My blog

Well, it's time to start the long-awaited vacation!
This year we decided to take a trip along the trail of bombings to the land of Mirelle Mathieu and frog legs. Me and my three girls.
The fourth girl - the female dog Fina - made it clear that she was not interested in French food, so she ended up staying with friends for two weeks.
Mateusz, on the other hand, stated that the French Riviera is already passé and now people go to the Baltic Sea (to a dilapidated trailer at a campsite in Jastarnia, to go kitesurfing).
We are waiting for our plane at the Modlin airport drinking Aperolspritz.

The town of "La Seyne de Mar" on the French Riviera. This is where we will spend the next 2 weeks. In the very nice company of four families.
The house is a bit worn. It had its heyday about two decades ago. But it is located in the highest place in the town and the view from the terrace is killer.
Breakfast at a local pub with locals. They drink a disgusting aniseed aperitif - supposedly "specialites regionales" - and nibble on mussels from a burnt pot.
We spend the day by the pool. We play hearts. We take baths. We dance and drink strong alcohol.

First course: onion soup. Recipe for 14 servings. Boil 1.5 liters of chicken and vegetable stock. Peel and finely chop 2 kg of white onion. Fry in 200 g butter with 4 cloves of garlic and 3 teaspoons of sugar for 10 minutes. Then simmer for 1.5 hours. Add 2 tablespoons of flour. Pour in the stock and a bottle of white wine. Salt, pepper and a little wine vinegar. Cook for half an hour. Serve with a baguette rubbed with garlic, drizzled with olive oil, sprinkled with cheese and baked.
Main course: Beef bourguignon. Recipe for 14 people. Fry 300g of bacon in two tablespoons of oil. Set the bacon aside. Add 200g of butter to the fat. Fry 2.5kg of good beef cut into 5cm pieces in batches. Set the meat aside. Put 4 sliced carrots, two onions in cubes, one leek, 4 cloves of garlic, 8 mushrooms in a frying pan. Fry for 10 minutes. Then add two tablespoons of flour, two tablespoons of tomato paste, 2/3 bottle of dry wine. Cook for 15 minutes. Place the meat and bacon in a large roasting pan, pour the contents of the pan over it. Add beef stock so that all the ingredients are covered. Season with salt. Pepper. Add thyme. Place in the oven at 160 degrees for three hours, covered. Then uncover and bake for another hour. Serve with mashed potatoes (potatoes cooked with two onions and four cloves of garlic, and after crushing add butter and milk) and a salad with vinaigrette.
Dessert: chocolate mousse. Recipe for 14 people. Melt 5 chocolates. Add 400 g cream and a glass of icing sugar and the beaten egg whites of 6 eggs. Chill for 6 hours.

Today I experienced that thrill you get when you walk down a red carpet and all around you hear cameras clicking. Although I wasn't holding a statuette or wearing an Armani suit, and the people taking the shots were tourists, not photographers, I still had my moment.
Honestly, I thought Cannes would make a bigger impression. There is a huge marina and a beautiful panorama of the entire city from the Ferris wheel in the heart of the city, but I think that only happens here when there is a film festival.
The real gem is Saint Tropez, 70 km away. It was here that Bardot was immortalized in "And God Created Woman", and to this day in front of the famous "Gardarmerie Nationale" you can buy wine with Louis de Fines's image.
There are plenty of indecently large and indecently luxurious yachts here, whose owners inhale seafood and pose for photos in front of walking tourists.
We've got the French Riviera covered.

And in the evening we played fourteen in mafia. This social game was invented in the eighties in the USSR for training spies. Great fun.

There usually comes a day during the holidays when you want to leave your woman and spend the day with the men. And that day was today.
Unexpectedly, our women made things easier for us by announcing during breakfast that they needed our credit cards because they were spending the day shopping in Toulon.
For a brief moment we feigned indignation. But as soon as our wives had gone to town we left the kids and headed for the port (without one of ours, who had decided to spend the day with his old lady).
And so today we had a taste of the real France.

As we know, the best cure for the ravages of alcohol and overeating in the body is sport.
That's why I decided to start today with a six-kilometer jog.
I ran in the city park, on the beach and along the stalls selling watches, hats and a thousand other unnecessary things sold by the vast majority of the emigrant community, or as some would say, refugees.
Then Julia and I made dinner. Spaghetti with seafood, salad with pear, pumpkin, nuts and parmesan, and panacotta with apricot jam.
My late parents told me: don't judge and be humble. Mom, dad - today I have to ignore these rules - this food was awesome. No Michelin star restaurant would be ashamed of such a duo in the kitchen (Julia in the salad and dessert department, and I in the seafood department).
We spent the evening in Toulon, a fifteen-minute vaporetto ride away.

