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...

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!

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...

Making it into 2011... hidden in a closet...

After our exciting but busy trip throughout some of Europe's principal cities like Paris, Brussels and Strasbourg, we opted to spend New Year's Eve at our place in Aarhus. A fine meal made of fresh crayfish with home made mayonnaise, als home made carrot soup, and a cake from one of the best patisseries in town. We also had our bottle of Henriot champagne that we imported ourselves from France, naturally...

The big event associated with New Year here in Denmark is private fireworks looking like professional ones, and coming from pretty much every other household. Of course the peak was from midnight until 2am on New Year's Eve, but we started hearing them quite frequently after sundown (around 4pm these days) since December 30th, and way until January 7th or 8th. And on December 31st, people did not even wait for sunset to start lighting their firecrackers. On that day we heard the first bangs around noon.

With this increasing agitation outside, we quickly learned that Sascha was in need of special attention and care. Apparently fireworks are a well-known cause of stress for pets that can be quite traumatizing. Q knew this about his old dog, but we never really had a chance to witness this with Sascha earlier. Fireworks were not that common in Colorado (and more regulated). So we actually felt fortunate that we had decided to spend our New Year's Eve at home, in order to not make him any more anxious than he already was.

We actually found that the safest thing to do was to give him half a pill of the sedative we had gotten for him a year ago when we brought him to Europe by plane. Combined with organizing hiding places at the bottom of various kitchen cabinets, that seemed to do the trick. At least, he survived!

And so did we! From hearing the war-like explosions all around us at the turn of the year, we felt much safer to not have had to go anywhere... That may seem like an over-reaction, but we did hear on a daily basis the ambulance sirens shortly after the peak of fireworks festivals. We were also told that every year at least one house (only one?) gets set on fire because of poorly handled fireworks. Well, it was quite a windy night...

But fireworks were actually quite nice seen from the safety of our home, through our large windows. It was sort of non stop, so we'd regularly pause our meal to go check out what was happening. Sort of like a free show! Check out the movie to see what we mean...