We’ve already experienced one rainbow following the storm, now comes another.
Mediterranean storm Harry was a lulu. Tunisia and Sardinia supposedly got hit harder than Malta. Regardless, Malta got clobbered.
Yesterday, we traveled clear across the country, from Gozo in the west to Marsaskala, at the east end of Malta. Three local buses and a ferry. The trip took us damn near 4 hours … several hours more than if we had traveled by car and did not have to wait more than an hour for the ferry to leave. (I have now confirmed, by the way, that the land mass of all of Malta is about 50% larger than the total land mass of Grand Isle, County, Vermont.)
Before leaving Gozo, the desk clerk at our hotel (Tamzin, who is an utter delight!) showed us a video of waves breaking a door down in Marsaskala. Here is that video. Watch it!!!! https://www.facebook.com/share/r/1HBEbdzenf/
When we saw the video, we phoned our hotel to be sure it was still operating. We were told that the images on television are sometimes worse than real life, and they were indeed operating.
When we arrived, the sign on the street-level door said to use the door at the water level, so we walked down some stairs to the water level. The door not only did not open, it didn’t even wiggle. So we walked back to the street-level door and got in. But the elevator wasn’t working, so we lugged ourselves and our bags up a bunch of stairs to our room.
This morning, we learned that the doors in that video are our hotel! It’s a regular Maltese celebrity! The water-level door did not open because it had been braced with a 2X4 from the inside. The elevator didn’t work because the shaft and all of the electronics had flooded.
Then came the silver lining. When we woke up and looked out the window this morning, the sea wall along the harbor was thick with people fishing: old, young, male, female, well-equipped, and barely equipped. I dressed and told Rebecca I’d be back in a while, but not to expect me too quickly.
I needed about 10 seconds to learn what was going on: the dam to the local fish farm had burst in the storm. Thousands of “sea bream” had escaped and swum into Marsaskala Harbor. The water was thick with fish, and the residents of Marsaskala were taking full advantage of the windfall.
The pros were raking in the bounty too: a couple of luzzus were docked. Their nets contained literally tons of fish.
To me, everybody wins except the poor little fish. The fish farm, I was told, was fully insured. I just don’t tend to worry too much about insurance companies. And the good people of Marsaskala are swimming in an insane supply of fresh fish.
Enjoy the pics! And guess what we are having for supper tonight!
The doors of the El Doris. The video shows the same doors from the inside as the water crashed in.
A little more storm damage.
People everywhere taking advantage of the broken fish farm dam!
I will take no credit for the brilliance of this post. It all goes to “the machatunim.” “Machatunim” is Yiddish. It literally means “father of my son-in-law.” Colloquially, it means the entire extended family. In this case, it really does mean the father of my son-in-law, Bernie.
In my last post, I asked for recommendations about places in Sicily. We got some great ones: Syracusa, Taormina, Agrigento, Cefalu, and a whole bunch more. I also made the off-handed comment that Googling “small fishing villages in Sicily” just isn’t specific enough. Bernie suggested that instead of using Google, I use ChatGPT. He tried it, sent me the results, and opened up a whole new world of possibilities.
I instantly realized what makes planning this adventure so challenging: we have constraints I had not really thought of because I did not think we could manage them. For example, Rebecca’s balance is messed up. She walks with poles, cannot carry her own baggage, goes slowly, and prefers holding onto my arm. (That is why we have successfully limited our baggage to one small roller bag and two backpacks, one that hooks onto the roller bag handle and one for my back.) Another is that we have no car, so we need places that are convenient by train or bus. Another is that we want to avoid big hills and rough, uneven terrain. Another is that we want relatively non-touristed villages with comfy lodging and good food … in the off season.
ChatGPT is unbelievably good at finding villages that meet our needs … villages that we would never have thought to look at without its help. Once we have a list of potential villages, Google Maps and Booking.com give us the specifics we need to find places and specific locations within a town. It’s really working!
Here is the plan du jour: We leave Gozo tomorrow. (We extended our stay for several days because we just endured a monster Mediterranean storm with winds exceeding 65 mph and humongous waves. It’s a good thing we had a perfect third-floor room with a balcony overlooking the full wrath of Mother Nature!)
From Gozo, we head to the other side of Malta again, first to a small fishing village we want to see, Marsaskala, and then back to Marsaxlokk so we can experience the Sunday market one more time.
After Marsaxlokk, the winds are supposed to be lingering around a non-gale-like 20 knots or so, so we will be taking the ferry from Valletta, Malta to Pozzallo, Sicily.
We thought Pozzallo would be a scrappy ferry/seaport town, so we thought we’d spend the night there and head out for a real village on Tuesday morning. ChatGPT tweaked that thinking. Not only does Pozzallo sound like a cool place, it has a vibrant downtown with lots of cafes, a long, sandy beach, and great-sounding hotels that are right downtown, one block from the beach, and still totally affordable. I guess Pozzallo will be stuck with us for a few days, and we will be able to judge whether or not we agree with ChatGPT’s assessment of places.
From the Pozzallo train station, we will be able to take a short train trip west to Sampieri or northeast, to Syracusa/Ortigia, which will probably be our first major stop after Pozzallo.
