we are unknowingly rebels

We drank a couple bottles of beer, then jumped into our sleeping bags and felt asleep underneath the stars. That night was really cold and windy.

When I woke up, I saw something that I found quite weird... I saw several bunches of people, some of them standing next to us, staring at us, some of them looked like they were on the school trip. It was 10 a.m. and we wore warm clothes and hats while all those people around had flip-flops and short sleeve T-shirts. Initially, I thought it was a dream but as it turned out soon later it wasn't a dream ... We realised that we were in the limelight...

We started looking around and the view we had ahead of us was like a big screen of National Geographic Channel - the immensity of the ocean with many small islands way off in the distance took our breaths away. Tomek and Bartek, our impatient paragliders, ran as fast as they could for the equipment to start their dream, long-awaited paragliding adventure! It's difficult to describe their feelings at that time and what they had experienced in the air, but their huge smiles after landing told us everything!

After a long, exhausting day, full of excitement and different activities, we returned to the car. Bartek went to the machine to pay for the parking. He prepared 4 Euro as this price we saw by the praking entrance. To our huge disappointment, the machine said: 48 Euro. What was our reaction? Everybody screamed like a choir: "Whaaat?!". We would spent this money on at least four dinners!! We are not materialists but our expenses were carefully calculated so 48 Euro was like fortune for us. It turned out that 4 Euro wasn't a single fee but the price for one hour...We spent there 12 hours which gave us 48 Euro.There is a common saying in Poland which perfectly matches this event: "a Pole is wise after the event" ... well said.

In addition to this unexpected information, the lady working at the car parking told us that we had been sleeping in the National Park which is strictly prohibited! 

Rebels!

The Dune of Pilat

The Dune of Pilat (officially known as Dune du Pyla) was our next stop. Dune du Pyla is a real paradise for paragliders (two of them we had in our car). The tallest sand dune in Europe - this sentence made us feel extremely excited.

We got to the place late in the evening. We found a parking in the middle of the forest where we saw a caption: "4 Euro". Thoughtlessly, we parked our car there. Suddenly a question arose in our minds: "Does the price include overnight stay?". Unfortunately, we didn't care about the answer ... Having changed our clothes we started to explore the greatness of this place! We pumped up our mattress, then we did a quick bath and dressed in layers as the weather at night was very windy. We started to climb the dune. The darkness didn't allow us to precise our exact location, but after 40 minutes of scramble, we landed on the top of the dune. At that time, no one of us could realise what would we see in the early morning ..

a part of Poland in the middle of France

I’m ashamed to admit, but we (the female part of our trip) slept through almost the entire journey until the first stop. It was probably caused by the excess of emotions and endorphins on one hand and tiredness on the other. After 13-hour-long travel, we stopped in Oignies, France, to visit Bartek’s uncle - Cezar. He is of Polish descent. Uncle Cezar emigrated to France 30 years ago. He joined the association of the Polish community and helped in establishing a Polish Roman Catholic parish. Now he is in charge of organising meetings for Polish pensioners living in foreign country.

He welcomed us with a glass of real French champagne and prepared a special French dinner for us. The starter comprised of a melon with a cored hole in the middle, filled with Portuguese red wine.

Uncle Cezar told us how much he missed Poland. He told us about the history of Polish emigrants during the Second World War and the actual situation at that time in France. His longing for home country was clearly noticeable in his eyes when he talked about Polish culture and history and also when we looked at his home decorations. We could listen to Mazowsze music played by a gramophone that he bought in Poland many years ago.

The aura of this meeting let us go back into the times that we only know from school books. Having left some Polish souvenirs for uncle Cezar, we set out on our onward journey. 

I think this visit was a great lesson of history and patriotism which will stay in our memory for a long time.

Uncle Cezar, thank You for your hospitality and bottles of champagne which you provided for us (It was enough for the whole trip!)