From Côte d’Azur to Lapland and back (Part I)

The reason for this trip was that Tomi’s mother, and my mother-in-law, turned 80 this July. However, we missed the actual birthday, since we were attending the FIFA Women’s World Cup third place match on that day. Everything started when we bought the last minute tickets to that match. Then Tomi found out that Norwegian has reasonably priced flights from Nice to Helsinki. Another purpose for our trip was given by Tomi’s parents when they asked if we could drive their second car from their home in Saariselkä, Lapland to their secondary home in Kangaslampi, Varkaus. They themselves were spending time at their Summer home in Tappuvirta.

But first we had to get to Nice, which wasn’t easy. In fact, getting anywhere from Grenoble is tricky; one has to go first to Lyon, Geneva, or even Barcelona. Trains are expensive and buses take a long time. We ended up taking a bus to Valence and from there a TGV to Nimes, and then the plan was to take a Ter (Transport express régional ) train to Marseille, but it was cancelled. We were given 1st class tickets in a TGV as compensation. While waiting for the train, for an extra 1.5 hours, we had beers at nearby La Brasserie les Fleurs. Nimes station was really beautiful.

In Marseille we didn’t have much time to do anything else but to walk to the old port for dinner(*), and then back to our hotel Toyoko-Inn by the railway station.

(*) There will be another post about all the food we ate on our trip.

Next morning we continued by bus to Nice, and then took a taxi for an exorbitant rate to our Airbnb accommodation. The apartment itself was a huge disappointment, so much that we spent a lot of time the next day to find a replacement for the second night. The apartment was small, with no air-conditioning — the daytime temperatures at that time were well above +30C — and located below the street level, so there were no breeze even if we kept the only window open. The place smelled of cigarette smoke and mold. The fridge did not work, it was hardly any cooler than the room, so we kept our food in the freezer, and kept switching them back and forth to prevent them from freezing. Finally, the TV did not work; we could not find any channels. We asked the host how to tune it, and all she said was that maybe previous guests messed it up, and asked us to tune it (without telling how!). Here are just some random photos from our morning run. BTW, I’ve never seen so many artificially modified human beings than in Nice (I’ve heard that LA is even worse).

As mentioned, after the run we went out to hunt for a hotel room, a room with a fridge, but had no luck. We booked a regular room at Ibis Budget by the airport. And then we were ready for some football action. Nice, or FIFA, did not do a very good job at directing fans to Stade de Nice. We hopped on a bus that was heading to that direction, and on the mercy of the driver we had a free ride as close to the stadium as the bus route went. Then we had a long walk in merciless Sun to cover the rest of the distance. We found our seats right when the referee blew the starting whistle.

The Swedish ladies made sure that the match was interesting and entertaining from the very beginning by scoring two times within in the first 22 minutes. England scored on 31st minute and soon after again, but the latter goal was disqualified by VAR because of a handball. Final score was 2-1 to Sweden, and they fully deserved the bronze medal.

And the following morning we flew to chilly Helsinki … well, not quite chilly, but more than 20 degrees colder than Southern France was at the time. We stayed at a lovely Airbnb studio in Munkkisaari. I really like the area — it is where I used to live before moving abroad — even if there was now a huge road/tramway construction blocking the way in most directions. The apartment was also very nice and functional. The biggest problem was the coffee machine for which we had to find instructions online. For our second stay, a week later when we were flying out, our lovely host had provided them on paper. But we had a bit bigger adventure with the apartment then — more on that later ….