Despite Sicily’s reputation for being home to some of the best preserved ruins in the world, we expect to appreciate what we see and not make special trips to see more. We’ve seen Athens and the Greek Islands and Izmir and Petra and, here in Malta, the Hypogeum and Ggantila. At this stage in our lives, we are more interested in village life than in more sightseeing. We’ll see how that pans out over time.
Stay tuned for updates. Today, we are exploring off-the-beaten-path places in Gozo with Dannae and her boyfriend, Claudio, both from Chile. Dannae (pronounced Donna) is one of the food service folks at our hotel here in Marsalforn. After almost two weeks here, we have bonded pretty tightly. She is delightful! Today is her and Claudio’s day off, so they took us on a tour of places in Gozo we would not otherwise see.
What we have been up to…
The Ta’Pinu Basilica in Gharb, Gozo. It’s a “basilica” instead of a “church” or “cathedral,” I learned, because the Pope said so. He said so because it is home to a whole gaggle of miracles. The mosaics are amazing. For those of you who don’t know, the dominant motif of our home in Vermont is fish. We are sure the mosaic fish images will find happy homes somewhere on our walls.
What a meal at Il Kartell in Marsalforn! Calamari, octopus, and a small, crispy smelt-like thing that was scrumptious.
How wonderful having Tony the Pharmacist only one block away when Rebecca has been fighting a cold, cough, and bacterial infection. One of many Marsalforn sweethearts!
On the subject of Marsalforn sweethearts, we are spending the afternoon on Wednesday (today) with Dannae and her boyfriend Claudio exploring Gozo.
What a tempest: Mediterranean Storm Harry! Two-plus days of 65+-mph winds! Thank goodness for a comfy hotel room … with a view.
With the light at the end of the storm dawns a new day.
Today, Dannae and Claudio showed us sights we would otherwise have never been able to see, like “The Window,” “Fungus Rock” on the west side of Gozo, and endless limestone cliffs and caves.
Rebecca and I are insanely fortunate to have two fantastic homes: a city-mouse home in Watertown near Boston and a country-mouse home in Grand Isle, Vermont, on a magnificent little island in Lake Champlain.
Grand Isle pretty much defines simple living. We are surrounded by some of the nicest people on earth; we have everything we need at our fingertips: two family-owned groceries, a hardware store, a doctor, a real city — Burlington — 30 minutes away, and stunning beauty.
When we started planning this trip, we knew what we wanted, but we didn’t know how to describe it. We still know and we still don’t know how to describe it … except that we want a Mediterranean/European version of Grand Isle. (Googling “Warm, Mediterranean version of Grand Isle, Vermont” doesn’t work.)
Two-plus weeks into the trip, we are batting 1000! Marsaxlokk in Malta and Marsalforn in Gozo have been idyllic. We have no idea how long we will be staying in Gozo, but I guess at some point, we will probably want to leave. Maybe. (Today, we rode the bus a few stops, walked a mile or so to visit a salt harvesting site by the sea, where we jawboned with the 6th-generation harvester, Justin, bought some Mediterranean sea salt, got a ride back to our bus stop from his mother, Josephine, stopped for an Indian lunch where we jawboned with a fun couple from Denver who were visiting with their 2-year-old son, returned to our hotel, and while I am writing at a table by the sea watching traditional fishing boats come and go, Rebecca is on a Zoom call with her girlfriends in Grand Isle. That’s it. All that’s left for the day is a cocktail to watch the sunset from our balcony, then figuring out where to eat supper. Will it be Italian, seafood, Indian, Thai, or traditional Maltese? (It turned out to be Chinese.) Adjusting to the pace seems to come pretty naturally to both of us … a very short learning curve.
So here’s the challenge … for which we need your help!!!! Where do we go in Sicily and then southern Italy that will compare to places like this? We know we will spend a few days in Ortigia near Syracusa (my cousin Cooper would be pretty upset if we didn’t), but beyond that, nothing is firm. Nicosia in the east? Gibellina in the west? Santa Maria la Scala north of Catania? Enna in the center of the island?
Damn. Do you see what I mean? This is really hard work. Please help as best you can. We’re counting on you!
The brownish building is our hotel in Marsalforn, the Calypso. Gozo is thought to be the mythic spot where Ulysses shipwrecked and was held captive by the seductress Calypso, where he stayed for seven years before being released by Zeus to return home to his wife Penelope. The sea views are from our room. The gentleman with Rebecca was our first human encounter in Marsalforn outside of the hotel. I went to the local convenience store, “Popeye’s,” to buy Kleenex for Rebecca. This guy — Youness from Morocco — appeared out of nowhere and insisted that he pay the €1. He could not have been nicer.
The view from across Marsalforn harbor. The buildings are typical Maltese housing.
Typical Maltese terraced hillsides, rock walls, and lots and lots of prickly pear cactus.
We hiked up to the “salt pans” just above Marsalforn Harbor where Mediterranean Sea salt has been harvested for hundreds of years. Justin, a 6th-generation salt farmer sold us our sack of salt. His mother, Josephine, was leaving on an errand as we left. She insisted on driving us to a nearby village so we would not have to walk the whole way.
Scenes from Victoria, Gozo. An art installation at the theater, an image from the Citadel, and an archway from the Citadel. The Citadel has been a center of civil and religious life … as well as home to many … for over 2,000 years. A few elderly couples still live there, but the Citadel as a home is on the way out.
