It was pretty chilly in Les Gets during the evenings. The heating in the building was not on yet (it is still a centrally controlled system from the former hotel) and as you can see in this photo I needed a few sweaters, a coat, a blanket and a small electric heater to warm up.... Meanwhile Coen and Wouter braved the cold on mountain bikes racing up one of the local mountains....
With the four of us we drove seven hours further south to Tourrettes, a small historic town in the region near the Meditarenean city of Nice. One of my old university friends and his wife moved permanently to this place after selling their house in Holland a few years ago. They were the hosts of the reunion of our group of students who started our years at the University of Technology in Delft in 1974. A total of 12 of us together with 10 spouses arrived for a first dinner in a few rented houses.
The couples had comfortable bedrooms and I slept in a room with a bunkbed. Back to my travel days at younger ages.... Altogether we had three fun-filled days celebrating our long friendships.
Several hobby chefs in our group did some excellent work with three types of Spanish paella, one with fish, one with chicken and a vegetarian version. That was our first of three dinners together...
An old tradition during some of the meals we had during our years at university was a speech (in Dutch nicknamed as a "lullepot") while walking on the dinner table. Our host Pieter was courageous and did his speech on the table to the amazement of some of the spouses who did not know about this silly Delft student tradition. Lucky for all of us the table was solid enough.... We all got a 50 year celebration sweater (Tempeliers 1974 - 2024) and also a big cake to celebrate. A great opening of our three days together in the south of France....
