The Travels of Päivi and Santeri

Travelling through Perpignan, Nîmes, Narbonne, and Montpellier in France. We returned to France to explore the South coast. Our route started from Perpignan near the Spanish border. We were welcomed in a French way: SNCF (the French railway monopoly) was on strike so we had to take a bus instead.

La Loire in France and Rhein in Germany and Switzerland are like night and day. They are like the blood veins of Europe.

Corsicans don’t leave the French cold. Some people recommended the island for us warmly, while others advised to avoid it. We wanted to see ourselves what to think about this small, separatist island and its trigger-happy inhabitants.

Mountain Boarding in Toulouse with Emma and Arnaud. Toulouse is a lovely and sunny city near the Pyrenees profiting from Southern France’s mild climate.

We stayed four months in Aubusson, Limousin, to finish our newest manuscript, a thriller. Aubusson was an ideal place for us. There is only some 5000 inhabitants and nothing to see.

Spain is the most dangerous country in the world. It is the only country where we have been robbed.

All about French cheese: history, how it is made, categories, tasting, recommendations. Say cheese! Welcome to a virtual cheese tour de France. We tasted the country’s sumptuous variety of cheeses to prepare this little gift to you.

Typical French parking in the middle of the road and a lucky last minute escape before the police toes the car away. One would expect him to be happy but the guy looks annoyed.

French elevator high-tech. The French had a pretty weird numbering system in their elevator.

Andorra was the last country in Europe for us to visit. The only way to get there is either through Spain or France. A 3-4-hour bus trip on a serpentine road was not tempting, nor travelling in Spain. We did it through Toulouse, France using Andbus. Now we can proudly say that we have been in all European countries and it took less than 20 years on the road!

ASUS does not have international or actually any kind of warranty outside the country of purchase. They just tell you to go where you bought it. Our previous laptop broke about 1,5 years ago. It was a no-brand one with just one year warranty. When we were selecting the new one, we wanted to have one with two years international warranty to make sure it would serve us for at least that time. After comparing various models and their warranty conditions we ended up trusting in ASUS. The laptop had quite a good price-quality ratio while it was not broken. There were minor compatibility issues with sound card which never worked for simultaneous playback of midi’s and recording the output to audio. Some drivers that came with the laptop were crappy and others crappier, but without using them it was pretty OK.

In March 2014, Indonesia announced visa-free entry beginning from April 1st. That visa-free entry cost us US $35/person.