OMG the food has been great! Jimmy and his daughter Vicky run the local Chinese restaurant, “Yummy Yummy.” Could there be a better name for a Thai restaurant than “bow tie”? Il-Kartell is the go-to seafood place in town. Tomorrow night, we are putting ourselves in the hands of the owner, Paul, and just saying, “Feed us.” Stay tuned on that one. We even managed to find a local BBQ joint and enjoyed some pulled pork and cole slaw the other day. Not great for Arkansas or North Carolina, but damn good for Marsalforn!
And BTW, Paul and his family know Sicily well and have recommended Enna. I expect we will start there and then make our way to Ortigia for our first two stops. But we are far from making any commitments until we hear from you!
I’ve always wanted to visit the Egyptian pyramids because they are about the oldest human-made things I was aware of. I never thought of visiting the antiquities of Malta — including the Hal Saflieni Hypogeum and Ggantija — because I had never heard of them. They are about 1,000 years older than the pyramids, and about 1,500 years older than the start of construction of the Great Wall of China and the construction of Stonehenge. They are from the Stone Age, specifically the “neolithic period,” when humans had learned to work with pointed tools. The Hypogeum (hypo gee-um) is a ~6,500-7,000-year-old burial chamber, and Ggantija (gee-gan teeya) bills itself as the oldest free-standing structure in the world built with stones that weigh up to 50 tons.
Fortunately for us, we know local peeps in Malta: our friend David’s cousins, Sam and Alan. They gave us two pieces of insanely good advice:
1) Get our “Tallinja Cards” before our trip. We did. With them … at a total cost of $30 each … we have unlimited travel on Malta’s expansive bus system. So far, we have spent about $15 on Ubers — one ride from the airport because our bus did not run for a couple of hours on New Years Day, once to get home from a remote village when Rebecca felt crappy and the evening cold had set in, and once to ensure we got to the Hypogeum on time. Malta’s bus system rocks!
2) Get our tickets for the Hypogeum well before our trip. They go on sale three months ahead of time. We bought ours the day they went on sale. It felt a bit extreme, but it was definitely the right thing to do.
We visited the Hypogeum on January 7 and paid €20 each for tickets. The earliest available last-minute tickets were for January 29, and they cost €50 Euros each.
The Hypogeum is one of the oldest human-made structures on earth, started about 4,500 BCE. To protect the fragile limestone and ensure that the atmosphere does not get acidic from too much carbon dioxide, Heritage Malta allows 10 people per hour into the site 8 times each day. Eighty people a day. That’s it. You lock your cell phone and belongings in a locker before entering. No photos.
I had expected it to be some sort of “place,” and it sort-of is … but not really. From Marsaxlokk to Malta’s capital city of Valletta, we took the #81 bus. It went through Paola, home of the Hypogeum. There is a Hypogeum stop on the system … Hypogeia … but the #81 does not stop there. I asked 10-or-so different people what stop to get off for the Hypogeum, and I got at least 5 or 6 different answers. Not only did nobody really know, most folks had no clue what I was talking about. Imagine getting a response like that when searching for Stonehenge or the Pyramids! That’s why we took an Uber instead.
Here is my take on it. First, it is almost invisible from the outside. It is in a block of traditional Maltese “homes” —- a continuous limestone facade with doors and balconies, but nothing really resembling a free-standing house. The front of the building says “Hypogeum,” but there is no other signage. Once inside, the visitor area is about 20-feet wide with a small shop selling trinkets and a few t-shirts.
This is Paola, the neighborhood of the Hypogeum. It is the antithesis of a tourist trap. Not even many Maltese know it is there. No one could tell us the closest bus stop.
At the top of the hour, a guide calls the ten waiting visitors into a small room where we locked up our possessions, put little plastic bootie protectors over our shoes, and received a box on a necklace set to the language of our choice that narrated the next 45 minutes as we walked down a ramp, through a few “rooms,” and then walked back up. That’s it. Simple but powerfully magical.
No one knew the Hypogeum existed until 1902, when a construction crew building homes broke through into its chamber. When first discovered, the skeletons of an estimated 7,000 people lay inside. But because of the natural moisture and the ravages of time, most of the bones turned to powder when touched. Excavating, exploring, and stabilizing the site took decades of painstaking work.
“The Sleeping Lady” is among the most famous – and most intact – artifacts from the Hypogeum. And of course, the collection includes no shortage of fertility tributes, including a pretty nifty collection of stone genitalia.
Among its many mysteries, rock caverns underground are pitch dark. There were no tell-tales signs of soot on the ceilings when the Hypogeum was found. How did the ancients negotiate the darkness or create light without smoke or soot? Just one of many imponderables.
As I try to describe the experience, I am at a loss for words. I am not even sure what we saw. Here is what I do know: It viscerally linked past and present. The people who built those chambers were everyday human beings, just like us, born several thousand years earlier. Their patience, perseverance, and skill with tools is indescribable. They carved magnificent pieces of art and room-sized chambers with the most pre-historic of tools. Doing so did not take years or decades or lifetimes. It took centuries of one generation after another fulfilling some sort of dream or mission.
