Category: Blog

Or, really it is the same walk several times, four attempts with the same goal, and a double dent summit! Huh? Read on…

Our “I don’t want to go far or put too much effort in” walk was to go to Longlands Lake, just outside of Cleator Moor. It was a quick drive there, never too many people (although there were these two little ones out with their grandparents for a walk one morning…I wanted to hug them…then I got sad missing our two grandkids – and our kids!) and somehow it just instilled a sense of peace. We were there several different times, in different weather, but it always was a good walk!

In Cumbria, the hills are called Fells. I’m sure there’s an ancient reason for that. And the area where we were (and maybe on other hilltops), the summits have rock cairns built on them. It’s kind of nice because you have a visual goal to keep you going up the hill! One day we decided we would climb not one, but two fells! Which wouldn’t have been so bad except you have to go down to go back up. Ugh. Plus it was a misty day so the views weren’t so great. But we did have an excellent sense of accomplishment😁

We kept meaning to do that hike again but never got to it. But the last one is the hike we did over and over…mainly because we had a goal that was proving elusive! Shortly after we arrived in Cumbria we heard about the coastal path (which is different from the coast to coast path, but both begin at the same point) that started, or I guess ended too, at St Bee’s beach. As we began the hike we could see a lighthouse way off in the distance – this was our goal. We discovered that it was further away than we thought! So, on the first attempt we did not make it – although we still got a great hike in. And met loads of very nice cows and sheep as we walked through their fields.

The next three attempts to reach the lighthouse were begun from Whitehaven instead of St Bee’s. Why? It was closer to us, that’s all. From either direction it is a gorgeous hike along the coast. When it’s clear you can see the Isle of Man to the west and an arm of Scotland to the north. On the fourth (and final) attempt we finally made it to the lighthouse. It’s not that the hike was difficult or anything – we just never allowed enough time!

Did we take a photo of the lighthouse when we finally reached it? Um, no. But we did make it there I promise!

Our time in Cumbria had come to an end. It was time to load up the car and move ourselves across the country to York.

Maybe I’m out of my titling slump. Or maybe not?

This final weekend outing from our base in Cleator Moor came about because our guide at Chester’s Fort, Paul, suggested we see Bamburgh Castle. We really loved Northumberland and were excited at the opportunity to see more of the county. However, I also have to say – we were tired. We kept a pretty fast pace in London, did a few moderately strenuous hikes near Cleator Moor (I’ll share those next post), plus traveled every weekend. One last weekend of craziness though! Throughout this week we had also been in communication with the rental car company as the tire pressure light was still randomly turning on (UGH!!!!). Since we were traveling back across the country (again) we made arrangements to trade out the car at the Newcastle Upon Tyne airport. While it was several times larger than the Kerry Airport in Ireland, the basic set up of it was surprisingly similar! We were happy to see the last of that Citroen.

Once the car situation had been taken care of, we continued our journey to the North up the A1. Our first destination on this trip had to be carefully planned as access is tide dependent. We were going to Lindisfarne, also known as Holy Island. This is one of those places that has floated around in my head for who knows how long. One of those “it would be really cool to go there but when are we ever going to be in THAT area?” places. Lindisfarne is considered to be the birthplace of Christianity in Britain (a step or two behind Ireland – but we will leave THAT alone!). I won’t go into too much detail here, but there were these dudes: Cuthbert, Aidan, Oswald. And they did a lot of good stuff, mostly helping people. They were living on this tiny island, happily doing their thing at their priory, along come the Vikings – and they have to start all over again because the Vikings are rude. This time though they build their church and other buildings from stone which is a bit more Viking proof. I’m going to leave the story there, but there is more to it which I will cover when we go to Durham😁You are welcome to independently study though. Back to Lindisfarne Island…very cute little place. Killer blackberry gelato! We arrived just as the road to the island opened after the tide had receded. Very strange feeling to drive on a narrow road with water lapping at the sides! It was obvious that someone had come through and cleared the seaweed to the sides too (I imagine that would be very slick to drive on!).

Upon leaving Lindisfarne we headed back south but elected to drive along the coast route. Gorgeous drive…and this was the weekend of a huge charity walk on the coastal route, so we got a very leisurely look at the coast as we inched along! Sigh. As I mentioned at the beginning this whole weekend plan came about because of a mention of Bamburgh Castle. We intended to stop at Bamburgh, really, we did! However, it was one of the stops for the charity walk. While it looked like precautions were being taken, it also looked like one massive superspreader event! So we drove slowly past the castle, admired the very cute village, and continued on our way.

Our base for this weekend was in Alnwick (leave off the w to say it correctly), which has been the base of the Percy family (Dukes of Northumberland) since 1309. The village grew up around the castle, as villages are wont to do. Cute town. But, the castle…oh my….Alnwick Castle is magnificent! I think part of that stems from the fact that the castle has been lived in the entire time it has existed. Yes, it’s been modernized, and it doesn’t look like it did in 1309, but it also doesn’t look like a Victorian idea of a medieval castle. It is massive – I can’t imagine what it takes to keep the place in repair. The Percy family has managed to make the castle a fun place to visit, without it feeling like a caricature. My hat is off to them for this achievement. Of course, the fact that it is so incredibly castley means you will likely recognize it 🤩

Our other site of exploration was going out to Dunstanburgh Castle. This one has a funny story behind it. It was built by the Earl of Lancaster, beginning in 1313. His goal? Make a castle bigger than Bamburgh. He did succeed, and it must have been impressive! The castle located along the North Sea coast about a mile outside of the tiny (but seriously cute) village of Craster. The only way to get to the castle is to walk that mile – through the grazing sheep and cattle!

Next post I’ll give a glimpse of our hikes near Cleator Moor and Whitehaven. Then it will be time to say goodbye to Cumbria and hello Yorkshire!

For some reason I’m having brain block against picking less sedate titles. Boring. Maybe it’s all the fresh air we’ve been getting after being in London or something.

The latest polls of the British people are ranking Cumbria holidays higher than Devon or Cornwall this year and we definitely get why – although getting to Cornwall and Devon are high on our list 😁Cumbria is beautiful. The coast is rugged with some wide, sandy beaches, the hills (and some things that could be loosely called “mountain”) are a mixture of lush green and stone and there are lakes everywhere (imagine that!). As is our habit, we headed out for the weekend to explore – this time focusing on the classic tourist areas of the Lake District. We have been asked how we pick the places we go. The answer is…there isn’t a consistent answer. For this particular weekend we knew where we would end up, Keswick (don’t acknowledge the w, it’s only there to shine a spotlight on foreigners), as we had an appointment for Sunday afternoon. Our next step is to look at Google maps. What’s between here and there? What is near there? Sometimes we consult guide books, other times we check out other blogs, sometimes we just guess! Keswick isn’t really that far from us, therefore we wanted to head farther away. And there was this ruined abbey other bloggers were gushing about. Okay, we will go there. And then it builds – most famous lake (Windermere), cutest town, etc.

The drive from our base to Furness Abbey was definitely adventurous. We elected not to take the direct route so we could follow the coast a bit more. That was an interesting drive. Interesting like “what’s the most impossible things we could expect of a driver” kind of interesting. I used a lot of bad words. Big trucks coming at you, one lane bridges, one lane corners (oh, those are rather terrifying). The Husband actually got a bit queasy. Ah, but Furness Abbey. Oh man, how I wish I could have seen it before 1538. What a spectacular place. And even though it is a ruin the vibe of the place is fantastic. I have walked into some fantastic buildings, usually churches, that are marvelous, but they lack something that is for lack of a better word, a soul. But when that feeling is there the whole place lights up with it. Furness Abbey has it.

The Abbey was an amazing place to visit – which was a good thing considering the event that followed. It was lunchtime, we were hungry and so we headed into Barrow in Furness. At which point yours truly managed to do this:

This little nasty thing made the tire flat almost immediately. Two things we were grateful for: it wasn’t Sunday (it was Saturday) and we were in a city – the only city around! But it was Saturday afternoon. And it started raining. Sigh. And the rental car company wasn’t answering their phone. We got a little guidance from the British Automobile Association but not much. It became quite the ordeal! But, in the end, the police were very helpful, we got it replaced (oh yeah, not fixable), and got back on the road – a few hours later. Then the tire pressure light kept coming back on. UGH. We checked the pressure regularly and it was fine but that so added to the stress of the day! I’m not mentioning the rental company name as after all this they did their best to make things right even though it wasn’t their fault I got the flat. We did appreciate it. However, when we finally arrived at our hotel I did announce that someone had better get me a drink!

We stayed that night in Arnside, which is an itty bitty village on Morecambe Bay at the southern end of the Lake District. The tide there is super fast and high when it comes in – it can be very dangerous! It was peaceful and beautiful when we were there though, We stayed at the cutest little in called The Ye Olde Fighting Cocks as it used to be a cock fighting ring. Disgraceful sport but it is a part of the history of the area. And the inn was fabulous!

The next morning we continued our journey up through the Lake District. We didn’t have time to stop in all the great towns along the way, but we did drive through Windermere (the largest of the lake towns), Ambleside (this looked super cute!) and Gresmere. We drove along the shore of Lake Windermere and the smaller lakes on the way to Keswick (don’t pronounce the w) and Derwentwater. For Father’s Day I gave the Husband a new toy – a real camera. Now it’s up to him to learn how to use it! We arranged to take a hiking/photography lesson with Jay Gilmour ( https://www.jaygilmour.co.uk/ ), nature photography extraordinaire. What an amazing, educational, fascinating experience! We both learned a great deal about composition, light, framing and an endless array of other photography details. And the incredible natural beauty around us certainly made it easy.

