By Per Svangren
French food, maybe that is enough. I love French cuisine and during our travels down and home we visited a lot of good restaurants which we found in the Michelin Guide, from one star up to three stars. I will have you know that those visits are more than just eating. It is a show for the ears,eyes, and mouth.
Cheese, bread, pasteries, mussles, duck liver, oysters, The list can be long, so I'll just wet your appetite with some photos.
By Per Svangren
In La Londe ,just a few kilometers from the sea we found a lovely house, owned by a Swedish family. It has three bedrooms, a large kitchen and living room, and a marvellous view over the surroundings and the Mediterrian sea. It was my wife and I, our three children, and two of their boy/girlfriends.
The days started with a big French breakfast with new baked baguette, camember cheese, vegatables, eggs, marmelade, yogurt, juice and coffee. Eaten outside in the sun. We did have sun all seven days and a temperature just over 20 C.
Then we went away to the beach, for tourist attractions, for wine testings, shopping or whatever was on the program. A French three course lunch at 12 and then more activites. Back to house for dinner and relaxing. We are all very fond of cooking and eating good food and with an excellent chef in the family, we had wonderful dinners with wine from a vineyard we had visited during the day.
By Per Svangren
Not so common in Sweden are markets anymore. From time to time you can see markets here, but in France they are very common. Every week on Saturdays there is a market in La Londe, were we stayed. From early morning until mid day you can buy, olives, chicken, meat, fish, fruit, vegetables, cheese, clothes, records, candles, honey, glasses and so on. The market was very crowded and the lines were very long in front of the most popular sellers.
We spent a few hours at the market and bought olive oil, olives, fresh figs, cheese, bread and some wine. The fresh warm and newly picked figs tasted wonderful and were soon finished. After a small cup of coffee, we brought all our things back and had a wonderful lunch.
by Per Svangren
My wife and I went to France. We went by car from Stockholm, via Denmark, and Germany to big and lovely France. Our goal was to reach the Riviera and La Londe, close to Toulon, where we rented a house for a week. Also there, we would be meeting our children and their boy/girlfriends.
So there will be some blogs about the trip, starting today with Champagne.
The district of Champagne is quite small but contains many vineyards producing the lovely, sparkling white vine that has become so famous that the producers have problems nowadays to produce enough for all buyers.
We stoped at many vineyards in and around Epernay and tasted and bought a lot of bottles. One of our favourites was Eric Isselée, where we also stayed over night in a lovely little room in the middle of the wine fields. The sun was shining and it was quite warm when we arrived. So after placing all of things in the room, we took a bottle of cold champagne an sat down in the garden. Surrounded by grape vines we enjoyed the lovely taste of a bottle from Eric Isselée.
:: The Colors of Autumn
The black gold, the mushrooms of Gotland, Bourgone truffles. Every fall the season starts sometime in September and lasts until sometime in December. Around 40 truffle dogs, Lagottos are working with their noses around the forests to find the truffles. It grows about 10 cenimeters or deeper under ground and you need a very good nose to find them. Lagotto are perfect for it. They are traditionally used in Italy, but they have become our tradition here in Sweden too.
Gotland is a good place for truffles, but they have also been found on Öland and in a few other places, but Gotland is the best place. You can´t pick truffles in other peoples land, so you need to own your own forest for it or pick in other people's forest by invitation only.
We have a big parcel of land, but we also pick for other people and our dog Diesel is a truffle king. Very fast he scan the area we are in and dig out the truffles. This weekend he picked over two kilos in about two hours. So we were very pleased and all the truffles were sold out directly.
You can eat truffles raw or heated up to maximum 70 degrees Celcius. Otherwise they loose their taste. If you have more than you can eat during the two weeks they are fresh, a good thing to do is truffle butter. Just cut small pieces of truffles into room temperature butter, stir and mix. Then put it in the freezer and you got a perfect taste for fried meet, boiled fish or in an omelette.
by Per Svangren
Connecting the island of Öland with Kalmar and the rest of Sweden, is the Bridge of Öland, Ölandsbron. Built and ready in 1972 and about six kilometers long, it's free of charge to use and cost Sweden XXX to build.
Öland is the second biggest island in Sweden, after Gotland. The island is about 130 kilometers long and about 20 kilometers from east to west at it's broadest part. Living on Öland are about 25.000 people, but during the summer there is about double the people living on the island. One of them visiting Öland and the castle Borgholm, is the Royal family and every year the Crown princess Victoria celebrates her birthday on July 14th here.
On the other side of the bridge you´ll find Kalmar. One of the ten biggest cities in Sweden. The town is famous for its castle, Kalmar slott, built in the 12th century and a very beautiful place to visit.
by Per Svangren
Recently,Valarie and I went to Karlskrona for the SACC convent, Catwalk XX. We went there by car from Stockholm and took our time to see and visit some interesting parts of the south east area of Sweden. We stopped in Söderköpng, Vimmerby, Kosta and Orrefors.
It's been a couple of years since I was in Karlskrona and then I just stayed there for a couple of hours. Now we were there for three days and had time to explore the city. The camera was working hard and here are some shots which speak for themselves.
By Per Svangren
In the old wharf and harbor district a new part of London is growing. Around the Thames, houses are built. Houses with apartments and houses with offices. It is a very modern and beautiful new part of the city. When walking around ,some parts of Dockland reminds me of the feeling you get when walking in Manhattan. Huge skyscrapers of different companies are built high up in the sky. Everywhere you find small cafés and restaurants, crowded during lunchtime and after work. Here Jamie Oliver and Gordon Ramsey have one restaurant each and we were visiting Jamie’s Italian restaurant. Very nice
The Docklands are connected with a new self going tram. And from the tram you have a fantastic view of the new part of city and you will see a top ntoch modern city growing around the river Thames. Here one can also find the London City Airport and the Olympic Village.