The only other place Rebecca and I experienced something similar was at the Effigy Mounds National Monument near McGregor, Iowa. The builders moved dirt one load at a time until they had constructed mounds in the shape of local animals, like bear and deer. Today, those shapes are visible from the air, but appear only as unidentifiable mounds from ground level. Imagine spending a lifetime working on a task that has no beginning and no end, but that engages an entire community, basically forever.
Ggantija is in Gozo, the westernmost island in the 3-island Maltese Archipelago, and a short ferry ride from the island of Malta. This shot shows the southern wall of Ggantija, with the terraced hillsides typical of Malta and Gozo, and the Mediterranean Sea in the background.
Artifacts from Ggantija carved from stone, carved into pottery, and two heads carved from the foot bones of cows.
First, a refresher: We are in Marsaxlokk Malta. Regardless of what you might think from the spelling, Marsaxlokk is pronounced marsa-schlock.
We are here because we wanted to escape the New England cold, and since we are not Florida types, our idea of a good escape is to go someplace we’ve never been where we might have a good adventure or two. This year, we decided on southern Europe, where it is warm for us but off-season to the rest of the world.
We did not know the first thing about Malta … except its weird location in the middle of the Mediterranean between Tunisia and Sicily. I Googled “quaint fishing villages in Malta.” Marsaxlokk popped up, so I Googled how to pronounce it.
I learned that Marsaxlokk is famous for its Sunday open air fish market. We reserved a room in a guest house right at the site of the market and left home on a Wednesday (12/31) so we would have ample time to deal with travel delays and getting acclimated before Sunday. It was one of very few planned destinations.
So now: How to make Kenny happy in one step? Answer: Set him loose in an open-air fish market in a Mediterranean fishing village on a Sunday morning.
Today is Sunday. Last night, I told Rebecca that I wanted to be in bed before 9:00 and wanted to set an alarm for 6:00. She asked if I was crazy. I asked if she wanted to join me for a very early morning stroll as the fish mongers were setting up. She declined. I compromised and set the alarm for 6:30. She slept.
It was all I hoped! At 6:40 this morning, the fish mongers were in place, probably 20 different stalls. Some of the fish were frozen, like most of the octopus, and some was imported, like the swordfish and Norwegian salmon. But most of it – sea bass, eels, shrimp, mollusks, lampuki, (mahi mahi), sardines, mazzola (dog fish), crabs, etc., etc., etc. – were fresh out of the water. Fishing boats lined the wharf along the harbor.
Like everyone else in Malta, the fish mongers could not have been nicer. I watched a monger named Mike skin and prepare mazzola. Later I met his wife, Rumina, who is the primary fish cleaner, and his lovely daughter Mariah, who is a talented graphic designer (who happens to hate fish but helps out her parents at the market every Sunday … and I know she is talented because she showed me pictures of her work). If they hadn’t been so busy, I could have spent the morning with them, but their hands never stopped moving. I plan to stay in touch!
I am sorry we have no cooking facilities in our guest house. I wanted to cook and eat everything …. just like the young Nepalese man standing next to me at one of the stalls who was buying a kilo of this, and kilo of that, and a few kilos of other fishes. I asked if he owned a restaurant. He doesn’t. He just loves fish curry and stocks up every Sunday.
By 7:30 or so, the market was getting crowded. The beautiful displays of fresh fish had been picked over. Every surface had some sort of sign of fish entrails. The crowd of visitors was growing quickly. By 9:00, the crowd was thick. Other vendors hawked every sort of tchotchke you can imagine, from playing cards to underwear. The baked goods were unbelievable. It is now 12:40. I am headed back out to experience the end of the market. 1:20: One stall has a few fish left; the others have either vacated or are washing the last of their containers. The crowd remains thick. I think some of the tchotchke merchants are still arriving and setting up.
All-in-all, a splendid morning. Enjoy the photos….
Dawn breaks over the Marsaxlokk Sunday market….
My new friends … Mike, Rumani, and Mariah Grech…
By 12:30, the fish mongers are cleaning up and disappearing…
But even after the mongers are gone, you can still buy every imaginable kind of tchotchke, from underwear to clothing to accessories to toys to magnets to Maltese knights to fans to socks to more underwear to soap to bedding to Christmas tablecloths to shopping bags to aprons to cosmetics to Chinese vases to Maltese Cross silks to honey to baked goods to more underwear to lizards to post cards to jewelry and even a 4-in-one survival bracelet with a fire starter, a knife, a compass, and a whistle (which I damn-near bought).
That’s All Folks. See you again when the next story rears its head.
Traveling for 18 hours is hard work. Airplane seat designers must delight in demonic sadism, creating seats that are as unsuited as possible for sleeping … and we upgraded to the just-short-of-first-class seats. Like the seats, the so-called “pillows” were designed for maximum discomfort, and the “blankets” not only provided no warmth, they were also too small and kept sliding off. Fortunately for us, the “economy plus” section was empty, so we had plenty of horrible pillows and inadequate blankets to plow through. I think we opened six of those silly bags they give you with pillows and blankets and a bunch of other supposedly helpful stuff like lotions, cloths for cleaning glasses, and lip balm … just the comforts you are longing for when trying to grab, at best, 5 or 6 hours of sleep. Plus, we shared a cabin with the obligatory guy with apnea who kept making desperate vomiting-like sounds before drifting off again. On the glass-is-half-full side, we had no crying babies or unexpected health emergencies, both of which are standard fare for those of us who have flown way-too-many red-eyes. And the sad thing is that it was probably as good as we could have hoped for. Unlike leisurely road tripping and long trips by rail, overnight airplane travel is never about the journey; it is only about the destination.
