Livigno

Nice view from the plane over

Another year, another snow holiday. To switch things up this year we went to Italy and tried snowboarding for the first time. It was also our first time not going with the UCPA so had our own place which was great, but we did miss the great French food and we could have done with the week long lessons as snowboarding proved more difficult than I expected.

Our house for the week

Flew into Milan and got a minibus transfer for about 3.5 hours to Livigno. We were brought straight to our house which was really nice:
http://www.piccolabaita.it/piccola-baita.php#dettagli
€305 each.

We were able to collect our ski gear that evening and get some food for the house so we were all set for our first snowboarding lesson first thing in the morning. I went for boots slightly large for me as the correct size ones were far too tight.

Heading to Apres-Ski

Some Damme impressive dancing at the Apres-ski by some Russians

Graeme topping up his drink

We got our lessons from a company called Madness and had a really nice instructor, Gerry. Normally their lessons would be for 2 hours each morning for a week but we crammed all the lessons into the first 3 days. This probably wasn't the wisest thing as we didn't improve much in the last 3 days.We would have been better practising everything we learned each morning, in the afternoon by ourselves. I did start to pick up the forward and backward turn at the start of the first day and didn't really learn anything else for the rest of the week which was a shame.

Louise taking a deserved break

Livigno town was a nice place but very quiet. We had a great Apres-Ski session on Monday straight after snowboarding and we all ended up dancing on the bar which was a first for me. They are very generous with their shot pouring over there so that's how I ended up on the bar that night. Getting up for lessons the next day was rough and we were quite late meeting Gerry.

Toner and Gerry

We went out for dinner every night as Livigno is tax free so the prices were real good.

I'm not sure what to do next year, stick with snowboarding or go back to skiing. I found skiing much easier to pick up but I reckon a week of snowboarding classes would put me in a good position. I much prefer the snowboard boats and carrying around a snowboard is much easier too. Snowboarding is much more painful though and I still had pains for days after I got back which I never had from skiing.

Adam and Graeme

Phil riding in Livigno

Nice Livigno sunset

Livigno sunset

Gigging - Dave Gorman, Future Islands, MØ

Had a few gigs towards the end of the year.

DAVE GORMAN

First was Dave Gorman in Vicar St. He was very funny and did one of his power point shows which he's an absolute pro at these days. I was glad to finally see him live as i've been a fan of his work for ages. His gig is as you would expect it but he's got it so down that it's a great experience.

FUTURE ISLANDS - 03/11/14

Next was back to Vicar St again Future Islands. Unfortunately on a Monday night so we kept it quiet but FI sure went hell for leather. The lead is a right mentaller and a great showman. The place went crazy for his dancing. And he seemed to really enjoy himself though and really went for it. He shirt was soaked through by about half way through the show which was kinda gross, especially when he thumbed his chest and you could see all the sweat fly.

I loved his showmanship and was fairly entranced by him as I didn't watch any of the other band members for the night. They played 4 encores at the end too which kept everyone happy.

MØ - 04/11/14

The night after FI above we went to see MØ in The Academy. As with FI she really gave her all. It was great to see her in such a small venue as I suspect she is destined for a large stage. She went nice and wild towards the end of the gig, singing one song in the middle of the crowd and then running upstairs to where we were to sing another over the balcony. Then at the end she did some crowd surfing which I haven't seen done in a while. She even did a Spice Girls song which was strange. I had heard that the Spice Girls were the first group she got into as a kid and then moved onto punk and hip-hop and she said she is now a mix of all 3 styles.

Electric Picnic 2014

WOOOHOOO, another EP survived. They do seem to get tougher year on year but that may be down to me losing my youthfulness.

First day turned out a beauty after rain in the morning

There probably wasn't as many big names at this years one but still got to see some great acts, including a few new ones. Weather was mainly good throughout again too. We're always so lucky with the weather. It did piss down on the Friday morning but we had our tents up so were safe. Rest of the weekend was dry with the sun popping out on occasions.

Here were some of my highlights:

Pet Shop Buys were good on the main stage of Fri night but I do prefer them in a tent. Last time I saw them they blew me away and not so much this time.

Pet Shop Boys

Young Fathers were one of the real highlights for me. Late in Body and Soul they rocked the main stage there and were brilliant. Was singing Get Up for the rest of the weekend. Went to the rave in the forest on the first night too but we weren't mad about it so left again.

Young Fathers

James Murphy had a great dj set and we also saw some of Blondie and Foals who were both pretty good.

A random tiny stage

On Saturday we started off with a nice breakfast bap and bumped into Louise and her gang who were there for her sisters 40th.

We Cut Corners were one of the highlights for Saturday and also one of the first acts we saw which is unusual. I've really enjoyed them any time I've seen them and they sure make a good racket for just 2 guys.