We really liked Keswick and we loved the hotel we stayed at there! The Royal Oak has been a coaching inn of some kind since at least the 16th century. In the 1700s and 1800s it attracted many of the well known poets and writers of the time including: Taylor, Coleridge, the Wordsworths, Tennyson and Robert Louis Stevenson! Definitely some literary giants. The rooms were incredibly comfortable and the restaurant was excellent. All in all we did well this weekend with our choices! However, with all of the photographing we did we failed abysmally at photos of Keswick itself!

Our final stop on this weekend was at the Castlerigg stone circle. There are several of these circles (like Stonehenge, just smaller) throughout England. This one is just outside Keswick. It’s not very grand now but I’m certain it was incredible thousands of years ago!

All in all another fabulous weekend (minus the whole tire saga)! I have created a bit of a monster by buying the Husband that camera though…he may need a separate suitcase to carry all of his gear….

We had two reasons for choosing for this far flung little town: its proximity to the Lake District and its proximity to Hadrian’s Wall. And it was cheap so we could afford to have a car the entire time we were here. So I guess that makes three reasons. Whatever. The town (village?) of Cleator Moor doesn’t have much to recommend itself. It’s fine, nothing against it, but nothing really for it either. But the flat feels massive after the tiny place in London! It is also very near the coast which I will detail in another post (along with some other hikes we have done). I’m going to try not to make these posts into big, long, epics…

One thing of note in Whitehaven (the larger town near us), which we just happened to have stumbled upon was this:

Anyway, so Hadrian’s Wall. Ever since the Husband and I began talking about visiting England and Scotland he made it very clear that we were to pay a visit to Hadrian’s Wall. I knew of it and who built it (um…Hadrian???) but I did not know that much about it. I know more now! The Roman Emperor Hadrian ordered the construction of the wall in 122 AD (or CE, whichever you prefer) to mark the farthest northwest corner of the Roman Empire. The warriors of Caledonia were a headache the Romans didn’t wish to deal with, plus a wall controlled who could access Britannia and the Roman Empire (for taxes and customs duties of course!). The wall stretches the entire width of the island at its narrowest point – a little over 70 miles. It was 15 feet high with watchtowers and small forts along its length. About every 10 miles was a fort of varying sizes, with the largest being Vindolanda – although Vindolanda was not along the wall itself. Thousands of Roman troops were stationed here, plus their families and the craftspeople needed for such a large operation. The town of Vindolanda plus the forts at Birdoswald, Chesters and Housesteads are near to each other and easy to visit. There are many other fort along the wall but we did not make it to them.

We began our adventure in Carlisle, which sits right on the Scottish border (English side). It’s a small city with an early medieval cathedral and the most besieged castle in all of the British Isles. The castle was built in 1093 atop an earlier Roman fort, with significant improvements in the 1200s and 1300s. Mary, Queen of Scots was held prisoner there from 1567-1568. King David I of Scotland died there in 1153. While not large and impressive like many castles, it was well presented with interesting stories.

Next up was Carlisle Cathedral. It is the second smallest of the medieval cathedrals in England. Construction began in 1122, with additions in the 13th and 14th centuries. It’s pretty. It didn’t reach in and grab at my soul like some old churches do, but it was pretty and I’m glad we went there.

After our few hours spent in Carlisle it was time to begin the Hadrian’s Wall stuff. First stop – Vindolanda. Incredible place. This was the main support town for the troops stationed at the wall. The town had an estimated 5,000 residents and existed prior to the construction of the wall. In fact, Hadrian himself stayed there. Pretty cool stuff.

We left Vindolanda and continued east. I don’t recall at what point I realized that we were seeing the wall snaking along the tops of the hills, but we were fascinated by the sight! The Husband recognized the lone sycamore tree spot – Sycamore Gap. Apparently every one but me remembers it from the Kevin Costner Robin Hood movie…although I would like to point out that Nottingham is no where remotely close to this place.

We had this grand plan: we were going to hike 12 miles of the wall. We both have good hiking shoes. Raincoats. Athletic gear. But we are not serious hikers – not even close. When the weather forecast looked horrible (heavy rain plus thunder) we chickened out. Yeah, so we’re wimps.

We (okay, I) pride myself on finding wonderful places to stay when we have these weekends exploring. Yes, we were just a couple of hours away from our Airbnb, but there was a lot of exploring to do! I thought I had found a great place – and I was wrong. Now, normally maybe it is a great place, but post-lockdown, maybe a shortage of employees, I don’t know what, it wasn’t a great choice. It was fine and that was it. But my dinner find that first night – now that rocked!! It was a pub out in the middle of nowhere. Fortunately I had booked a table a couple of weeks earlier because it is definitely a busy place. Even with the name: The Rat Inn. Anyway, back to Hadrian’s Wall.

The next day we went back along the wall to Housestead’s. I think this was my favorite of the forts we visited although I’m not certain why. It sits up on a hill and the wall extends off of either side. The hill has a fairly steep drop on the northern side so it very defensible.

The next stop was the town of Hexham. Cute place. And the Hexham Abbey – oh yeah – was fantastic. When Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries Hexham was converted into the town church. There was no destruction and very little defacement. This made me happy. It was constructed in 674 – yes, that is 674 – with most of the upper bits redone in the 1200s. The crypt is original. I did try to bribe my way into it. Unsuccessfully. They are doing conservation work down there unfortunately.

It was a fun, and educational weekend. We had a final stop at Chester’s Fort. This one had a different approach as we had hired a local man to act as our guide. Paul and his wife have a fabulous looking bed and breakfast that was fully booked for this weekend (total bummer!), however, Paul also gave guided tours of the local sites. He was able to give us a great deal of additional information on Hadrian’s Wall, the construction of the wall, the forts and directed us to a few more hidden areas. Definitely a wise investment!

We are incredibly grateful to have had the ability to see these sights. It is such a removed part of the country, many tourists don’t have the time to travel somewhere like this. Bucket list: Hadrian’s Wall – check.

Ah, a month to truly explore London has been absolutely wonderful. And there is so much we didn’t get to. It would take years to feel like you have been to every corner of this city! I have immense gratitude that we have had the time in that incredible place. However, the piggy bank seems to have rapidly emptied –

Our final weekend fell over Father’s Day (at least it was in the US) so I wanted it to be special. We enjoyed Sunday brunch at The Ivy in Kensington. While they do have a dress code (mostly just don’t wear athletic gear) it was not stuffy at all and the food was amazing! The atmosphere was very relaxed and the restaurant was beautiful. Nicest freaking restaurant bathroom I think I’ve ever been in! Didn’t take photos though – I was a bit concerned that might be construed as weird. We had a few errands to run over in the Piccadilly Circus area, so we combined that with a nice walk before making our way over to Rotherhithe Village – definitely an area off the normal tourist path! Rotherhithe you may ask? Why? There is always a reason and, as usual, it is an historical one. We were having an early dinner at the Mayflower Pub. Granted, when it opened – around 1550 – it wasn’t called the Mayflower then, it was…ahem…The Spread Eagle. In July of 1620 a ship departed from its mooring in Rotherhithe, making its way to Southampton, on to Plymouth and from there across the Atlantic Ocean where they stubbed their little toe on a pebble called Plymouth Rock (still gets my vote for biggest disappointment in a historical site). Yep, this is where the Mayflower began its voyage and Captain Christopher Jones was from Rotherhithe. The pub is likely the last place the crew and passengers were before boarding the ship. Pretty cool, huh? If you have the documentation you can sign their book of Mayflower descendants. The Husband is a descendent but lacks the proof, so we simply enjoyed being there. Excellent pub too, definitely worth the trek. Once we were done with dinner we headed to the West End of London as we were fortunate enough to be going to a play. Most of the theatre productions weren’t on until after we left (there were several we would have liked to see), but Six was playing. Oh man…a comedic musical about Henry VIII’s six wives – perfect! It was utterly brilliant. In fact we enjoyed it so much we bought the soundtrack😁

Just down the road from our flat was St. Mary’s Hospital – I might have mentioned this in an earlier post. You know, you can walk by something daily and then, all of a sudden, you notice a detail that you can’t believe that you have missed! That something missed was one of London’s famous blue plaques that state someone or something famous or historical is associated with that location. And it only detailed one of the most significant events in modern history…

Yeah, so now I wonder what else I have missed.

We had two places to go this last week, one was for me, one was for the Husband. First off, The British Library Treasures Collection. Fortunately, the British government has been pretty good keeping important documents – and the structures where they were kept have not burned down, which is rather an impressive feat. The one issue with sharing this visit with others is the items don’t always photograph well.

The place we went at the Husband’s request was to the Museum of Natural History. The collection began in the 1700s as curiosities, later coming together as a serious museum in the mid 1800s. The main building is from 1880 and is quite beautiful. It has, of course, been added on to since then! The paleontology department is not a strong section – understandable as shipping massive dinosaur skeletons to England would not have been easy! There are a few species of dinosaurs that lived in the British Isles so they are represented. Honestly, it’s their collection of animals and wildlife that are astounding. They no longer are adding to this collection, so some of the specimens are nearing 200 years old. There is even a dodo bird! The entrance to the earth sciences section is dramatic and quite impressive!

