Rostock-Warnemünde and Hamburg - June 2016

Monsieur's grandparents had told us a long time in advance: they would celebrate their 60th wedding anniversary in June 2016, and they'd be very sad if we couldn't participate. The celebration would take place in Rostock-Warnemünde, at the famous hotel "Neptun", where they have spent many holidays in the last decades. 
So basically we had no choice but to be at the Baltic sea for a few days in June. Of course we looked forward to seeing the grandparents and celebrate with them, it's a big anniversary (imagine being married for sixty years!) and we don't see them very often, so it goes without saying that we wanted to make it possible. But Rostock. There are not many direct flights from Switzerland to Rostock, and as we have close friends in Hamburg, we decided to fly to Hamburg and stay there for two days before flying back home. To get from Hamburg to Rostock, we rented a car.

The "Neptun"

While Monsieur had been to Warnemünde before, this was my first time, and I really liked the beautiful beach and the view we had from the balcony of our hotel room. The "Neptun" towers above Warnemünde with its 64 meters, it has 18 floors and 338 rooms, is a 5-star house and has a very special history. It opened in 1971, when Rostock was part of the GDR, and originally it should be a place for foreigners only. But when this policy was abandoned, it became a hotel where citizens of the GDR went for holidays and met westerners. This prompted an in-house black market which the responsibles tried to fight with the hotel's own currency, the "Neptun-Geld". 

View from our balcony.

The view from the Neptun's balconies is really quite spectacular. The big cruise ships coming into the port of Rostock via Warnemünde add a cosmopolitan touch to this otherwise cosy little town. We checked the calendar on the hotel's website to find out which ships would come in or leave while we were there and found out that indeed, there would be some quite big ones. But they would come very early in the morning. So we decided to get up as early as needed, and - wrapped in our blankets - waited for them on the balcony. It was so worth it! We saw the "Serenade of the Seas" and the "Regal Princess" and had a wonderful, very happy morning just ship spotting, taking photos and enjoying the view.

With Monsieur's grandparents, we took walks along the beach and strolled through the town, ate dinner together and had a great time. They were perfectly happy to have us there and seemed to enjoy it very much.

After two days in Warnemünde, we drove back to Hamburg in the pouring rain, returned the car to the airport and took the train to the city centre. We had booked a room at the Generator Hostel right at the main station. Hamburg is not a cheap place and it was a weekend, so this was fine for one night.

We both love the north, and Hamburg. I could sit at the Landungsbrücken for days on end and just watch the ships, the people, the colours. With our friend, we took one of the public transport ferries, which is something I'd prefer to a (much more expensive) harbour tour any time.

We also went to the Hafencity, where Hamburg has developed a completely new quarter during the last few years. I still don't really like its atmosphere, it feels artificial and honestly, a quarter where after nine p.m. there is no open restaurant or café and no people on the streets doesn't give a very lively impression. When we'd last been in Hamburg, the Elbphilharmonie had still been a huge construction site, now it seemed to be close to completion, it finally opened in January 2017. It's a terrific building which (compared to the rest of the Hafencity) matches Hamburg's other buildings very well. Next time we'll visit we'll hopefully have time for a guided tour!

Nice, Monaco, Antibes, Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferra - Côte d'Azur - March 2016

The French Riviera or Côte d'Azur has been one of the places I knew I'd return to right after my first visit. When I was 16 years old, my parents took my sister and me to southern France for an unforgettable summer holiday. It was 1998 and the football world cup took place in France, the atmosphere was incredible - especially on that 12th of July when France won the final and the French launched themselves in a party which lasted for three days (as the 14th of July of course is their national holiday). Being there, celebrating on the beach - definitely one of my favourite memories of that time, I can even remember what kind of music we listened to, that we visited my best friend who was there for holidays with her family, too; that I developed a crush on the guy who cleaned the pool of our resort - a great summer.
A few years later on a school trip I visited Nice for the first time, the most memorable thing about this visit probably was the fact that my friends and I were thrown out of the (really great!) Musée Marc Chagall because our French didn't suffice to understand that the guard wanted us to stop taking photos. Not my brightest moment. But I fell in love with Nice and promised myself I'd be back.

Baie des Anges, Nice

Again a few years later I spent a week in Nice with a friend from university. We had a great time, visited Monaco, Cannes and Antibes, too - and again I decided to come back one day. In the end it took me quite a while to actually do this, but when Monsieur's parents asked us if we'd like to meet them somewhere else than at their or at our place, Nice was one of the first ideas that came into my mind. It's beautiful in spring, certainly more sunny than here at home, and I was sure everyone would like it.