Now that we have been here for almost a day, 11 hours of which we spent sleeping, it seems that the destination is making the travel miseries worth it. From all initial impressions, Malta is a pretty cool place, and our choice of starting the adventure in Marsaxlokk was a good one. (Time will tell, of course.) And in case you are wondering, Marsaxlokk is pronounced Marsa-schlock.
Part 2: Being Here
I have planned this trip for months … which is amazing since we have nothing really planned except our first four nights in a guest house. (And they have welcomed us to stay longer, which we’ll probably do.) We don’t know how long we’ll stay or where we’ll go from here. We do know that we plan to limit our travels to Malta, Sicily, and southern Italy … unless we don’t, which we will know as soon as it happens.
My first thoughts for winter travel were to spend the winter in Crete. The idea never resonated with Rebecca. For some inexplicable reason, however, Malta did. Check out Malta on a map. It is in a holy-crap-that-is-really-the-middle-of-nowhere location, in the Mediterranean between Sicily and Tunisia. It is one of the smallest countries in the world by both population (575,000) and land area (319 square kilometers), but it is the ninth most densely populated country in the world. By contrast, Grand Isle County Vermont, where we spend most of our time, is larger by land area by almost 50% (515 square kilometers), but has just over 1% of the population, at 7,500 people. For 150 years, from 1814 to 1964, Malta was a British colony, so English is one of its two official languages (along with Maltese) and people drive on the wrong side of the road. Plus, it is a wealthy and safe place where people take great pride in being nice. As countries go, it is proving to be incredibly easy to be in.
Once we agreed on a place, I Googled “quaint fishing villages in Malta.” Marsaxlokk topped the list. (Then I Googled how to pronounce Marsaxlokk since the spelling provided no hint whatsoever.) I learned that Marsaxlokk is not only known for its traditional Maltese fishing boats, called “luzzus,” but also that it has a year-round open air fish market every Sunday throughout the year. Stay tuned. Today is Friday; we still have a bit of a wait to experience the fish market.
Yesterday, we marveled at the harbor and ate an amazing meal along the waterfront. Today, we wandered the waterfront and took pictures. The jury seems to be pretty clear: Marsaxlokk was a perfect choice! It is everything we had hoped it would be. Enjoy our first morning of photos!
The view from our room
Traditional Maltese luzzusand Noah, a 3rd-generation fisherman
I have spent about 30 minutes each day for the past week trying to learn to ride a bike. I have fallen a couple of times; weaved all over the road; run totally out of steam going uphill; and wondered if I will ever master the damn thing.
It’s not just any bike. It’s a BikeE (that is a manufacturer, not an E-bike) LWB OSS recumbent. “LWB OSS” is recumbent bike-speak for Long Wheel Base, Over Seat Steering. “Long Wheel Base” means that the pedals are behind the front wheel rather than in front of it. “Over Seat Steering” means that the bike has handlebars like a conventional bike rather than a steering mechanism below the seat. My new baby has a 16-inch front tire, a 20-inch rear tire, and 27 gears.
My test rides of a few USS bikes – under seat steering – were a joke. Since there’s nothing to hang on to, I couldn’t even get on the bike, much less ride it with any semblance of control. The bike with conventional handlebars at least gave me a sense that this adventure had a chance … even if only roughly equivalent to that of a snowball in hell.
Here’s how I got to this point. A few years ago, I did a fair amount of bicycling. Two things got in the way: 1) the headwinds were sometimes so strong that I had to pedal to go downhill. 2) a neighborhood dog loved chasing me and nipping at my ankles. (I hate the f-er!) The idea of falling off a bike in my 70s held no appeal whatsoever. All I could think was, “That would REALLY hurt!”
The thought of a recumbent tricycle intrigued me. I couldn’t fall off, and the aerodynamics might help to counteract the headwinds. I was right on both counts, and I loved my recumbent three-wheeler. I rode with dog mace to prevent the nipping (though fortunately, I never had to use it) and cruised for hours on the desolate, scenic back roads of my little Lake Champlain island. Then the downsides started to appear. The bike was heavy and slow, which was a nuisance, but not necessarily terminal.
The riding angle of the bike proved to be its fatal flaw. Country roads in northern Vermont are well crowned – high in the middle and low on the shoulders – to help rain water flow, prevent ice build-up, and assist plowing. On a two-wheel bike, when the road bed has a side angle, you just adjust the angle of the bike and you are always sitting straight up. On a trike, you ride at the angle of the road. That is great on a flat road or a bike trail, but not on a crowned country road. Regardless of your direction of travel, your weight is always on your right buttock. After about three years of riding, my butt screamed, “ENOUGH!!!!” I gave myself a case of sciatica that lasted all summer long. Alas, I have not ridden the trike since.
But bicycle riding is just too good an activity to give up easily. After 76 years of reasonably strenuous living, there’s not a part of my body that doesn’t have the capacity to rear its head and reveal types of pain that I never knew existed. Biking is the one physical activity I can do that never hurts (except for one case of sciatica, that is).