And this brings our time in London to a close. There’s thousands more photos that I didn’t share (these posts are long enough!) – so much to see! Thank you London and thank you to my wonderful Husband for being okay with me spending a ridiculous amount of money for this experience😊😎

As if this post isn’t long enough, because I am still two weeks behind in sharing…we took 3 days to make an 8 hour drive to get to our next landing spot – here’s some of the highlights. They each really deserve their own post but we just did not spend enough time in the locations.

To sum up the trip: car to Heathrow T5 to pick up rental (go figure, that was actually the cheapest option!), drive to Oxford -walking tour of a little bit of the University (we need at least three days to properly see Oxford!), drive towards the upper corner of the Cotswolds – need way more time here! – night at the White Hart Royal Hotel. Next day drive Stratford Upon Avon – which we surprisingly loved! – then to Wrexham since I couldn’t find a room in Chester (our destination for the next day). The plus of this is Wrexham is actually in Wales😁 Another location to add to my Places Been app! Spent some time in Chester the next day before the last stretch of driving. And the final third of that drive was on 4 digit roads. A brief explanation of that: one or two digit roads are major roads (M6, A66), three digit roads are still pretty decent but are definitely more rural. Four digit roads are the ones that might be two lanes of traffic but that doesn’t mean that two cars can comfortably pass each other. And there might be stone walls on either side of the road. And that RV or large delivery truck might be partially in your lane. And there are multiple sharp corners, blind everythings, and general opportunities for using four letter words. Fun times. We finally reached our final destination of Cleator Moor, a very small village between the north western edge of the Lake District and the Irish Sea. This is home for the next 4 weeks.

Oxford University is made up of more than 30 different colleges. The structure of Oxford (and that other university in England that starts with a C. I promised I wouldn’t mention both names in the same post) is completely unlike any other university that I know of. Each college is an individual entity – rooms, dining hall, small group teaching, socializing. The students attend large lectures with students from other colleges at different points during the school week

Next stop was to pay my respects to Master Shakespeare – YAY!!

And, the last bit. Congratulations if you made it this far! We spent a few hours in Chester – another cathedral town and intact medieval city…with the added bonus of still having it’s Roman walls!

We are now in Cleator Moor and I am going to get caught up. I hope…

The third week got off to an outstanding start with a long stroll from the Tower Hill Tube stop, across Tower Bridge – which just happened to be closed to traffic on that Sunday! – and down along the south bank of the Thames. It was a gorgeous day with just enough people out for it to be interesting without feeling crowded. There is a fabulous walking path along the river on that side, so it is a very pleasant area. We did have an end goal for this walk which I will get to shortly…

On the south bank of the Thames is Southwark (sutherk) Cathedral. There’s been a church on the site since about the 6th century, with the current structure dating from 1000 – 1200. When it was built I’m certain it was the largest building around. Now it is strangely surrounded by other, just as tall buildings. You can’t really see it until you wind your way back into the alley like area! Because of this oddity we didn’t get any decent exterior photos. And my photographer, ahem, decided to take the majority of the photos in vertical rather than landscape, which just look weird on the blog – hence why I try not to use them! So, long way to say I’m not showing many photos of the church here. One other interesting bit of trivia – this the church where a man named John Harvard was baptized and attended services. He later moved to Massachusetts – there’s a little university named for him.

Our walk to this point was wonderful, but we had an end goal. As is likely rather obvious, I adore Shakespeare’s plays. I know the tragedies and the comedies better than the historical ones and I love them all. So, what better event was there than to get to go to the replica (as exact as was possible – including a thatched roof. There has not been a thatched roofed building allowed in London since 1666) of the Globe Theatre?

We saw The Tempest – played as Master Shakespeare would have imagined the play to have been presented. Amazing experience indeed!

The city of Londinium, as the Romans called it, was surrounded by defensive walls. The walls were still used for defensive purposes well into the 1600s. It wasn’t until the 1700s that some of the wall sections were removed, and those were mostly removed to improve traffic access in and out of the city. Over the course of the last 300 years more sections have been removed. However, several chunks are still standing – mostly through Aldgate, Moorgate and the Barbican. We spent a morning hunting down as many of those sections as we could find 😁

And a couple of cool things we came across on our walk –

I was nearly done subjecting the Husband to museums (for this trip) – only a few left😁 This week it was the National Gallery. Unfortunately, the National Portrait Gallery is closed for a couple of years for significant renovations – bummer. But I hadn’t been to to the National Gallery before! All of the public museums in London are free admittance, although most ask for donations. With COVID precautions you do have to book a date and time for entry. I hope this process continues as it helps with crowding! There are a few Botticellis, some amazing drawings by Raphael, a couple of spectacular Van Goghs…and the Virgin of the Rocks by Da Vinci – which is even more stunning in person than I could have imagined.

I permitted the Husband a day of rest before dragging him to the Victoria and Albert Museum – see how thoughtful I am? The V & A is an amazing mixture of art and historical objects from many time periods and many different civilizations. It would probably take a couple of days to really take it all in – the place is massive! The main reason we were going was for the incredible medieval section and the Cast Court. The Cast Court occupies two of the largest rooms I have ever been in – but what is in these rooms you may ask? Plaster casts of some of the world’s most iconic statuary, architecture, tombs and many, many other items. In the late 1800s travel was only for the rich so the thought was to bring the world’s great sites to the people. We have had the opportunity to see the real versions of some of these items – the copies are pretty spectacular. And a side benefit is that some items that have been ravaged by the elements in the last 150 years or so (or lost to destruction) can be seen without the later damage.

We also just took a walk…not that we weren’t walking everyday! But, this was just a walk. After reading a lot of Regency period romance novels in my youth I wanted to walk some of the areas that I had read about. Corny, I know…fun though! We also walked though some more through the City of London, which is different from the London Metropolitan area. Ah, I will never tire of this!

Our last big adventure was to go to Canterbury. Wow. Just wow. It’s amazing how much of the medieval town is still there. Canterbury Cathedral is stunning. It’s also heart-breaking when you realize all the history that was lost during the Reformation. It was also another case of traveling to a famous historical site, only to find it covered in scaffolding!

Another fabulous week done. One more week left. Only 72,539 steps – we’re getting lazy!

Oh man, two weeks gone already. I love this place though. Is it noisy? Yes. Is it dirty? Sometimes. But there is just something about it that I adore. And then there’s the history of course. What a combination of modern and ancient 🥰 We have been incredibly fortunate with the weather too, which is so very nice.

So where did we go the second week? Windsor Castle, explored Kensington area, Westminster Abbey, British Museum (Again. Twice), explored Sloane Square area through Belgravia and popped into Harrod’s. I told you…I’m not going to waste a single moment of our time here! If we are not working we are walking😁

Windsor Castle. It was as amazing as I thought it would be. It is the largest inhabited castle in the world. It is also the oldest inhabited castle in the world, and has been regarded as a home for the monarch since Henry I became king (1100). His father, William the Conqueror, began construction after 1066 on the site of an earlier Saxon castle. OMG, I love this old stuff💕

The following day we walked through Hyde Park some more (it’s huge) to the Kensington neighborhood. We enjoyed taking the time to wander interesting looking streets, small parks, cute shops…and Whole Foods! So much was familiar, a lot was just a bit different and few things really should be at American stores. Fun stuff. We also have discovered our favorite restaurant – Da Mario. Best Aperol Spritz I’ve ever had too. And I’ve had a lot of Aperol Spritz…

The following day it was finally time to go to Westminster Abbey. YAY!! And they are now allowing photos from inside – double YAY! The first time I was here with the Brother and we scoured every inch of the place. This time we had to follow a prescribed path (COVID) and one important (for me) area was closed – Elizabeth I tomb was not accessible. It is a very small area, so I understand, but I was sad. Every English monarch since 1066 (William the Conqueror) has been crowned at Westminster. And the chair used at every coronation since 1308 is there too. It’s pretty awesome.

I do have to say that it took immense restraint not to post hundreds of photos of Westminster…

Okay, on to other places. The British Museum was having two exhibitions that we both wanted to see: one on Nero (emperor of Rome as opposed to awesome little black kitty – miss him so much) and the other on St Thomas a Becket. We didn’t have enough time to see both on a single morning – so, two more trips to the BM! The first one was the exhibit on Nero, and it took a very different look at his life than we have encountered previously. This exhibit took the approach that the awful things history has recorded regarding Nero were done as a smear campaign against him. Hmmm. Whether true or not, it was a beautifully presented and well explained exhibit!

After this, the Husband whined that I was running him ragged so he was allowed a day off from being on the go ☺Only one day off though as we went back to the BM for the St Thomas a Becket exhibit. I’m not going to try to explain too much of the history here as I am long winded enough without expanding on subjects that I find extremely interesting – yes, this is me utilizing brevity. So, for your own education https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Becket . A very brief summary: in 1170 King Henry II and the Archbishop of Canterbury (Thomas Becket) were feuding over the dividing line between the Crown and the Church. One day King Henry (possibly) said “will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?”. Four of his knights decided to take matters into their own hands, rode to Canterbury Cathedral and killed him in the church. In Henry’s defense he does seem to have been rather horrified by their actions – not that they killed Becket, but that they did it in the church.

On Friday we just did a bit of wandering over in the Sloane Square/Belgravia area. I do believe this is the area of London with the highest concentration of Rolls Royce/Bentley/Lamborghini in the city. Did you know that Lamborghini makes an SUV? Yep. I’ll try to get pictures of one at some point! We also made the Husband’s inaugural visit to Harrod’s. The following is just random photos we took that day –

And then there was the trip to Greenwich. I really like Greenwich. I’m not so sure I would like it on a summer’s day with the normal volume of tourists, but it is a super cute place with loads to see. It’s easy enough to travel back into the main part of the city – I would consider staying out that direction.

