All our stuff just left Aarhus for Nice this morning. Quite a big step toward home reunification! Two great guys from a British moving company came to load their truck with our > 400 cubic feet (=12 cubic meters) of stuff. We took some snapshots of the process.

7:55am: It's good we had reserved 3 parking spots in a row for the movers' truck to park!

8:00 am: Here's what the living room of our apartment in Aarhus looks like...

8:47am: Time for a painting yoga session in one of the now empty bedrooms

9:08am: This is definitely clearing out...

9:53am: A lot of our stuff is now stacked inside the truck

10:10am: Hey! we can start seeing some of that back wall again behind the cardboard boxes that we had not seen in 3 months

10:38am: Each of our 150 items got a colored sticker with a unique identifier and was added to a now 6-page list

10:49am: Almost there...

11:15am: Time to wave the truck goodbye... (check out at one of the windows on the third floor ;)

It'll take about 2 weeks now we think before we see our belongings again down at the other end in Nice. Stay tuned!

Orchids in Menton, Aloevera flowers in Antibes, and the Sun, well... everywhere :)

For his latest trip to visit C and S on the Cote d'Azur, Q arrived as a perfect French gentleman on Valentine's day. He stayed a week, and the aims for those few days were to (1) find an apartment to move into for April 1st, and (2) check out the carnaval de Nice (a >100 year old tradition) and the 79th edition of the Lemon festival in Menton (to celebrate the historical Menton lemon).

Since early February, we called about 15 apartments, visited 6, had a close tie between two, and eventually decided to stay in a 75 m2 apartment close to the tram line, our favorite boulangerie, and the largest (and daily) open air market, in a relatively tourist-free part of Nice. Both of us really liked the apartment, its feel, and the fact that we'd be the only folks on our floor, in a 4-story house filled with quiet families. We've already met the downstairs neighbor, her two cats and her cute and friendly dog. We're definitely looking forward to being reunited under the same roof again!

Stay tuned for more pictures of the new place, and in the meantime, here's one of the living room in our current apartment in Denmark...

So mission 1 accomplished! Now regarding the leisure activities by the Mediterranean... Well, actually, to much of our dismay—yet not too unexpectedly in that part of France—the festivals in Nice and Menton turned out to be mostly commercial, geared toward tourists and kids. In Nice, we were at the opening night of the carnaval and it was just a lot of hot air. And the Queen of the carnaval was half the size of the King, of course dressed in pink and not at all sporty (sport was the theme for 2012)...

"We just love Americans - check out where we placed their flag!"

A very dancing fairy Queen...

In Menton, the focus was to a large extent on a gigantic exhibit, much amusement park-oriented, with tall structures made out of lemons. Although the festival claims to promote "nature and culture", all the lemons displayed here (145 tons) were actually shipped from Spain (see official source - in French). That's not much of a way to promote sustainability! Needless to say that took the fun out of it for us...

Spanish lemons and oranges in Menton

The only events that were organized to actually promote the local culture of lemons were unfortunately very limited. A visit of a traditional "citronneraie" (orchard where lemons grow) happened on certain days only, through a guided tour exclusively at 10am, for which we showed up too late in Menton to be able to join. We did visit a cute orchard with a large variety of citrus fruits surrounding a museum, but no informations, explanations or products derived from the fruits were available.

Most traditional lemon orchards have actually disappeared in Menton due to the booming of real estate, but a few farmers are bringing the old tradition back and the town is aiming to get its famous lemon recognized and protected. 15 producers are actually growing lemons now, and the town has planted over 5000 lemon trees in the 1990s (resource in French). We really looked for ways we could support that movement, but it was hard to find how.

While in Menton we still enjoyed walking around this cute town we both like, and we saw a very fine orchid exhibit, a few photos of which are displayed here.

Orchid exhibit in Menton

On the Sunday we decided to take the train and go West from Nice instead of East (Villefranche, Saint Jean, Menton, Monaco, Italy, etc.) where we usually go. We aimed for the quaint town of Antibes, a mere 20 minute train ride from the main train station in Nice. We loved the winding picturesque streets and the overlook on the Mediterranean and the Cap d'Antibes from the old castle Grimaldi which is now a Picasso museum. What's very particular about that museum is that most of Picasso's artwork on display was actually created by the master himself in the room where it is now on exhibit, back in 1946 (click on a flag for translation).

The French Riviera just ain't bad...

Not tan yet in 2012 but working on it!

Some fine dining again that evening, and another quick visit to Villefranche the next day before flying back North and wondering why on Earth was "North" ever invented... Perhaps for the contrasting beauty of pine forests mooring into a frozen sea and sunsets that can last a whole hour...

Extending our explorations of the French Riviera :-)

Flashback to November and our Thanksgiving week in France!

Well, Q likes Aznavour and enjoyed his concert so much that he wanted to go again!! And C was not against another romantic getaway with her Denmark-based hubbie... This time we went to Toulon, about 2 hours by train West of Nice, still on the beautiful Mediterranean.