Plus, when I told my cardiologist that I walked a lot, he said, “Not good enough. Get an exercise bike.” So I bought a recumbent Schwin. I ride that bike for an hour or more – 15-20 miles – damn near every day and have done so for years. After a few years of basement pedaling, I am growing tired of the scenery … and too much news in the age of Trump can be nauseating.
Time for another change. I can ride the recumbent exercise bike forever (and have done a bunch of 50-mile rides and one full century). Why not try a two-wheel recumbent? It’s low to the ground with a comfortable pedaling position. I can keep myself upright and not worry about sciatica.
I started going to bike shops to learn about recumbents and maybe take some test rides. I didn’t go to just any bike shops, but big, well-stocked, totally knowledgeable bike shops. Nothing! Not a recumbent in stock, and not a sales person or tech who could give me a real information. I was shocked.
I had an ace up my sleeve. My old high school good buddy from Atlanta, Myron Skott, had contacted me a couple of decades ago. He was biking down the east coast from Maine to Key West along the then-new East Coast Greenway in 2004, and he stayed with us as they passed through Boston. He rode a really nifty recumbent and loved it. In fact, he has been riding the same bike for 21 years!
Myron has become my recumbent bike guru. I learned that there are two bike shops in the northeast that specialize in recumbents: The Bicycle Man in Alfred Station, NY, and Mt. Airy Bicycles in Mt. Airy, MD. One is a 7-hour drive away; the other, a 10-hour drive. Off to Alfred I went.
The Bicycle Man was everything you want a bike shop to be: lots of information, plenty of bikes to test ride, utterly passionate, knowledgeable, and low-pressure sales folks. I arrived at 3:00. They close at 6:00. I left with a new (used) bike in the back of the car at 6:15. Had I arrived at 10:00 or noon, I expect I still would have stayed until their 6:00 closing. I am a pretty good talker and have way more than my share of questions. Lee and Stewart were every bit my equal. You guys were great!!!!!
And that brings me back to now. I am riding my new bike every day. After a half-hour or so, I’m spent. There’s just no gas left in the tank. I can now mount the bike on the first try about 75% of the time, and I can almost ride it in a straight line. I am nowhere close to being able to make a short-radius 180˚ turn. There are 4 little hills in my immediate neighborhood (and virtually no cars since most of my neighbors have made their seasonal move south). I can now handle two of the hills most of the time. Yesterday, I made to within about 20 feet of the top of one of the bigger hills. (The day before, I only made it about halfway up.) Today, I made it to the top with ease!. Now I have the 4th hill to conquer: longer and steeper.
Once I master my immediate neighborhood, I’ll hit more back roads. A mind-blowing vista sits atop a good-sized hill two miles from my house. On most days, I should be able to make the ride without passing a car. I hope to make it to the top of that hill and take in the view before the snow flies. Then I’ll wait for spring. There are miles and miles of bikeways and rail trails around me. I hope to explore every mile of all of them.
If only I can learn to ride the damn thing!
Lee The Bicycle Man in Alfred Station, NY with my new toy
Labor Day has passed and some of the maples are starting to turn. Fall officially arrives in a couple of weeks. Soon, it’ll be winter. Rebecca and I are busy planning our cold weather escape.
I’ve always wanted to spend a month in Crete. Rebecca never got keen on the idea. So we moved a tad west and north and have settled on Malta, Sicily, and the boot of Italy. Not only have we never been there, we know precious few people who have. Here is what I know: the villages look magnificent. The off-season hotels are luxurious, readily available, and a fraction of their peak-season price. The two official languages of Malta are Maltese and English. We can fly directly to Luqa Malta, and from the airport, no place is more than about 30-minutes away by bus.
Malta, Sicily, and the toe of the boot of Italy
My good friends Peter and his wife Jody are ridiculous world travelers; they know and love Malta and Sicily but have never been to far southern Italy. My cousin Cooper and his wife Lucy spent a month in Sicily and adored it. Other than my father serving in Foggia in WWII, I don’t know anyone who has visited the far southern boot of Italy. Naples will be way north of our travel range. We’ll go there to fly home and spend a day or two visiting Pompeii … and my father’s time there was not exactly a “visit.”
Malta is the world’s tenth smallest country. Its population of 575,000 is slightly larger than that of the Maldives and slightly smaller than Montenegro. Its land area is 122 square miles. (By contract, Grand Isle County, Vermont covers 195 square miles; from our house, no place in the county is more than about a half-hour away.) It was a British colony from 1813 until 1964, when it gained its independence. Its two official languages are Maltese and English. Language will not be a problem there; too bad they still drive on the damn wrong side of the road!
Early in this decade, conservation efforts successfully re-introduced peregrine falcons to the island. If we are lucky, we may catch a glimpse of a bona fide Maltese Falcon. But, I recently learned, if we want to go in search of falcons, we’d be much better off in New York City. It lays claim to having the largest urban peregrine falcon population in the world. (What better way to manage pigeons, I guess.)