Our time in London is half over! And this week…79,057 steps. Still so much to see…I know I won’t get it all done but I’m trying.

Yep, first week. In London! I have waited so long for this. When the Husband and I were first discussing this crazy idea of travelling I made a list of Cities That I Wanted to Spend An Extended Amount Of Time In. Most of them are European, yes, but not all. However, London was at the top of the list. Sixteen years ago the Brother and I spent three crazy (and oh so hot…temps in the 90s) days here. While I reveled in all that we managed to see I knew there was so much more that we didn’t see. And I wanted the time to just wander the streets of the different areas of London. And that time is now 😁

The weather has been exceptional which has been an utter gift. Of course, we arrived at the start of half term, so all the kids were out of school. Plus the first Monday was a Bank Holiday. And the people of the UK seem to be taking advantage of the low number of tourists to get out and see their historical sites, so places were a bit more crowded than we expected. Not that I can blame them!

I can say that we are doing our best not to waste time here. We head out first thing in the morning, getting back to our flat just in time for the Husband to begin work. No problem hitting our 10,000 steps – and last Sunday was 20,000 steps. Other than good exercise this walking is making me realize that the knee replacement is not as far off in the future as I wanted it to be. Ewwww. But, I am in England so I shall do as the English do and soldier on! Stiff upper lip and all that. Whatevs.

On to the photos then! What did we do…hop on hop off bus on Sunday to remember exactly where everything is located. Went to the Tower of London on Monday (since it was a holiday we had all day to wander!) and had our COVID tests (negative!). Tuesday was spent at the British Museum. Wednesday was devoted to various errands (how boring, but I was REALLY glad to get my nails done). Thursday we went to Kensington Palace, Friday was a historical walking tour. Yikes!! And there is so much more on my list to be done!!

First off, some scenes from around town:

And then there was the Tower…

Monday saw us at the Tower of London. I do love this place and it was fun to take the Husband through the various significant events that occurred at the Tower. Even though I know it doesn’t look exactly as it did in 1554, standing at Traitor’s Gate and picturing a terrified Princess Elizabeth being imprisoned at the Tower by her sister, Queen Mary, strikes a deep emotional chord in me. With the Yeoman Warders (Beefeaters) not giving tours (sad! They are so entertaining) I was concerned that we would not have access to St Peter ad Vincula church – I worried in vain as we were able to go in 😁 Anne Boleyn, Catherine Howard and Lady Jane Grey are buried under the altar there. And, happily, my method for getting to the Royal Jewels still worked…I’m not telling, but we had it to ourselves…

Well, geez, this is turning into a really long post…Tuesday we spent the morning at the British Museum. This was a very different experience than my previous trip with the COVID precautions in place.

I was on the fence on whether we would go tour Kensington Palace or not. It’s super close to our flat but I was iffy on it. Then I found out about an exhibition that was opening the day we were thinking of going and that decided it.

And this is what helped me to make the decision to go to Kensington Palace. For the first time in 25 years, the wedding dress of Diana, Princess of Wales was on display. The wedding that I got up to watch in the middle of the night. I can’t imagine how her sons feel to see this dress.

I shall end by stating that we walked 76,492 steps this week. And still put in our work hours!!

Iceland. The land of ice and fire. It’s a pretty awesome slogan. It is also a very, very accurate statement! A vast amount of the interior of the island (with little to no inhabitants) is covered by glaciers. And some of those glaciers cover volcanoes. Which is rather illogical to my geologically uneducated brain. I acknowledge this and move on.

Every so often Iceland needs to let off some of its built up – not steam, it steams all the time – but its “bad humours” (as the medieval medical establishment used to say). It needs to spew lava. As I have mentioned previously, there are 31 active volcanoes on that island. For whatever reason none of these existing volcanoes was an acceptable location for the current release of magma pressure. On 19 March a fissure opened up in the ground near the Fagradalsfjall mountain on the Reykjanes Peninsula, which is just across the bay (sort of a bay) from Reykjavik.

The original fissure has stopped erupting and there have been four additional fissures with mounds pushed up out of the earth. Geologists in Iceland have jokingly called this a Tourism Eruption as it is not near any towns, nor is it threatening anything. It’s out in the middle of nowhere, happily erupting and helping to draw people to come to Iceland. It’s also in an area where it is a relatively easy hike to get to (although it is about an hour each way). As soon as we arrived in Iceland we were being asked if we were going to go see the eruption! Of course we wanted to see it…

There were a few options to get to the volcano: hike in and hope for the best (after renting a car to get out there), pay quite a bit of money to join a guided hike (and still needing to rent a car to get out there) – both of these had a significant drawback: the volcano sometimes creates so much poisonous gas in the area that hiking in is banned on certain days. The other main option was to take a helicopter out to the area. Oh Lordy, that was not high on my list of things to do. The idea of it was fabulous – I love the idea of riding in a helicopter! The reality of it is that I battle motion sickness. But I REALLY wanted to see this volcano! Deep breath. I can do this.

The day of our trip arrived. It had been gloriously sunny all week. Except that day. We arrived at Reykjavik City Airport to meet our pilot Mattias. He told us the weather was bad out on the peninsula but with the changeable weather in Iceland maybe it would clear up by the time we got there. We were briefed on what to expect, buckled into our seats, headphones on (I now know why headphones are important) and off we went. Did you know helicopters actually use the runway for takeoff and landing? It was pretty cool! which I tried to focus on instead of thinking that we were having a lot of faith in this little contraption! We got about five minutes away from the volcano (which we could not see at all!) before our pilot set us down in a field to wait a few minutes to see if the weather would clear.

We gave it about fifteen minutes before giving up and heading back to Reykjavik. Mattias said we could try again and that he would let us know when he had another open time. Since we spend the afternoon/evenings working we were concerned that there wouldn’t be another time that could work for us, but just a couple of days later he asked if we could come later that evening – at 9:30. This being Iceland in late spring meant it was still fully daylight at that time and it was a beautiful evening to boot.

I’ll stop blabbing and just show the photos now…

The next few are from up in the air –

An amazing, incredible, awe inspiring experience that was worth every penny we spent. A once in a lifetime experience.

I have this thing for waterfalls. I will definitely go out of my way to see one. This weekend journey might have been the ultimate go find waterfalls type trip. If I have any regret on this time we have had in Iceland, it’s that we did not have the opportunity to drive the ring road (all the way around the island). It’s three days if you’re going to rush through it, six days if you can take the time it deserves. That just wasn’t feasible since we both work during the week. So, we did the next best thing – we picked one area that we really wanted to explore that was outside of where we have been so far, and spent a weekend seeing it.

If I were asked what was the most spectacular sight we saw I’m not certain that I could give a single answer. There were too many “oh wow!” moments! The one thing we did not see was puffins. And I am sad about that, but we just could not make it work schedule wise. The puffins were out there (this is their nesting season) too. There’s never enough time for everything!

On with the journey: we got an early start – it’s not like it’s ever truly dark anyway! – knowing that we had a lot to do and see. The first stop was Seljalandsfoss. I think every waterfall here ends with foss as it, oh so surprisingly means waterfall. This one was a bucket list item for the Husband as it is a waterfall that you can walk behind🥰

Seljalandsfoss had the advantage of being the easiest to get to as well, it was just off the highway. But for true scenic beauty this might be the winner. Although there’s one up north I hear is quite incredible. We didn’t see it so it doesn’t count.

Just another half hour up the road is Skogafoss. It’s about the same height as Seljalandsfoss, however, it is fed by a much larger river so the falls themselves are quite impressive.

After all that exertion we were very ready for lunch. It is normally my job to figure out meal stops and I think I did outstanding on this one. So, if you find yourself in Vik, Iceland (🤣🤣) we cannot recommend enough Smiðjan Brugghús. Or, Smidjan Brewhouse. In fact, we liked it so much we stopped for lunch on our way back too! The Husband really liked their Stuck at Home milk stout. I don’t normally buy t-shirts from places but I had to get one here.

After lunch our main goal was to get to our hotel, since it was still at least two hours away. The drive was amazing. The terrain changed constantly – from chunky lava to flows of lava to glacial desolation to bright green grass and crazy hillsides! It was definitely not boring.

One stop we wanted to do was to go to this one look out point. It was nuts. I didn’t take any photos of the gravel road that took us quickly up this massive rock which is too bad. But what a view!

Eventually we made our way to the cute Hali Country Hotel. Supposedly there was another town up past it – we had enough of being in the car! Even this little country hotel had a fantastic restaurant. The property was still a working sheep farm.

The next day we began the return journey with a few stops along the way. The first one was the Glacier Lagoon. This is an area at the end of one of the arms of the Vatnajökull glacier, Europe’s largest. The lagoon did not exist in the 1930s. This means that so much of the glacier has melted in the 90 years it has created an extremely deep lake. Yes, the glacier would eventually melt, but this should have taken 300-500 years to happen, not 90. It is a beautiful place but it is sad.

Now it was time for the grand finale. Svartifoss. The waterfall is within Vatnajökull National Park, the largest national park in Iceland. We knew that we had a long walk to get to it (2 km each way) but that’s okay, we enjoy walking in nature. We had also heard that it was a “gentle slope”…no biggie. Yeah. We took one look at the start of the path and thought “well, this should prove interesting”. It wasn’t an extreme slope by any means but I would not call it gentle either. Intermediate slope is good. The views though! Oh my!

