LearnSweden Blog

Renting a house in France

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.

French Market

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.

 



 
   
 
  

To Champagne

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.

 

Celebrating the Colors of Autumn

:: The Colors of Autumn

Truffles

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.

Spooked

It's Halloween weekend. Tomorrow night everyone will be dressed in costumes and going door to door to gather as much candy as possible. Today,however, is the Halloween Eve as my son calls it. So this calls for a treat of a different order and that is spooking.

     

Together we prepare little packages of little goodies. When it is dark we set them before our friend's front doors,ring the door bells and run. Here's the poem we put on gift cards that we place inside of the bags. Our gift bag is white with a ghost drawn on the front. This is the true signature that you have been spooked. The spookies then tape the ghost bag to the front window and then spook two more houses. It's very fun to see all of the ghost in neigbor's front windows. Happy Halloween and many lovely treats to you and yours.

The phantom Ghost has come to town,

To leave you some goodies, I see you have found.

If you do not wish a curse to fall,

Continue this greeting, this Phantom’s call.

 

First, post this Phantom where it can be seen,

And leave it there until Halloween.

This will scare other Phantoms who may visit.

Be sure to participate, you don’t want to miss it!

 

Second, make two treats & two copies of this Ghost with a grin

 Deliver them to two neighbors where this Phantom hasn’t been

Don’t let them see you, be sneaky, no doubt….

And make sure they put their Phantom Ghost out!

 

Next, you have only one day to act, so be quick!

Leave it at doors where the Phantom hasn’t hit.

Deliver at dark when there isn’t much light..

Ring the doorbell and run, and stay out of sight!!!

 

And last, but not least, come join in the season.

Don’t worry, be happy, you need no good reason.

This is all in good fun and we are just trying to say…

HAPPY HALLOWEEN AND HAVE A GREAT DAY

Ölandsbron

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 12^th century and a very beautiful place to visit. 

 

Karlskrona

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. 

London Docklands

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. 

 

 
 

 
 
  
  

Experiencing Churchill

Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill (1874-1965) described himself as "an English-Speaking Union," being the son of Lord Randolph Churchill and the American heiress Jennie Jerome. He was educated at Harrow and the Royal Military College at Sandhurst, and was sent to India with a cavalry commission in 1895. He won early fame as a war correspondent, covering the Cuban revolt against Spain (1895), and British campaigns in the Northwest Frontier of India (1897), the Sudan (1898) and South Africa during the Boer War (1899). Churchill had authored five books by the age of 26. His daring escape from a Boer prison camp in 1899 made him a national hero and ushered him into the House of Commons, where his career spanned 60 years.

In London a newly opened museum, you can follow his life from birth to death, via second world war, The Nobel Prize and so on. Here you also can see all rooms used during the war, bedrooms, offices, meeting rooms and so on. When walking around here you can feel the smoke of Churchill’s cigars, you can hear the bombs over and suddenly you are in the middle of World War II.