Our first stop will be Marsaxlokk (pronounced marsa-schlock), a very old traditional fishing village with a vibrant year-round Sunday open air market. That will be the only reservation we’ll have when we leave the states. We plan to be “slow travelers,” moving to a new destination when we feel like it, sleeping in guest houses instead of hotels, staying for as long as we want, and meeting as many local folks as we can. The people we meet will be our tour guides, telling us what to visit and helping us plan the next leg of our journey, whatever that might be. We’ll come home at the exact moment we feel like it.
If you happen to be one of the few who knows a bit about Malta, Sicily, the Aeolian Islands, and Italy south of Naples, please be in touch. We really want to pick your brain!
Stock photo of Marsaxlokk harbor. Our room will have a view.
An opening digression: Foodie vs Gourmet vs Gourmand I’ve spent some time thinking about blogging about the ship’s food … which, by the way, is superb.
I love food and eating, so being on a ship with great food is a treat. But I wanted to frame the experience in some uniquely personal way. I’m a “foodie,” I thought. But I balked. I am not sure what a “foodie” is. I like to drink, but that doesn’t make me an alky; I like to drink in moderation, and some alcoholic drinks, like hard lemonade, make no sense to me at all. I like wine, but that doesn’t make me either a connoisseur or a wino; I like drinking wine regardless of whether or not it is very good, and drinking too much of it makes me feel like crap. I like really good, well-prepared food, but flavor always wins out over other variables, like quality; the best meal we ate in Bergen was a grilled sausage from a street vendor. I just like food and flavors and the experience of eating. I love cooking, but I think that is mostly because I love eating. So, does any of that make me a “foodie”?
I went to the expert: Google. I am definitely not a “gourmet” because the foods I love do not have to be of any particular quality or prepared in any certain way, and I certainly do not have a discerning palate. (I know people who can distinguish between types of salt. Not me!!!) Just because something doesn’t taste the way a particular dish is supposed to taste doesn’t mean it is not delicious.
That leaves a choice between “gourmand” or “foodie.” Gourmands, I learned, love food and eating, but err on the side of gluttony. While I assuredly have the capacity to overeat, being a glutton just doesn’t resonate. I guess that leaves “foodie.”
The best Google definition I found describes a foodie as “an amateur who loves food for consumption, study, preparation, and news.” (Like my daughters, I love reading cookbooks!) I’m going with “foodie,” so this description of shipboard food is from the perspective of a foodie, not a gourmet or a gourmand (even though the quantities can be obscene at times.)
Shipboard Fish Feasting The least interesting, least fun meal of the day on the MS Nordkapp is the evening meal … which (sorry to be boring) leads to yet another semantic distinction. “Dinner” is the big meal of the day, regardless of whether it happens in the evening or midday. “Supper” is a lighter meal than “dinner.” So, the least interesting, least fun meal of the day on board is “supper.” Breakfast and lunch kick butt!
“Supper” on the ship is a sit-down experience with a waiter and a choice of three starters, three entrees, and three desserts. Our waiter, Elias, quickly learned that I always asked for two entrees, not because I am interested in the quantity, but because I cannot pass up an available taste!
The food at supper is just fine, but nothing exciting. What makes breakfast and lunch exciting is the variety! Fresh fruit, cured meats, pate, cheeses, breads, pastries, eggs, bacon, side dishes, desserts, all abound. Some of that selection, like the cheeses, excites me; the breads, pastries, and desserts spark little to no interest (though I do suffer through an occasional bowl of custard smothered in fruit compote). But the high point of breakfast and lunch is the superabundance of seafood!
Before this trip, I knew I loved seafood. I had no clue I loved it as much as I do. With almost every meal, we have a couple of kinds of baked salmon, 3 or 4 kinds of smoked salmon, 3 kinds of sprat (a sardine-like Norwegian fish), 4 different kinds of herring, a few different mackerel, occasional platters of cod, haddock, or halibut, and intermittent crab, shrimp, mussels, and fish cakes. A fish lover’s paradise!
I find myself thinking of my maternal grandfather, a man who died when I was one and who I never knew. My mother told me many stories of his love of fish for breakfast, especially eggs and smoked kippered herring. I remember my “smoked kippers phase” and my “sardine phase” as a child. I couldn’t get enough of them; my mother indulged me and had a chance to re-experience the appetites of her father.
Hey Grandpa Joe, I am sorry I never knew you, but I am so happy I inherited your seafood-loving gene. And I am so happy to be on this ship where I can exercise those muscles like they have never been exercised before!
An Appreciation of the Staff The Nordkapp began its journey north from Bergen at 8:30 p.m. (20:30 in European time). We boarded mid-afternoon and settled into our cabin. Dinner the first night was a buffet (my favorite).
A bearded young man in a chef’s hat managed the buffet’s serving area. “Are you the chef?” I asked. “I am one of them,” he replied. “Do you think I can tour the kitchen area,” I countered. “Maybe so,” he replied, “I’ll ask my boss.”
Alas, the boss said “no” because of concerns about hygiene, but a terrific on-board friendship emerged. We’ve giggled, told stories, teased each other, spent part of an afternoon talking about things to do in Oslo, and become friends. Most importantly, Paul has not been just a fun shipmate. He became a bit of a savior.
This adventure has been spectacular in every way except one. The ship line’s IT provider has decided that my personal website and email URL – TheWritingCo.com – is suspected malware, so I cannot use email in my usual ways, and I cannot transfer pictures from my iphone to my computer without going through a long, tedious process. The IT provider has been 100% unresponsive. I’m pissed!!!