Svartifoss looks like The Giant’s Causeway in Northern Ireland got flipped upside down and put a waterfall on it! It’s the same type of hexagonal basalt columns. Except these have a nasty habit of breaking off. You are extremely discouraged from getting where the rocks could break off and fall on you. Understandable! It was absolutely worth the effort to get there too. Also, the nicest toilets I’ve ever seen at a national park – the ones over by the campground. Wow.

Now for the long drive back to Reykjavik.

I promise I will get to the post about visiting the volcano!! Better get it written soon – we head to London in the morning✈

The Golden Circle. This is the thing you do when you have only 24 hours on Iceland. It is a required thing. They might even test you when you leave the country – “didn’t drive the Golden Circle?” and then stamp your passport with a big FAIL. Why is it such a big deal? In the space of a 140 mile circular route you get a view of some of the incredible sites available in Iceland. It’s a very easy drive (my understanding is that the road is kept clear all winter too), jaw dropping views, a waterfall or two, the required volcano stuff, houses of tomatoes and an overactive geyser. You may say you’ve seen lots of waterfalls elsewhere. So have I. But Icelandic waterfalls are a whole ‘nother category unto themselves. And Iceland is just shy of 40,000 square miles – about the size of Kentucky – but Kentucky doesn’t have 31, that’s 31, active volcanoes. The thing is, the volcanoes aren’t all these majestic cone shaped mountains, a la Mount Rainier, sometimes you don’t even know they are there (like the current eruption – but that’s the next blog post!) or there’s a freaking glacier sitting on top! Anyway, back to the Golden Circle. Most of the most commonly visited places are along the top part of the drive so you could, conceivably, just do that shorter drive out and back. But then it’s not a circle is it? Hmmm?

It was a beautiful morning when we set out in our little rented Hyundai I30. Not a bad car. We had my iPod (yes, I’m still that old school) plugged in, so there was an adequate amount of Beach Boys, Go-Gos and ABBA to be played. We were set!

The best part about driving in a new place is never knowing what’s around the next corner. Things like:

Our first stop along the road – which, by the way, we did in reverse from the way most people go – was at the Kerid Crater. This word is spelled slightly differently in Icelandic but I don’t feel like messing with that. The Kerid Crater is a volcanic caldera (not unlike Crater Lake in Oregon just a whole lot smaller) that is very obviously a volcanic crater! The elevation is not particularly high, as opposed to Crater Lake, but in Iceland that doesn’t mean much. There is a path all the way around the caldera. However, knowing my klutzy self, it was deemed not a good idea. One side of the crater is gently sloped and a staircase has been built into it. People do swim in the lake but it is not graced with geothermal heat.

Our next stop was for lunch at a very unique place. Earlier I mentioned that areas with geothermal venting often have hothouses nearby as you have a free and easy method of warming your green house. One particular family has taken this to great heights. They are growing tomatoes. Like, a LOT of tomatoes. Huge greenhouse after greenhouse full of tomatoes. It was so cool! To add to the coolness factor they have a tomato themed restaurant inside one of the greenhouses ( https://www.fridheimar.is/en ) . It was warm in there, but not overly so. Nor was it super humid like so many greenhouses can be. It was like a perfect spring day without any wind. Which, in Iceland, is a super treat!

We had one more place to go that afternoon and it too had to do with food! Ugh, we were rather full, but this was to be another incredibly unique experience! If anyone has watched the Netflix show Down to Earth with Zac Efron you will know what I am referring to – we were going to bake bread in the sand! At Laugervatn Fontana ( https://www.fontana.is/en/rye-bread-experience ) you can bake bread in sand that is naturally hot. Actually it is the boiling hot water just a few inches down that is heating the sand. Anyway, it takes about 24 hours for the bread to bake. So the demonstrator had a premade pot with dough in it (already sealed up for sanitary purposes), dug in a spot marked with a rock to indicate that there was another pot already there, ready to be removed.

Once we were done with our food fest we set off for our hotel. The Hotel Geysir is directly across the road from the active geyser area. Guess what??? The English word geyser comes from the Icelandic word geysir. Funny that. The original geyser, called Geysir, (I’m going to get confused) only erupts very occasionally now. I guess it’s pretty dramatic when it does blow but we were not fortunate enough to see it. We did get to see Strokkur erupt a few times though. It’s not as impressive as Old Faithful at Yellowstone but you are a whole lot closer to it!

Our last stop on this crazy busy day of sightseeing was Gullfoss. When people talk about THE waterfall in Iceland usually they are referring to Gullfoss. It was one of the times when I wish we had a drone for photos because that’s the only way to truly capture the immensity of the double waterfall. There is also a fantastic shop up there🤗

All of these amazing places and we weren’t done yet! Day two had us driving to Thingvellir National Park (the name looks way cooler in Icelandic). This park has a couple of seriously significant features: tectonic plates and it was the original capitol of Iceland (in a loose, Vikingish way). First of all, the tectonic plates. This is where the North American plates and the European plates meet and you can see them. Normally the plates are deep under the ocean (and when they shift you get earthquakes), but in this location you can see them, walk on them and see that they are slowly moving apart. The Husband, being the son of a geology professor, totally geeked out over the whole thing. It was pretty amazing I must say. If you would like a much better explanation of the whole subject this website explains it much more clearly https://www.icelandontheweb.com/articles-on-iceland/nature/geology/tectonic-plates . The other cool detail about this area? In 930 CE the chieftains of Iceland decided there was a need of a general assembly to decide on common laws and to hold courts. Thingvellir was chosen for a variety of reasons – probably mainly because it looked super cool. The legislative sessions were held in this location until 1798! Maybe they thought their laws were so important they could feel the earth move under their feet…yeah, bad joke. And, appropriately enough, when Iceland gained complete independence from Denmark in 1944 the contracts were signed at Thingvellir in the same spot the ancient chieftains use to decide the laws (a place called…Law Rock).

We had one more stop planned (and oh, was I excited for this one!). On the way I wanted to stop at Ikea to get a pillow as the one I had here at our flat was making my neck hurt. As we pulled off the highway at the exit for Ikea, there, looming above us was…COSTCO! My heart sang. Well, no Ikea for us – we were going to Costco. It was a blast looking around, seeing what was familiar and what was different – how come US Costco doesn’t have Victorian Sponge cakes, huh??????????????? But they did have the sweet potato crackers! Pillows chosen, a couple of other items too and we went to the check out. Note to others going to a non-US Costco…yes you can use your Costco credit card but a manager has to do some kind of override and they seemed excited by us being there. It was fun! And, even though neither of us had had a Costco hot dog in years, we were seized by the need to have one. Tasty indeed.

Our final stop was all about relaxation and just chilling out. The Blue Lagoon. Yep, another Blue Lagoon (first one was Malta), but a completely different experience. This one was created in the early 70s when a geothermal plant was being built. The water had high amounts of salt water and silica, which made it unusable for geothermal purposes, but at a constant 102 degrees (F) year round, so it was perfect for bathing in and the silica is wonderful for the skin. This unused water from the geothermal plant is pumped out into lava fields for a visually beautiful experience. Decades ago anyone could hop into the waters, now it is a beautiful resort. We elected to pay for the package with a luxurious bath robe: lovely, warm water…cold air…brrr. A robe is a good idea. Plus we got three facial masks as opposed to the single silica mask the basic package gives you. The entire experience was wonderful – definitely recommend! We asked the driver who picked us up at the airport if it was really worth it to go to the Blue Lagoon. His answer was a resounding YES. I concur entirely. Once again we did not have to deal with crowds, though it was Mother’s Day so there were lots of Icelandic families in attendance.

All in all an excellent weekend.

Iceland…what a place! There is so much to see and do here – you could spend a month as a tourist here easily – but it wouldn’t be cheap.😁 Fortunately, the Husband and I had already done our research and were fully aware of just how expensive Iceland is. The Icelandic krona is a very strong currency, so its value is far greater than the dollar (or Euro, or UK pound…). That means that even a loaf of bread is pricey! Ugh. We limited this stop to four weeks due to that little factoid. And because we work during the week we can’t really go anywhere except on weekends – which limits how far we can go – so, no driving the Ring Road for us (Highway 1 fully encircles Iceland, mostly along the coast). Total bummer, but- oh yeah, we still get to spend four weeks in Iceland. Stop whining, right?

Every weekday morning we get out and walk. I think we have covered most of the main roads in the central core of Reykjavik – plus some of the outer ones too. We have walked to the City Airport several times, we have walked along the water, we have walked and walked. It’s been a pleasure getting to really see this city. Biggest challenge is not getting run over by the electric scooters. Some European cities have car sharing programs – Reykjavik has an electric scooter sharing program. And the batteries run out in some interesting locations.

The Icelandic people are warm and friendly – they seem genuinely happy to have tourists back. At least for now 😉 As the driver who picked us up at the airport said, “a plane full of vaccinated Americans. I am a happy man”!

A very short walk from our apartment is an historic cemetery. The land was, in ancient times, a Viking burial ground. In the 1830s it was made into the main cemetery for Reykjavik. Icelandic tradition states that the first person buried in a graveyard becomes its guardian spirit. This makes Guðrún Oddsdóttir, a lady buried in 1838, the guardian of Holavallagarour cemetery. The cemetery feels almost forest-like with all the trees, which is quite unusual. Another unusual bit – many of the graves are surrounded by an iron fence. Apparently this used to be quite common in European graveyards but they were removed and melted down for use in WWI and WWII!

