We spent the extended weekend in the spa town of Aix-les-Bains in Savoie department to escape, not the heat this time, but the wardrobe renovation in our second bedroom, currently serving as an office. We had already donated the old wardrobe to a young couple who took it down and […]
We spent a week in Crest in central Drôme at the foot of Southern Vercors range, hiking in surrounding areas, but also going for a couple morning runs. We like this area of Drôme for multiple reasons: its landscape is an interesting mixture of forested mountains and Mediterranean scenery. Also […]
I’ve lost track how many times we have spent our winter vacation in the Serre Chevalier Valley in Hautes-Alpes department, but one thing is sure: the weather has been mostly good. And so it was this time, too. Actually it was extra good, since the sun shone from the clear […]
We spent the extended holiday weekend in the area where most of town and village names sounded like they were taken from Asterix. The area, called la Dombes, is an undulating plateau in the department of Ain consisting of 1200 ponds or rainwater pools that are man-made, most of them […]
This was the third time Martin Fourcade Nordic Festival was organized in Annecy, and the third time we attended. This year’s lineups for both biathlon and cross-country sprint races were quite impressive. There was supposed to be two Finnish biathlets, but on the race day we heard that one of […]
We briefly visited the French capital this past weekend to leave our passport applications at the consulate. The Paris consulate is the only place to for the Finnish expats to apply for a passport in France, and it’s been made extremely expensive compared to applying for the passport in Finland; […]
While the 2021 ended with the worst weather ever, the 2022 started with the best possible; for he whole January it was mostly sunny with nice winter-like temperatures. We rushed to book our week-long winter/skiing vacation in Serre Chevalier valley in Hautes-Alpes before the school vacations started, and we were […]
After a very short morning run in Pont-Saint-Esprit we packed ourselves in the car and started driving to Coux. On our way we stopped to visit the small village of Saint-Thomé in Ardèche. Climbing the steep trail to the village located on the top of the hill gave us a […]
Aurillac As usual, we spent the first day exploring the town we were based in. Aurillac, the capital of the Cantal department, is known for various things, such as being the Historic umbrella capital of France (half of the umbrellas produced in 1999 were made there), and its Cheese Center, […]