Saturday - market day. So after breakfast (pancakes with blueberry jam), we went to our town, to sniff around among the stalls.
Like a good Mediterranean market, they have everything here. Except beets, kohlrabi, sauerkraut, pickled cucumbers and Krakowska sausage.
And one more thing that's not enough. I have the impression that the town of La Seyne is inhabited only by retirees. There are very few long-legged French women in short skirts here - fortunately, there is plenty of real female beauty in our holiday home.
On the way home, a coffee with the very popular "canales" - sweet cookies in the shape of a French cylinder, 80 cents each, with a soft center and caramelized edges.
For dinner we made baked potatoes with onion, garlic, olive oil and rosemary picked right by the front door to our house. We also had carrots and peas, coleslaw and chicken with mixed vegetables bought at Carrefour.
And in the evening - the mafia.

The beach on the French Riviera is not exactly a show-stopper.

The only thing that makes the beach in Łeba inferior to the French Riviera is the cloudless sky and the temperature constantly above thirty degrees.
For lunch we ate a quickly made pea and broccoli cream with bacon scratchings, cream and baguette and then we sailed to Toulon for a show of force by the French air force.
Dinner in the port in the evening. Mussels in five ways (curry, lemon, cheese, wine), entrecote in two ways (pepper and roquefort) and a lot of wine.
Coming back we checked how many people can fit into the Toyota Auris. And we have a record - 11.

Monaco covers an area of two square kilometers. It is inhabited by about 40 thousand people, of whom 10 thousand are native Monacoans. The rest are residents who had to pay half a million euros for this status - supposedly including Kubica and Fibak.
To get here, it's best to leave your car at Nice Central Station and take the train, which will take 20 minutes to stop at the station carved into the rock in the heart of Monaco.
It's sterile and clean, full of Ferraris and disgustingly luxurious yachts.
We ate lunch surrounded by millionaires, which made us feel like we had more in our wallets - at least until the waiter brought the bill.
In the afternoon we returned to Nice. We saw that sad place that was talked about a few weeks ago.

Today, one of the most important women in my life celebrated her birthday. From today, my daughter and I are only two years away from turning sixty. Time, damn, flies - and the end of the holidays is also closer than the beginning.
There was a barbecue with gilt-head bream in the lead role, champagne, sweets and Maja's beloved doll from the Monster High series.

Today we decided to leave the French Riviera and our women and head deep into Provence to see perhaps the largest European canyon.
The Verdon Canyon is about two hours from Toulon. It is 23 km long and in places it is 700 m deep.
The view from the many viewpoints available around is truly breathtaking and not far behind the views of the Grand Canyon. At one of these points we ate steak with fries and beer in a pub hanging on a rock shelf, and at another we were treated to local mint alcohol in exchange for soap, lavender, fridge magnets with pictures of Provence and hats with the inscription "Les Gorges du Verdon" bought there.
The small river flowing down from the Alps, which once carved this miracle of nature in the white limestone rock, at some point changes into a large pool called the Lac de Sainte-Croix. You can rent kayaks or bikes here to explore the picturesque river dam. Unfortunately, we were caught in the first rain since the beginning of our vacation in France and swimming was out of the question.
Luckily, the sun came out as if on cue as we entered the medieval town of Moustiers-Sainte-Marie. They say it's the most beautiful town in France. Surrounded by lavender fields and situated at the foot of a mountain. It's crossed by a twisted gorge, through which a fast-flowing stream flows, creating waterfalls around which small restaurants serving Provençal cuisine have been set up. A little over 700 people live here, who mainly produce and sell faience in small shops.
We ate pancakes with lavender honey and washed down with rosé wine. We bought Provençal herbs for our wives and name-engraved bracelets for our daughters and headed back through the vineyards to our vacation home.

The penultimate day of our vacation in France. We eat the leftovers from the fridge - for lunch a casserole :"week review". A day by the pool. Then a trip to a charming, medieval town, of which there are plenty in the area - Hyeres. We had a nice dinner there at the main square of the city with an excellent tartare made in the French way, i.e. with basil and tomatoes. And after returning home we play a game of manly, alcoholic thousand.

Good or bad, everything comes to an end. I expected the same to happen with my vacation in France.
We have just had a farewell dinner in La Seyne sur Mer, we are packing and tomorrow morning we are returning home.
To sum up, I felt great here.
The French are lovers of contemplating good food and drink. Whether an exclusive or a poor pub - everywhere the food will be served exquisitely and it will always be very good food. Although a sweet breakfast and fresh fish straight from the sea are not the height of my dreams, but terrines, patés with baguette, mussels in wine washed down with wine, tartare and steaks are delicious. The fact that they do not know English at all adds to the color in the pub - you are not allowed to go anywhere here without Uncle Google.
The French are also very friendly. Although they mostly use sign language, they were happy to teach us how to eat an oyster or scoop out a snail. They are definitely great toasting partners.
The streets are not very clean here. There is a lot of poverty here. There are many places that are very neglected. On the other hand, there are many atmospheric towns, whose main squares are neat and tidy and are a testimony to the beautiful history of this country.
I think France is a nice place for a vacation.