We enjoyed the concert again (this time together with another 4,000 people) and a fine dinner, but C being under the weather, and the weather itself being under the weather (for the South of France, that is), we did not stay to enjoy Toulon very much.

Later that week (when it was still about 60 degrees outside...) we enjoyed a Thanksgiving dinner with some other expats (two Canadian girls who lived in the US) and a couple of French friends.

The day before Q would go back North, we discovered enchanting Menton, the last French town East of Nice before the border with Italy. The town was nicely bathed by sunshine, so that we could enjoy a lunch outside along the sea. A few tourists around, mostly Italians. It felt like what Nice must have been 100 years ago, with a slower pace of life and no exuberance. Just a small quaint fishing and artistic place.

The main purpose of the visit was the new museum for French artist Jean Cocteau, one of our favorites. The museum is quite exceptional, both architecture and collection-wise. Highly recommended!

Menton is also famous for its delicious lemons, that are the theme of a major festival in a few weeks.
Stay tuned!

Happy New Year and welcome to the French Alps, Chrysa!

After celebrating the Christmas holiday with C's family in Maryland, we drove a couple of hours to the French Alps, near the scenic town of Briançon. The tiny and winding road going straight from Nice was blocked because of snow falls, so we went through Italy and the area of Torino. For an overview of our travels, check out our itinerary on Tripline.



We had booked 3 nights in a hotel right on the ski run front in Saint Chaffrey, a few miles up the road from  Briançon. We had not been on skis since leaving Colorado, so it had been a while! Luckily as we all know this is pretty much like biking or driving, it's still there (stretching was quite a requirement though). We skied on both January 1st and 2nd. Our first day was sunny and lovely, and our second day was powdery with some fresh snow flakes that made us look like snowmen. We loved every second of it!

And we ate twice for dinner at restaurant Le Triptyque, the kind of modern/traditional fusion bistro that we both enjoy. Unforgettable!

Back in Nice, we celebrated Epiphany with Sascha...

Mer, Soleil, Paris, Aznavour, la Famille

Place de l'Opera

Champs Elysees

How to park your Smart car

The Seine by Notre Dame

Rue de la Montagne Ste Genevieve

Stained Glass in Eglise St Etienne du Mont

"France makes me happy!" :)

Eglise St Etienne du Mont

A new coat in front of the Pantheon

After the concert

In front of the Olympia concert hall

Charles Aznavour rocks!

Another nice day by the sea...

We spent our time from Sept. 11-18 between Nice, Strasbourg, and Paris. The heat wave was still hitting Europe and we enjoyed days at the beach as if we would be still in July... Quite a treat coming from Denmark where the summer had long long long disappeared...

Our main motivation for going "North" to Paris via Strasbourg was our tickets to a concert by Charles Aznavour at the famous French music hall called l'Olympia. At 87 years old he had booked the concert hall for an entire month with plans to then tour the rest of France until Christmas.

In a shape that most of us near 40 could envy, he sang 27 songs over 2 and half hours, with no break! The warm energy in the room was quite palpable, even to C who was missing out on half of the French lyrics. This evening really illustrated how Charles Aznavour is sort of a grand father to pretty much any family in France. People just love him, and he clearly loves to be on stage. It looked like he was at home, at least more than on the TV sets where he has been spending a lot of time these days, advertising for his concerts, his new album, and his latest book.

This evening was not only great, it felt like a so unique and perfect way to spend an evening in Paris! Especially with a fine early dinner before at the old Parisian restaurant Chartier and an aperitive on the boulevard, at sunset, right before the concert... Chrysa also chose this opportunity to get herself a brand new and cheerful coat from Desigual that has since attracted much envious looks from other women ;-)

We also spent a fair amount of time exploring Paris' past and history, by visiting some of its oldest sites and paying homage to Sainte Genevieve, one of Paris' first patron saints who rests in the church of Saint Etienne du Mont in the Latin Quarter. During our visit we met a French fan of 17th century painting who joined us on a tour and shared his knowledge of what we were seeing. We ended this quite inspiring day with a dinner at L'epigramme, a modern Paris bistro. We ate there with Q's sister Sigo, who will be studying in Paris this year, and her boyfriend, Manu. Then Sigo took us all to the Grand Palais (built at the end of the Champs Elysees avenue at the same time as the Eiffel tower) for a special exhibition and "meditation in action" for the victims of the Fukushima nuclear accident.

On our way to Paris we made a stop-over in Strasbourg to return Q's parents car that we had been borrowing for too many months now... That was a quick but always enjoyable opportunity to cross Q's beloved Switzerland, and also to remain in awe at the wonderful vistas on the Aosta valley in Northern Italy. After this scenic but a bit long trip (10 hours in the car...), we were welcome by Q's parents and grand father. We enjoyed a fine dinner, with C now able to participate and even launch complete conversations in French with Q's family! They were all quite impressed (they should be!).

Dynamo Fukushima - Grand Palais