Up on top of the highest hill in Reykjavik sits a quite unusual looking building. I was quite curious about it! Turns out it is Perlan, the Wonders of Iceland exhibit. Iceland uses the hot water in the ground for heating buildings (most homes in Iceland are heated with geothermal heat) and other uses. These six large tanks are for storing the hot ground water. In 1991 the tanks became the base of the building (quite cleverly I might add!), with a beautiful glass dome top. The exhibits were fascinating. They were about glaciers, volcanos, geothermal heat and wildlife, plus there was a fabulous video about the legends of the Aurora Borealis (northern lights). I think that’s the one thing I am sad to not see – we are too late in the year to see the Aurora. There’s only about four hours of dark right now and it is not even totally dark then.

And now for some scenery around Reykjavik…

And a final thought…

Yeah, oops. I didn’t meant to let so much time pass before doing a post. It just sort of happened. Sorry. Christmas came and went. We did our very best to see some friends, and we feel badly that we didn’t see everyone! Ah COVID…how we would like to see less of you! We did get to spend some time getting to know our new granddaughter😁 That was very, very good. We got over to Ellensburg and to Manson – those were both very good too. Although being in Manson involves buying wine – not a bad thing, just an expensive one! The one awful thing that did happen is that a 60-70 foot tall Hemlock pine located in our younger son’s backyard smashed down onto his house one stormy night in January. We are eternally grateful that all residents of the house emerged relatively unscathed – this includes previously mentioned new granddaughter. The only damage (other than perhaps to the household resident’s nerves) was to the house. With any luck they should be back in their house some time in June…and all tall trees in their yard have been removed! The Daughter has gotten settled in her own place (sucks when no one cleans up after you huh?). Um, what else am I missing?? Probably something super important. Oh well.

All through this time at home we kept watching for other countries to open and be safe enough to travel to. Early in March we began to hear rumblings that Iceland was going to open to vaccinated (we were both fortunate enough to have been vaccinated fairly early on) Americans. Well yippee!!! Iceland is somewhere that I have been very interested in going to but I did not want to deal with the crowds. So the watching and waiting game began. I will confess that we booked our travel on the very day that Iceland announced that it was open. We love home. We love our families. But, geez were we ready to go again. We did not give up our house and everything else so we could be in limbo❕❗

We began by spending a few days in the Pearl District in Portland, OR. We hadn’t been there in a few years, so it seemed like a good opportunity. We also had a few travel purchases to make and the thought of no sales tax was appealing. Our first night in town required dinner at Deschutes Public House! Always a favorite of ours.

After our few days in Portland we drove to Hood River. I would like to add that it was a lovely day when we made that drive…because I FINALLY got to stop at Multnomah Falls!

We spent the next few days getting to spend time with the Husband’s new sister and her family. Hood River is a fun place – definitely recommend!

One of the very fun things we did while there was go to the Western Antique Aeroplane and Automobile Museum. We could have used another couple of hours in there – that place was so full of interesting planes and cars!

I could do an entire post on that place and have a bazillion photos…but, I’m woefully behind already. Ugh!!

We proceeded to Forest Grove to visit with another of the Husband’s sisters and one of my cousins and where we finally stayed at one of the McMenamins Hotels – The Grand Lodge. Highly recommended experience! Next stop on the tour was Albany to see my sister (I only have one of those. She might have liked it if I could have spread the terrorizing out amongst others, but to my delight I was able to focus on her😂😉😈).We took to calling our journey the Three Sisters (and a cousin) Tour of Oregon (in Oregon there are the Three Sisters Mountains). Very happy to have seen everyone!

After a frantic few days at home we were packed and ready to head out. First came the goodbyes. That is the most difficult part of this plan – the leaving. Deep breath and keep moving.

Our first destination was New Orleans to visit the Grandson who now lives there with his mom. Neither of us had been there before and we were looking forward to seeing it through the eyes of a native. Before I get much into New Orleans itself I must mention the restrooms at the airport. Yes, the restroom. Best restroom view…

We arrived during a pretty significant storm, so the first few days were quite rainy. We didn’t let that slow us down!

There are so many more photos I could share, but I am so far behind that I’m having to be brief! We absolutely enjoyed our time in Louisiana and look forward to our next visit in the fall. Grandson hugs are pretty awesome🥰

From Louisiana we went to New York – we can now say we have been to all three NY area airports, as we landed at La Guardia. Nope, not the cool, beautiful, new section. We were in the ugly section that helped earned LGA its numerous last place standings on many airport lists. Yeah. Moving on…we made the drive out of New York and across Connecticut to the oldest son’s house – although he was out with his sub. We finally made the time to go to the Mystic Aquarium – which, of course, meant a stop at Sift for lunch. Oh man…Sift. It was too busy for me to take photos, which is really too bad. Their displays are beautiful and the food is incredible.

We had a very calm week in Connecticut – funny how well we’ve gotten to know it there! Our son is being transferred next year though.

After just a few short days it was time to head back to New York. I did discover that there was an REI right along I-95 on our drive back! Yay! Touch of home, plus we had thought of a couple of things we might need for our next stop. Always an excuse to shop. Thanks to Dana (our Google Maps navigator) we managed to find our way to JFK in plenty of time.

Next up…what might be the most beautiful place I’ve ever been – Iceland!

Egads time gets away from me! Better late than never? Something like that, right?

The Christmas lights in Valletta began to go up mid November so we had a clue that we were going to be in another gorgeous location (see last year in Dinan, France). Lucky, lucky us! Unfortunately we left before all of the lights were up, which is really too bad. Saint George’s Square looked really bare – it didn’t make sense to us that there were no lights in that area. Now I’m seeing photos on Instagram of it….oh, so sad to have missed that!

Normally Valletta hosts Christmas markets, outdoor stage productions and many other events – not this year. Since none of the other events were happening, the city council put up extra lights – which was nice. We really loved walking around in the evening with the lights on. There’s even Christmas music playing through speakers on Republic Street (the main street through Valletta). We would often get a good laugh at the songs – snow, sledding, cold. Granted it was cold by Malta standards!

We elected to stay at the Casa Rocca Piccola again for our final days in Malta. We really love the house and the de Piro family are wonderful. The bed and breakfast allows you to feel like you live in this incredible place. We can’t say enough good things about the house and the family. On one of our last days in Malta we received an extra special treat…Clem de Piro took us for a ride in the Bentley💖💖Be still my little gear head heart!

Even prior to our arrival in Malta I wanted to see the gun salute that takes place most days. We always seemed to be somewhere else, or doing something else when it was time for the salute! Finally, in the last week that we were there, our timing was right.

Ah, Malta. What a fabulous, enchanting place!

Time flies. When we arrived in Malta we thought we would never get used to the heat, now, it’s in the mid 60s (19 c) and we look like locals – coats, slippers, long pants! I used to think mid 60s was just about right. Wow. The Pacific Northwest blood I guess. But it’s going to be freaking cold when we get home in a few weeks🥶

Last Friday we had it in our head that we wanted to hike up to the cave above Ramla Beach. We had seen it when we were at the bay a couple of weeks ago and thought it looked challenging, but doable. Then, I started really thinking about it and the last 30 feet (9 meters) seemed kinda iffy. It’s not like we were going to use rope or anything to get up there! So, we packed a backpack with snacks and water and set off across the island. Twenty minutes later we were there (such a small island!).

We walked about half the way across the sand, looking at that hillside, questioning what we were doing. Finally the Husband googlizes the cave…and…there’s a road that goes up there. Right. Back to the car we went. We drove up the hill, found a nice place to park, thinking it would still be a bit of a walk to the cave and this way we still felt like we were getting some exercise. The property owner was nice enough to clearly mark the path to the cave. My guess is that he got tired of people wandering around his land. A small entrance to the cave had been dug out from the back. As we have come to anticipate with ourselves we forgot to take a photo of the cave entry from the backside. Sigh. But it was pretty cool!

On the way back we stopped at the Xewkija (do not ask me how to pronounce it!!!) Rotunda Church, or Church of St. John the Baptist. This church claims to have the third highest dome in the world. Once again, small town – massive church. I love Malta (and Gozo!). They just go all in when constructing something. The church was constructed around the old church (built late 1600s) and a lot of the best bits about the old church were saved and are displayed in a museum adjacent to the domed church. There is also an elevator (!) up to the outside of the dome – this was definitely a don’t miss!

So…as I was writing this and organizing the photos I made a startling revelation…we took zero pictures of the inside of the new church. Wow. Fail. It was really pretty too!!

One more stop that day…and this is one of those really unique things. For millennia people (usually women) have done the washing in rivers or in springs (if, of course, there were rivers on Gozo. Which there aren’t). They generally had some incredibly clever set up and some of those structures and places have existed for a seriously long time. On Gozo there were five areas with large springs. Three of those were right near us. Of the five, only two are still in existence. The one close to our house was considered the largest and most important. A wash house was constructed there in 1373. The present washhouse dates back to 1685.

On Saturday we finally went to Victoria to explore! For being the main city it doesn’t take long to see most of it. We focused our attention on the oldest part (duh, this is me we’re talking about). There was a lot of reconstruction work going on so we did skip exterior photos. Not so scenic right now. In fact, the St. George Basilica sits where the original church was built – in the 4th century. And that church was built on the site of a Roman temple of Juno. It’s been a religious site for a really long time. The present church dates 1672.

We managed to keep the scaffolding out of these photos, which was a challenge as about one third of the interior was covered in it. The entire exterior was not visible!

