We had a lovely week-long vacation in Spain. Our two goals were to run the Zurich Rock’n’Roll Marathon in Madrid after 11 years, and visit our friends in Chinchón whom, likewise, we had not seen in 11 years. Except for a couple of navigational glitches, problems with locking the car, […]
We started the summer season with an easy hike at the lower slopes of the Vercors range near Grenoble. This was the area where we did our very first hike just three days after moving to Grenoble. Except for a short attempt for a wintry hike five years ago (the […]
Finally, we had a proper winter vacation, with snow and skiing and all. First, we spent a week in the village of Le Rosier in Vallée de la Clarée in Hautes-Alpes (our third time there in three months) running and skiing, and then three days in Entre-Deux-Guiers on the Chartreuse […]
… after two years, that is! This short post is to share some pictures from our extempore skiing adventure in Vallée de la Clarée in Hautes-Alpes. A couple of weeks after we returned from our year-end vacation there, having not skied a single meter because of the snow situation, a […]
How (or why) did we decide to visit Bourg-en-Bresse in Ain department? Just recently our supermarket has introduced new chili sauces of brand Bressico that are made of “piment de Bresse” (chili of Bresse), cultivated in the region since 16th century. The pepper used to be popular in the area […]
The day following our first hike we took an extended weekend off from work — Monday was the French National Day — and visited Tomi’s family’s summer house on the island in Viljolahti, about a 22-kilometer drive and 10-minute boat ride away. The lake’s water level was so low that […]
This post is about the “Trails” part of our vacation. We did three easy to moderate hikes: first one to Joenmäenvuori and Harjuranta Nature Church near Varkaus, the second to Kotkanpolku (“Eagle’s Trail”) in Kotkatharju Outdoor Recreation Area in Joroinen, south of Varkaus, and the third one to Kangasvuokon Kuiskaus […]
We spent two weeks at Tomi’s parents’ house in Kangaslampi. These weeks were the most relaxing time of our vacation/workation; we didn’t need to be anywhere particular, and we didn’t need to do anything special. We went for early morning runs, then worked through the day, watched tennis and athletics, […]
After a sleepless night at a sizzling hotel room in Grenoble, we spent five hours on trains to Firenze. We chose to go to Grenoble a night before the start of the trip, since our train to Chambéry left so early. There we had a one-hour wait for the train […]