Our main gang at EP 2014

A surprise find for the day were Clean Bandit who got the crowd going as well as anyone over the weekend. We had intended to go see FKA Twigs but unfortunately she didn't turn up due to illness.

We went to a small bit of comedy and saw Patrick McDonnell who i've seen before but think is very good.

We went to Hozier on the main stage who was good but would have been better suited to a tent. Others we saw on Saturday were Metronomy, London Grammar and Omar Souleyman who was very good. Also got to see RSAG who's always rocking and The Minutes in a tiny tent who were unbelievably banging and ended up playing 3 times over the weekend.

We went to the main stage to finish off with some Chic. What little I remember from that was great.

Sunday we saw Sinead O'Connor on the main stage who was good. I found St Vincent to be a bit disappointing just because it's so downbeat. We moved onto Jungle who were excellent and really upbeat.

We went to David O'Doherty in the comedy tent who was excellent as always and then moved onto Kelis and Outkast to finish off the night who were both brilliant too.

After Outkast I believe there was a while on the amusements and who knows where we went to then.

Xmas - 12 pubs - David O'Doherty

12 Pubs
Second year doing the 12 pubs of Christmas and must say I fared much worse this year than last. Last year I got through the 12 pints without too much of a struggle. Drunk obviously, but not feeling too bad. This year I hit a wall after the 10th pub. I would have happily went home at that stage but my resignation was not accepted by the others.

4 or 5 pubs in and all is well

Greener joined us for the first time this year too and held up well by avoiding his usual tendency to overdo it with the shots. By a big coincidence I also bumped into Ken Browne in Solas which was funny if only for the fact that this was the only 30 minutes I spent in the pub all year. He joined us for a while but I don't remember anything we talked about. So all in all, I don't know why this year was so much tougher than last year but next year I may need to contemplate switching to bottles after a while, or getting more water into me somehow. 

Things got messier around pub 9

David O'Doherty 
Going to see DOD in Whelans at Christmas is something of a tradition for us at this stage. I still think he's great even though we had seen a lot of this material previously, haven seen him at EP this year also. Still this is a tradition I am happy to continue.


Christmas

Myself and Louise went our separate ways again for Christmas and I spent a few days at home in Cork playing with Lucy, Sam and Ruairi. As always, mum did a great job with everything and I had a great time. Unfortunately we couldn't get the lads together for a night over the break but we did finally move on from Barry's on Xmas eve and went to South County instead. I must say it was an improvement and I will be happy to go there in future.

Lucy in our porch at home

Sam on xmas morning

Sam photobombing a nice Lucy pic

Mum went a bit overboard with the decorations this year.

Sam relaxing after all the activities

Wonder

France - Provence

Marseilles Airport

This years holiday was our second cycling holiday after Italy last year. It was similar to last year, some parts better, some parts worse. Overall it was great though and our 10 day holiday felt about 2.5 weeks which is always a good thing.

Here's the trip we did:
https://www.skedaddle.co.uk/cycling/holiday/Leisure_Cycling/France_-_Provence_-_Self-Guided_Cycling_Holiday/75/view.rails

Saturday

Flew into Marseilles and got the train straight away to Orange. Checked into our 3 star hotel and went wandering. We went to the main attraction which is the amphitheatre. It's impressive but maybe not quite as nice as the one in Verona we saw last year.

Théâtre antique d'Orange

Tunnels of Théâtre antique d'Orange

Théâtre antique d'Orange

We were pretty tired after that as we'd been up since 3:30am to catch our flight so we went back to the hotel to have a few drinks as we waited for our cycle tour instructor to arrive. 

First drinks of the holiday

Jazz band playing outside our hotel in Orange

Once the instructor arrived she gave us the maps, bikes and everything we needed. We were happy that our bikes, while not great, were still a vast improvement over last year. We had an early enough night on the first night all set for our first cycle the following day.

Nice hipster bar in Orange

Sunday
Each morning we could leave at our own pace but needed to have our bags at reception for 09:30 to be collected and brought to the next hotel. We have breakfast in each hotel before heading off which usually involved some bread, meat and cheese.

Our first cycle was from Orange to Uzes.

It should have been 50k but took us 66k due to horrendous instructions. Got lost several times due to incorrect directions or just plain missing instructions. At one point we could not find the right way even after trying the 3 different possibilities. We even stopped a German couple on a similar cycle trip but unfortunately they were going in the opposite direction so were unable to help. In the end we had to give up on the directions and find our own way to the next town. Once we got there we stopped for what was possibly the most rewarding lunch of my life. Fortunately it was super tasty too and one of the highlights food-wise of the trip.

Some of the roads were very picturesque

The trip itself was one of the most beautiful days with plenty of vineyards and scenery to see.