After a lovely breakfast in the square outside the church we headed to the Citadella – finally! The Citadella, or Citadel, sits upon the highest point in the middle of Gozo and has been a fortified area since Phoenician times. During the early Medieval period a castle was constructed on the plateau. There were many, many raids on Gozo and the population was ordered to retreat to the fortifications every night for safety. This worked well until 1551 when 10,000 Ottoman soldiers attacked the Citadella, taking nearly every Gozo citizen into slavery. This sucked. After the attack the Knights of St John had the fortifications rebuilt and improved. People moved from Malta to help repopulate the island. The Cathedral of Gozo actually sits within the walls.

The Citadella was home to much of the population for a long time. Most of this area has since collapsed, but one area was preserved and is an amazing representation of a medieval home. It was so cool!!

Sunday was a beautiful day that just called for a walk. We went down to Xlendi Bay with the intent of seeing the salt pans. I, of course, was in my trusty flip flops. We did not walk out to the salt pans…

Salt pans? For all the Americanos – you know when you go to Costco and buy their Mediterranean sea salt? That might have come from Malta (although there are salt pans all over). They are large, rocky indentations on the hillside that are covered during the highest tides. Then the water is allowed to dehydrate, leaving the salt behind. And the Mediterranean Sea is VERY salty! I know I never thought about how the salt was harvested.

It’s hard to believe that our time on Gozo is already half over. And our plans have been COVIDed. We are no longer going to Berlin to see the Brother. We had so hoped that the numbers would stay down, but they didn’t, so now we’re on the alternate plan. We will stay in Valletta for those last two weeks before beginning the trek back to the US. Not that it is a punishment to get to spend more time wandering the alleys and back streets of Valletta. The few tourists that were here are pretty much gone now so staying away from others is pretty doable. On Gozo it’s a way of life! Clusters of villages with terraced fields between them. It’s so pretty!

We finally got to the Basilica at Ta’Pinu! Beautiful, beautiful place. There’s been a chapel at this site since a long time ago. In 1575 an official from the Vatican was touring the churches of the island to determine the condition of them. The little chapel was deemed to be too rundown and was ordered demolished. The first worker to try to demolish the chapel broke his arm on the first swing of his hammer. It was felt that this was a sign that the chapel should stay so all workers refused to demolish it! It was eventually refurbished. In 1883 a local lady was walking by the chapel and heard a voice call to her to come in. A man heard the voice call to him as well. Over the next few years several miracles were attributed to site as well. In 1922 construction on a large new church began and was finished ten years later. Both Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI have visited the Basilica. It is a stunning and peaceful place.

So glad we went there! After Ta’ Pinu we drove over to the area where the Azure Window once stood. This was a very popular natural arch that stood for centuries…and came crashing down in a storm in 2017. I won’t embarrass the Brother by using the photo of him from 2005 standing in front of it (that was some big hair he had!). We weren’t really on the right part of the cliff to get a good photo of where it was, but we did get some beautiful cliff photos!

I had heard that there are a few amazing spots to watch the sunset. One of them was at the cliff side of the Inland Sea. It had been somewhat overcast earlier in the day, but we were fortunate enough to have a fairly clear sky. first we wandered down the hill to the Inland Sea. This is a naturally occurring cove with a cave/tunnel running out into the ocean.

We had dinner at a restaurant that was right in this area. After dinner we walked back to the car and took some time to just look at the sky. It was pitch black with almost zero light pollution – the stars were incredible! Unfortunately the phones could not capture the image of the stars.

If you recall we visited the megalithic temples at Tarxien on Malta several weeks ago (wow). There’s another temple complex here on Gozo that the archeologists think might have been even larger! The name sounds cool in Maltese – Ggantija – which means giant😁.

Considering how small this island is there is an incredible amount to see and do here. If you find yourself in this corner of the Mediterranean, don’t neglect Gozo. It is worth it.

Why little? Because we only had to go the length of the island of Malta (not much), ferry to Gozo (again, not much. I didn’t even dread the boat)

And drive to the village of Fontana (really, really not much). We are now settled into our new digs and are really enjoying it. Why?

The house was a mill a couple of hundred years ago. Actually I think it was a mill until maybe fifty years ago or so. How do we know this? Perhaps this is best illustrated with photos –

So, yeah, we live in an old mill. It’s way too much space for the two of us but it’s what we rented back when we were expecting guests. So we are enjoying it. It’s light and airy, plus the grocery store is just a short walk up the street.

We did rent a car for the time we are on Gozo. We do not want to use mass transit and there is a lot to explore here. A lot is off the main roads too. Unfortunately, for those of us raised in an area where roads are wide and orderly, driving here is an…experience. Not in the same way that driving on Malta is though. They’re just crazy over there and there is a lot of people on the roads. Here, well, the villages and towns existed long before cars. So the roads were squeezed in and there the adventure begins. I even had a Maltese person (he knows who he is!) tell me he hated driving in Victoria/Rabat (the capitol of Gozo) and I now know why. I needed a sedative!

Saturday evening (the day we arrived) we made dinner reservations (that I need to remember are called bookings. Another remnant of British influence) at a lovely restaurant at Xlendi Bay, which is just down the hill from us. Xlendi Bay is one of the tourist hotspots on Gozo. Just minus most of the tourists. It’s a cute little village on a beautiful bay (duh).

We didn’t walk around too much before dinner. Just enough to get a few good photos (of course).

On Sunday we made our way to Victoria/Rabat (one is the British name and is perhaps a bit more commonly used, one is the Gozitan’s name for the city). We will do more of an explore there soon. First stop was to stock up at one of the bigger grocery stores, and where we saw this:

After dropping off the groceries back at the house we headed over to Ramla Bay, which is on the other side of the island. Took us about 20 minutes to do that drive – mainly because the fastest speed is about 50 kph (31 mph). And most roads are too terrifying to go that fast. Wished we had gotten photos of the road down to the bay…oh well, we try. There were quite a few people at the beach itself but that wasn’t our focus anyway. We walked along the path that took us up into the hills for this view!

Ramla Bay is a gorgeous location. There’s a cave way high up in the hillside (if you can expand the first photo you should be able to see it) that we are talking about hiking up to. On the subject of caves…there is another cave, rooted in mythology, in this area.

In Homer’s Odyssey, Calypso kept Odysseus in her cave as a prisoner of love (😶) for seven years. This is purportedly the cave, which is super cool. I love when history, mythology and real places come together! It would be even super cooler if you could actually see the cave. Unfortunately, it has been closed for the last year or two due to seismic instability. Okay, I’d rather not be buried alive in said cave, but it would have been nice to see something!

After our hike we were ready for a good dinner, so a return to the house to make ourselves presentable was in order. The nights are getting a bit chilly so I am happily getting good use out of my beautiful wrap the Husband bought me in Galway! The restaurant that we had a booking at was in a neighboring village of Sannat. Again, not too far away. We drove over there early so we could walk around for a bit before dinner. Very glad we did that. The village church, which is massive just like all the other Maltese churches was preparing for All Soul’s Day. They had teams of people out setting up candles outside on the porch and stairs. It was a beautiful sight!

It was a nice introductory weekend to Gozo. My list is long though of places still to see! And we’re only here three weeks. We will definitely need to get out in the mornings to get it all done. Time to get organized. It’s hard to believe we will head home in a month…

I’ll get to explaining the title in a bit. Don’t rush me.

It’s really hard to believe that our time on Malta is nearing its end. Next weekend we make the big move to Gozo (the smaller, quieter island of the Maltese archipelago). Before we left there were a couple of places out near Mdina that I still wanted to get to – so, shucky darns, we could spend another weekend there. Tragic, that.

The first stop was a totally touristy thing, although if I lived here I think I would still go there – Ta’ Qali Craft Village. It’s in an old British RAF airfield out near Attard, so about the center of the island. The original shops were in the Quonset huts from the time of WWII. They are looking a bit ratty these days, so new buildings are being done now. The craftspeople are making the items they sell right there in the shops. It’s a really wonderful place and it feels good to buy from the artisans.

On the way to the craft village I noticed that we were obviously in the area where the majority of the embassy buildings were – this made me curious where the US embassy was. Should have realized that it would be the biggest, most ostentatious compound (not just a building). Sigh.

I really kicked myself after we left because I had a great idea to include here in the blog…Maltese silver filigree. I watched a craftsman working the fine silver thread into beautiful designs. I could have taken photos of that. Yeah, sorry. I get upset with the Husband when he misses photo opportunities and then I’m oblivious to them. Ugh. While a vast number of the shops were not open due to the lack of tourists there were a few and we thoroughly enjoyed them!

However, I did not enjoy carrying my weekend stuff in my backpack! So, as soon as we were done at the craft village we headed to Rabat to our place for the weekend. Last time there we stayed at the Quaint Boutique Hotel (yep, its name), this time we had the top floor room at the Maleth Inn. Smart choice! It was very spacious and had a terrace with a fantastic view.

Our next destination was to Mosta, to finally see the Mosta Rotunda, or Mosta Dome. This extremely impressive church was built in the 1830s and was patterned after the Pantheon in Rome, thus it is round. One of the more intriguing facts about the Mosta Dome – it was built around the existing church! You could go to mass in the old church, surrounded by the new church! Not that anywhere would allow that these days. And once the new church was completed the old church was dismantled in a week. Impressive feats.

The church itself is beautiful and is one that inspires peace. We elected to make the climb up to the inner edge of the Dome (not unlike, I would imagine, the Duomo in Florence. Which I would know about if we had been able to go to Florence last spring 😕). Quite the hike, but so worth it!!