The fascination for the light at the Côte d'Azur hit me again the moment we left the airport building. And also the beauty of the city didn't fail to amaze me one more time, I just love the slightly italian atmosphere, it reminds visitors of the history of the city and is a good addition to southern french lifestyle.
We had five days and filled them with a lot of walking around, in Nice we spent most of the time in the old town, climbed the Colline du Château, enjoyed the Promenade des Anglais and the nice little restaurants around Cours Saleya. The weather was wonderful, the sun warm enough to have lunch at the pebble beach. We loved it.

Place Masséna

Vieille Ville

View from Colline du Château

View from Colline du Château

Flea market at Cours Saleya

Cathedrale St. Nicholas

At Place Masséna, there's a nice piece of art to be seen, it's called "Conversation à Nice" and consists of seven statues kneeling on their columns high above the place. Jaume Plensa, the catalan artist whose work the statues are, says they symbolise the seven continents. At night, they are illuminated and look wonderful on photos.

One thing I really like about the Côte d'Azur is that the different towns at the coast are easily accessible by public transport. So we took the bus to Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat to visit Villa Ephrussi-Rothschild and the gardens. It's a wonderful place, peaceful and very well looked after. I especially enjoyed the gardens, I'm always in when it comes to gardens with special plants or themes. Although it was only March, we saw really great flowers and cactuses and it wasn't hard to imagine how the gardens would look in summer... My highlight was a lizard which patiently waited in the sun until I was done taking like hundreds of pictures. Monsieur's highlight was the squad of firefighting planes we watched as they practised above the peninsula and even on the bay. It was really fascinating, I'd never seen this in real life before.

After visiting the gardens we returned to the villa where I checked my phone just to find out that something must have happened in Brussels that morning. It was March 22 2016, and terrorists had attacked Brussels with suicide bombings at the airport and at Maelbeek metro station. I know both very well from several work visits and I was absolutely shocked to read about what happened, to see the first pictures. Maelbeek is the metro station closest to the office where I used to meet with my European colleagues and some of the staff working there very well could have been on the affected train. Later it turned out that fortunately, none of them was. I tried to still enjoy the day, but the bright weather and wonderful coast couldn't really push away my sadness. In the evening, Monsieur and me participated in a commemoration ceremony in Nice, people came together, lighting candles, carrying posters with "nous n'avons pas peur", "we are not afraid" written on them. Little did we know that Nice would be struck by a devastating terrorist attack only a few months later.

Monaco was also on our bucket list for the trip, although I wasn't very keen on going there as I don't like the city as much as I like Nice or Antibes. But of course Monaco has its treats, too, I love yachtspotting in the port and if you take the time to climb up to the Palace and the cathedral, the old town will surprise you with the exact opposite of the port's atmosphere - no luxury, but old houses, narrow streets and small cafés.

The casino

The casino as seen in Anish Kapoor's Sky Mirror

Odysseus sculpture at the port

When we took the train to Antibes, the weather was already worsening, but we didn't bother. We first went to the sandy beach between the port and the old town (Plage de la Gravette), and there it happened: a wave caught my foot, soaked my shoe and sock. Because of the cold temperatures, that meant I'd need new shoes. Not a catastrophe for me, as I love shoe shopping, but I didn't know the shops in Antibes and I had Monsieur and his family in tow. But it ended very well, I bought a great pair of Panafrica sneakers. The fabric they use for their shoes is african, beautiful patterns and colours included, the workshop the shoes are produced at is in Morocco and respects the workers' rights by making sure their working conditions are good. And then there's the #walkforschool programme, through which means Panafrica supports projects focusing on access to education and job training in Africa.
After getting my foot dry again and sporting my new sneakers, Monsieur and me joined his family on the Marché Provençal. We love all kinds of markets, and this one - especially the food stands! - was really extraordinary. Later Monsieur and me spent a tasty break at Choopy's cupcake and coffee shop, highly recommended!
Later we took a walk around Port Vauban, which is really impressive with Fort Carré high up on the rock and the huge yachts waiting for their owners and the summer to come... We visited Fort Carré and even took a short tour with one of the guides, a good idea as he had a lot of interesting stories and anecdotes from the Fort's eventful history to tell.
The huge sculpture "The nomad" on Bastion St Jaume is a sight you shouldn't miss when in Antibes. It offers a lof of great photo motives. "The nomad" is by Jaume Plensa, too,  it's situated where once a lighthouse guided the ships around and into the port.

The nomad

Port Vauban

We took a lot of nice memories home from this trip into the french spring. And I'll be back, I promise.