Fields and fields of sunflowers

Once we finally did make it to Uzes our bags were there waiting for us so we had a quick shower and went for a walk around the town as this would be our only opportunity to see it and glad we did as it is one of the most beautiful towns I've ever seen. It was quite small and mainly consisted of restaurants but almost every building there was so picturesque. One night may have been enough there as it's very small and didn't appear to be much to do but well worth a visit for one night anyway.

We HAD to treat ourselves after our first cycle

Part of beautiful Uzes

Monday

Today's cycle was Uzes to Avignon.

It took us 60k instead of 50 again due to horrible instructions. Today was overcast with a treat of rain that never came.

One of the points of interest today was Point du Gard. It was nice but we didn't have much time to do anything beyond walk over it and take pics. It was overcast too which didn't help for the pictures.

Point du Gard

View from Point du Gard

Avignon is a cool city inside castle walls with lots of cool restaurants and bars. We got to stay in a nice 4 star hotel.

Entrance into Avignon

 Went to view the palace the following morning before our cycle.

Palais des Papes, Avignon

View from Palais des Papes

The French sure do keep their bikes in good condition

Tuesday

Avignon to Remy. 55k. Had the option for a 25k cycle but we decided to go for the full one. 

Didn't get lost today even though directions were still useless. Was overcast for most of the day which was nice for keeping cool. Threatened to rain but didn't thankfully. Passed lots of fruit farms with olive trees, pears, apples and plenty of others. Lots of expensive houses along the route also.

One of many small towns we went through on our cycles

2 star hotel in Remy was lovely and had our first pool. They slightly overdid it with the religious statues/pictures/everything.

Overly religious hotel in St Remy

Wednesday
Remy to Les Baux-de-Provence to Remy

Stayed in Remy for 2 nights so today's cycle was a loop around the mountains, up to see an ancient village up in the mountains caused Les Baux. It's an enclosed town behind castle walls. The cycle up to this was prob the most difficult cycle of the week, especially with the wind in our faces. We only had a quick look around the town as we wanted to get a move on. The journey back down was a very enjoyable descent but was so windy we needed to be careful of the traffic on the windy roads. 

Les Baux-de-Provence

Les Baux-de-Provence

Les Baux-de-Provence

Panoramic view from Les Baux-de-Provence

Nice shop front in St Remy

Thursday

Remy to Arles

Easiest cycle of the week. 32k. Mainly through farms. Tracking stopped working again. Found out we had the wrong bikes and lucky for it as the 2 we should have had broke down twice. A Norwegian father, son group were doing the same route as us and had our bikes. We meet up with them a lot on our cycles everyday and had lunch and drinks with them on occasions.

Arles is another very nice town. We did some museums and attractions there on the first day as we got in early. One museum had a lot of Picasso paintings which he gave to them. 

Friday
Arles to St-Marie-de-la-Mer

Our last days cycle was to the coastal town, St-Marie-de-la-Mer. Because we were cycling towards the coast the wind picked up and made this one of the more difficult cycles of the week. We didn't stop often on this cycle as we wanted to motor through it and get to the beach.

Our two stops were a little tower setup to view the local birds, of which we saw none and Château d'Avignon. There was nothing to do here either but it looked impressive and had a lot of history behind it. Mainly been the first house in France to have electricity and working toilets on each floor.

Château d'Avignon

Once we made it to St-Marie-de-la-Mer we celebrated the end of our cycle with a giant desert and also a couple of beers. We popped into the sea for a bit too. First time in the ocean for a while so it was nice to just float there for a while and relax at the end of our cycle trip. A taxi came to collect us at 5:30 with our bikes and bring us back to Arles for our last night in the hotel. He kept Louise busy for the journey with chat, I'm not sure he even inhaled for the whole journey.




Saturday - Tuesday.
On Saturday we got up and got the train from Arles to Nice with a short stopover in Marseilles. Once we got to Nice we went straight to our hostel which we choose as we thought it would be good to meet some people after the week on the bike. Unfortunately the private room in the hostel was a bit of a dump but the location was excellent which made up for it.

Nice beach

We didn't get up to much at all in Nice as neither of us were in the mood for anymore site seeing or travelling. Louise spent a lot of her time on the beach while I wandered around aimlessly taking pictures and stuffing myself with ice cream.

One of the nights we did do some socializing with 2 girls in the hostel from New Zealand and the US who were nice and we joined them in an English bar later with 2 Aussie blokes for a bit of a session. This was brought back to the hostel later for a stupid drinking, card game resulted in us drinking every minute or so.

Fountains in Nice

By Tuesday I was happy to leave Nice and head home. It felt like we had been on holidays much longer to 10 days and Nice is nice for a weekend getaway but not much for me there.