This church is beautiful and peaceful. It is also the site of an amazing miracle (or, if you prefer, some really spectacular luck). On 9 April 1942, many people were in the church for mass when four bombs hit the church. Three of the bombs hit minor areas with little damage. The fourth bomb came through the dome.

No one was injured or killed inside the church. I’m guessing that after they picked their jaws up off the ground they headed for the bomb shelter just outside the church. Not sure if I mentioned this fact in any other posts, and if I did it bears repeating, Malta was the most bombed placed during WWII. More than London. More than Berlin. Sobering to think of. Now you understand the title of the blog.

After touring the church sustenance was needed, and there across from the church was The Cake Box. Hello. My sugar addiction reared its ugly head. Cake for lunch was an excellent idea! Yummy. We really liked the vibe of the place too. Any where that has swings at some of the tables is a place I can like!

I have to confess, part of why we stayed in Rabat again was so that we could return to what may be our favorite restaurant of all time. We stumbled on to it the first time we were in Rabat, did not have a reservation (or, should I say booking?) and the fabulous server found room for us. The place is called Townhouse No. 3, and if you are in Malta do yourself a favor and go here! The menu is not large, but every item is fresh and beautifully prepared. The gnocchi with cream and leeks is our favorite starter. I refrained from licking the dish – but only just. We have had different mains and they have all been outstanding, but…the chocolate fondant cake is knee shaking, head spinningly delicious. The Husband enjoyed a glass of 1966 ruby port while I was rapturous over the cake. The first time we had it we shared. The second time I did not share. Mine. All mine.

Yeah, I know, crazy that we planned a weekend around going to a specific restaurant!

We also had the opportunity to tour Palazzo Falson in Mdina. The Palazzo is from the late 1400s, later purchased by Olof Gollcher. He was Maltese born of Swedish parents and made his fortune in shipping. The palazzo is now a museum containing many of the wonderful items he collected in his lifetime. He had a voracious appetite for learning and collecting items of many types. There are suits of armor, paintings, cooking implements, jewelry, and many other household items.

One of the most astounding items in the house is a French 10 hour clock. Apparently during the French Revolution, some genius decided to change the way time was told. Ten hour days, 100 minute hours. Yeah. Obviously this did not catch on. There are only three of the clocks known to be in existence.

We were very grateful to have another opportunity to go to Rabat and Mdina. Grateful to go to Townhouse No. 3 again, grateful to have some of the best gelato ever again, grateful to be able to walk the streets and revel in this beautiful place.

Last weekend falls into the category of EPIC🤩 Seriously. We spent it in Valletta – finally taking the opportunity to really walk the streets, see a few of the sites we hadn’t been to yet, and just take it all in. It’s such a beautiful place. It’s very small too, which makes it easy to explore! It’s not even a full kilometer long and think the population is around 6,000 people.

I put a lot of thought into where we stay when we go on these weekend trips. I try to find somewhere historic, or just really interesting in some way. Sometimes I want a little luxury. Sometimes I find a place that encompasses all of those and then some. In the course of preparing to come to Malta I read several guide books and most of them mentioned that touring Casa Rocca Piccola was on the must do list. It sounded interesting so I filed it away under things to do. But one of the books mentioned that they had guest rooms. Okay, now I’m pretty interested😁 One look at their website (www.casaroccapiccola.com) and I knew this was the place we HAD to stay! It did not disappoint. In fact it met and surpassed all of our expectations.

The Casa is owned by the de Piro family. They came to Malta in 1530 with the Knights of St John. Yeah, I think it’s pretty amazing to have such detail on your ancestors. And they don’t just have details, they have documents and possessions that date back to the 1500s. Incredible.

The B & B part of the Casa is five gorgeous rooms. We suspected that we were in for a treat when we were asked what firmness we wished our mattress to be. Fabulous! We were in the Clock Room, with a lovely balcony on the front of the house. The bed was something out of a dream – I never wanted to get up! Of course then I would have missed out on Amelia’s wonderful breakfast. I shall dream of that orange cake. The attention to detail, the service, the feeling of being somewhere unique and wonderful – all in all a wonderful place to stay!

After we were settled, Clement de Piro, son of the Marquis de Piro, took us on a tour of the house. Me, being me, asked him what the oldest item in the house was. His response was this chest:

The chest came with the de Piro family from Rhodes in 1530. Which means it’s older than that. Best part is that I got to touch it! Yes, I asked permission first. And this was just the beginning of our tour. It is obvious that Clement loves this house. It’s been in his family a long time and is filled with their history. What a gift.

I am so grateful that we had the opportunity to stay at the Casa Rocca Piccola💕 and I can’t recommend it enough! No, they didn’t give me anything to say that. Really, honestly, truly, this is an incredible place. What a memory.

Now, we did see some other places while we were in Valletta. We also had a couple of memorable meals! And drank an awful lot of wine. Or a goodly amount of wine. Depends on how you look at it I guess.

The items on my list were the archeological museum, Fort St Elmo and St Paul’s Shipwreck Church. The Husband wanted to go to the Palace Armoury. Saturday and Sunday were gorgeous days, without being overly warm – perfect for being tourists! The archeological museum was the first one we went to.

After our time at the museum we wandered about town. Valletta is so compact, it doesn’t take long to get anywhere. It is built on top of a rock though, so there are some pretty steep hills. Defensible position, you know?

The next day was also planned out. First thing in the morning, after our wonderful breakfast at Casa Rocco Piccola, We walked up to the Grandmaster (of Knights of St John)’s Palace. Unfortunately most of the palace is undergoing restoration. But the Armoury was open, and this is what the Husband wanted to see. Can you imagine wearing any of this in the heat of the summer???????????

After the Armoury we walked down to Fort St Elmo. In the late 1400s the Aragonese (later part of Spain) erected a watchtower out at the point of what would later become Valletta. When the Knights of St John arrived in 1530 they dramatically added to it. Which was a good thing as Fort St Elmo played a major part in the defense of Malta!

Monday morning we had one final place to stop. While I was never able to get into the Victory chapel, I was hopeful that the doors to St Paul’s Shipwreck Church would be open – Finally. And they were!! And it was worth the wait and numerous hikes down and back up that hill! The church was built in the late 1570s, with substantial renovations in 1639 (probably due to the big earthquake that struck Malta in 1638). It’s beautiful. It’s not stylishly fancy, or even a cohesive design, but that’s okay. It reflects centuries of people that have come through there. It also has a couple of seriously important and impressive relics. Malta being the island that St Paul shipwrecked on means that there is a close tie between the two. It is lost to history how the church came to be in possession of it, but they have a piece of St Paul’s right wrist bone.

Wow. I was so glad we were finally able to get inside this church. I have dozens of photos of it, but I figured this post was long enough! We have one more weekend excursion planned before we have to begin making our preparations for moving to Gozo!

This last weekend was an incredible experience! We’ve settled into a (not very exciting) routine at home in Kalkara, so we really look forward to the weekend adventures. And, although Malta is not very big (if there was a non stop highway the length of the island – is that north/south? I don’t know, I’m directionally challenged – it would be about 22 miles) we like to treat these weekend excursions as mini vacations. We stayed at a resort in Buggiba, which was great fun. The town itself isn’t much to speak of – it pretty much exists for tourism – and I’m certain under normal circumstances it would have been packed with people! Once again we had the ability to enjoy ourselves without the hordes. The reason we stayed here was that it was a excellent base for our two events.

First of all, we stayed at the Dolmen Hotel. Any hotel that has it’s own prehistoric temple gets my vote!

We also might have found a gelateria (gelato shop) that surpasses Fior di Latte in Mdina. Sottozero was absolutely delicious and creamy. Good thing we’re going back to Mdina so we can verify the data…

We arrived in Buggiba Saturday morning as we had a boat to catch. Yep, boat. Ugh. The trip was scheduled for last week but bad weather had us reschedule (the boat company cancelled the excursion anyway). After calm winds all week the weather gods decided it should be windy again! Double ugh. Like 23 MPH winds. Take a dramamine you say. Negative. Can’t take anything like that. It’s a good thing I really really wanted to go on this trip! We were going to the Blue Lagoon. Bucket list item #1 this weekend.

Then we arrived at the first stop – the Crystal Lagoon. Unfortunately the waves were pretty bad. It made it hard to enjoy being in the water🙁

We won’t talk about the time on the boat with it sitting there, rocking back and forth…

Around the end of Comino and we were in the Blue Lagoon. Oh Lordy. It’s breathtaking.

The trip back on the boat was rough. Really rough. I was very very happy to be back on solid ground again!

Sunday brought us to Bucket List item #2. Right near Buggiba is the Mediterraneo Marine Park. I was going going to swim with dolphins🦈🦈🦈🦈

There were several of us from an assortment of countries. We all donned wet suits (it’s been a really long time since I’ve worn one of those!), received our instructions and headed over to the dolphin pool!

It was an incredible, humbling experience. Melita allowed us to touch her many times, threw water at me, and really showed her personality. These dolphins are not made to do things like let humans stand on them, they are allowed to do dolphin things. All of them were born in captivity – which is sad, but they also would not likely survive in the wild. The staff at the park also use this time to educate the participants on marine life and the state of our oceans and other waters. It was an outstanding reminder that we are not being good stewards of our planet. I am incredibly grateful to have had this opportunity! Thank you to the Husband for my Christmas present, Mother’s Day present and birthday present 💞

It was most assuredly a weekend to remember. Malta is such an amazing combination of rugged beauty, serene beauty, history and lively culture of today. Incredible place❤🤍❤🤍