DAY TRIP TO ST TROPEZ

This was us on a day trip to St Tropez last weekend. April in South of France doesn't get much better than this. The famous Pampelonne beach looked nearly unrecognisable for the lack of crowds. I like the busy season too but I must say St Tropez is beautiful out of season. If you fancy a bit of a buzz Club 55 is never quiet on a sunny day and always such a fabulous spot for lunch.

Minna x

ANTIBES SUNSHINE

Hi from the South of France where I have been for the last few days! You never know about the weather here this time of the year and I was expecting to be struggling for ideas for rainy day activities for all of us but nope.... Every day has been sunny and warm!

Le Salise beach in the pictures is not yet looking that nice. Public beaches normally get cleaned up around Easter so by next week they should be looking lovely.

There is something so nice about being here out of season. The beaches are very quiet in comparison to the height of the summer and you feel so lucky if the weather happens to be good.

The view from the playground is not too bad either! And how do you like the hat? Memories from a trip to St Tropez some years back. (Children were definitely not part of that trip…)

Minna x

OUTLET SHOPPING OUTSIDE PARIS

I'm currently spending time in Paris and I thought I'd post about this place where I went yesterday, La Vallée Village. Few friends of mine managed to convince me to go there with them. I have to say, I love the idea of outlets but I've never really found anything from them. I don't have the patience to queue up, I don't like to try things on several times and I never seem to find anything in my size.  

However, this little village can be a cute place to visit if you are planning a trip to Paris and you are into shopping (and you have more patience than I do). It reminds me of Bicester Village, another outlet where I once went outside London.

You'll find young and cool French high street brands there: Maje, Sandro, Zadig & Voltaire, Vanessa Bruno etc. amongst others such as Céline, Valentino, Givenchy, Loro Piana, Marni, Jimmy Choo, Ralph Lauren, Monclair and so on.

I bought few T-shirts, so not worth the trip going there for me, but I think it's a matter of luck what you'll find in outlets. You never know!


Heidi x

ANTIBES, MICHAELANGELO

The summer just gone was my sixth one spent in the lovely South of France. The one restaurant I've been going to since the first summer and the one I've been to by far the most is an Italian restaurant Michaelangelo. Michaelangelo is located on a little back alley in Antibes old town. It's unlikely that you'd just happen to wander past it so you must know about it and a lot of people do... It's always busy. The restaurant is cosy with its stone walls and dim lighting. (By the way I LOVE dim lighting, it immediately puts me off if I walk into a restaurant that has its lighting too bright.) Michaelangelo also has a big outdoor terrace. I normally prefer the inside for the atmosphere but the outside if I'm having an early dinner with the kids. It's a family run restaurant and the owners are always present, greeting their customers. The smiley guy in the picture is Michael, the owner's son. A very nice young man indeed!

This is their melanzane alla parmigiana, one of my favourite starters there. The other winner is farciti farci (vegetables stuffed with veal.)



My favourite main dishes at Michaelangelo are risotto with scallops and prawns, baby chicken and tournedos rossini ie. beef with foie gras (in the above picture). I wouldn't recommend the latter unless you're hungry... it's seriously filling. My stomach always has space for it though, it's too yummy to say no to! Their desserts are also heavenly, to mention a couple the meringue cake and the triple chocolate mousse...

You can't leave Michaelangelo without checking out the their impressive collection of pictures of the owners posing with celebrities who have dined there. They have Jay-Z, Beyonce, Rihanna, Robert De Niro, Harrison Ford and tens of others hanging on their walls. The last celebrities I spotted there were Emma Stone with her spiderman! Lucky them got seated next to us and got to experience my Australian friend being (apparently...) very Australian (and maybe a tiny bit tipsy) and asking for a picture. Not embarrassing at all! :-) She didn't get one... (Sorry K, I think they should have said yes too!) 

Michaelangelo's website can be found here.


Minna x

WHAT I WORE: IN IBIZA

Happy Wednesday! I’ve just returned from a short and sweet but oh such fun trip to Ibiza. I was well equipped with my cameras (SLR for day, compact for night) and lenses (a short, fixed one that’s easy to fit in a bag and a huge long one that takes amazing pictures but requires a bit of effort to carry around plus makes you look like a paparazzi, which is not always desirable) and my plan was to really concentrate on my photography and take some amazing (well, as amazing as one's abilities allow) landscape pictures and get (read: bribe or threaten) the other half to take outfit pictures but all of a sudden the weekend was over and none of this had happened… damn. I did however take a lot of fun pics of fun times with friends and I’ll be sharing some of those with you in the coming days.

This was my only attempt of those outfit pictures.

Think I better loose the wine glass and put my shoes on.. hang on.

Dress: Band of Outsiders / Belt: YSL (old) / Sandals: Michael Kors (old)

And then back to responding to all the comments I received in my first post, thank you so much for them! Some more Ibiza pictures to follow… :-)



Minna x

Ps. Not sure what’s going on with all those brackets in this post… I just read the text back and had a bit of a hard time following it myself, hope you managed to get through it!

ITALY, PUGLIA: BORGO EGNAZIA

I had the pleasure of visiting Puglia in the South of Italy earlier this summer. Puglia is an area on the Adriatic coast right at the heel of Italy. We stayed in a town called Fasano, in a hotel called Borgo Egnazia. If it was good enough for Justin Timberlake to get married in (the hotel staff proudly told us) it was good enough for us! And it certainly was that, good enough. In fact it was amazing. One of the nicest hotels I have ever stayed in. Our visit was brief, we only had one full day there, which we spent by the pool and the beach. Both stunning. It was mid / late June and the weather was perfect (high twenties) even though the locals told us they had a bad spring and early June too like the rest of the Europe.

Yes it's me under there somewhere... well covered up at their pool bar ordering a healthy juice. They had a good variety of those.

We didn't try their lunch buffet but it looked nice. We did order a salad by the pool and I have to say that was the only negative; menu was limited and the prawns in my salad tasted so... odd... that I ended up not eating it and I was hungry ie. not that fussy!

So we jumped in a buggy that took us to their beach restaurant. It was about 10 minute journey and most definitely worth it! The beach was grass and rocks and something about the way it looked made me feel like I had stepped back in time. Very pretty.

The beach restaurant is called Pescheria da Vito. They have a fish counter with super fresh sea food and you can pretty much order anything you want prepared the way you want. Someone in our group had mussels and they were the best I had ever tasted. I had langoustine and it came out not prepared the way I had imagined but I think I can put it down to the fact that it got lost in translation. 

This is what the hotel looked like inside. Loved it! White washed, calm and cool.

Our room was in the main building La Corto. It was lovely and spacious with a separate bedroom and sitting room, a big bathroom and a balcony. 

To get to Borgo Egnazia we flew to Bari Airport, which was about 45 minute drive away. Apparently Brindisi Airport is a little bit nearer still. 

I would most definitely return to Borgo Egnazia for a weekend or a longer holiday. Hopefully I will get to do that some day! (You can find their website in here.)

Minna x