Paul volunteered a brilliant solution. He has a personal hotspot connected to his cell phone. I can sign onto wifi through his hotspot, and everything works perfectly. Without Paul, this blog entry would never have been posted. What a good guy!
Having fun with kitchen staff is not limited to Paul. The entire staff has been great. The servers, the table cleaners, the cooks all keep the ship lively, and they have wonderfully diverse personalities. Anna, one of the breakfast buffet tenders, greets me every morning with a sincere “Good morning” and a melt-all-of-your-defenses-away smile. Elias, our evening table server, is a super-nice young man who triggers my inner teacher, coach, and mentor. He just isn’t sure what he wants to do with his life, and he isn’t terribly keen on the idea of higher ed. Henrik is an old pro who ensures that the dining room has been vacated when it’s time for passengers to leave so the crew can finish their work. At first glance, he appears to be serious and no nonsense … then he pulls out his yellow card and red card á la soccer officials to inform passengers about the severity of their infractions. He is a no-nonsense sort who is totally hilarious and super friendly. The list goes on. There’s Jonathan, the French chef who delights in being around food; Marcel, who is insanely pleasant; and Lisbeth, the dining room manager who, like Henrik, manages to combine an aura of super seriousness with an ability to be insanely friendly, pleasant, and authentic.
It is amazing how much attentive professionals can enhance the quality of a dining experience! Thank you all!
Lisbeth, the dining room big boss
Elias, our server and all-around good guy
Reindeer and Cod. More perfection
Jonathan, the aspiring (and super nice) French chef
Henrik, waving his warning card
Sampling delicious blue mussels on deck, well above the Arctic Circle
Paul. THE BEST!!!!!! And someone I hope we stay in touch with for the duration.
Background I am writing this post from cabin #321 aboard the MS Nordkapp, one of the Hurtigruten Line’s Coastal Express ships that sails from Bergen, Norway to Kirkenes, at the Russian border, and back to Bergen. A few important things happen on the journey: we cross the Arctic Circle and sail past “Nordkapp,” the North Cape, just north Honningsvag, the northernmost city in Europe. (Last year, FYI, we went to Sandy Hook, the northernmost point in New Jersey. We also went to Key West, the southernmost point in the continental US, and we’ve been to Anchor Point Alaska, the westernmost highway in the U.S. But now I am just bragging. Those places have nothing to do with Norway or dirty laundry.)
To escape the frigid cold of the northeast, we wanted to do something new. Rebecca had taken a cruise before and was lukewarm on the experience. I had never been on a cruise ship and had little desire. So, we did the only logical thing, we booked a cruise to sail to the Arctic in search of Aurora Borealis, the Northern Lights. (Stay tuned. I am rapidly falling in love with my iphone camera!)
Back to Dirty Laundry We have so many reasons to be close to home, not the least of which is that grandson Elliott celebrated his 7th birthday in our absence. We missed celebrating with him. Plus, when we arrived at the ship, they gave everyone a wifi password and ID. Everything worked except my personal email. I hope to get this post announced as we travel. We’ll see.
We are cruising on a ship, but Hurtigruten ain’t Carnival! Instead of casinos and entertainment centers, our ship is more of a coastal Norwegian ferry, carrying cargo and cars and passengers making their way up the coast. We have lectures about the local culture and sights and tastings of local food. Nature provides most of our entertainment. Instead of a few thousand people on board, we have a few hundred. The crew lets us know of a Northern Lights sighting, but it’s up to us to get clad for winter weather and onto deck to see it.
Being a little homesick on a trip like this doesn’t feel too weird. We are a long way from anything familiar. It’s really cold out. When we make our turn to head back south, we will be three kilometers from the Russian border at the northernmost tip of Europe. We are north of any Norwegian train lines. We don’t know a soul. We don’t know the language. The mountains are stark. The sea is treacherous.
Thank goodness for dirty laundry.
We planned all of our packing around doing laundry. We’re gone for 20 days. We started the trip with a day of travel and three days in Bergen; we end the trip with three days in Oslo and another day of travel. If we did laundry on the first full day of cruising, we would need 5 sets of shirts and underwear. (Trousers can go a lot longer between washings.) If we wash on the first day of our cruise, sometime in the middle, and on the last day, we have clean clothes the entire time. I checked with Hurtigruten about on-board laundry. They have five or six washers and dryers for passengers. (That is about as up-scale as Hurtigruten gets. We stop in 33 different ports, once going north and once going south for a total of 65 stops, most of them lasting for 10 or 15 minutes; we get off and wander once a day … on most days. This is a work-horse of a ship. Thank goodness we can wash our own clothes for just $3 a load … and they provide the soap!)
Yesterday was laundry day #1. Rebecca did not feel 100%, so I did the washing, drying, and folding. It was unbelievably satisfying. Washing our clothes helped me realize that even though we are almost 4,000 miles from home in a strange land with a hostile climate, we have the anchor of OUR clothes still needing to be washed and folded. Doing the laundry gave me a sense of stability and predictability. It provided a moment of knowing that despite all that is different, things are really pretty much the same.
myinnersociologist 