4. Old Swiss Architecture; Castles; Alpine Towers… Almost too perfect to be believed. 8/31/22
We began the day in Thun – leaving our rather sweet hotel that was unfortunately in a rather unlikely location—by walking the town; about 11,000 steps and the equivalent of about 10 floors.
Thun is a delightful town of 40,000 people, predominantly German-speaking with a small population speaking Italian and also Romansch. Less than 1% of households speak French as their home language. Thus, walking around Thun (and actually around Bern where we are ow) you hear almost no French; just German (which is hard for us since we know no German, but everyone speaks English).
We strolled the old town, crisscrossing the rivers on footbridges and bridges shared by cars, bikes, and pedestrians. We walked the little island between the rivers which was filled with shops, carts, cafes and people. We meandered our way up the wooden stairs that lead to the castle (equal to about 7 flights in each direction) to get great views of the city and to see both the 11th Century church and the 14th Century castle – both in exceptionally good condition. I managed to nearly get locked inside the church as the only door open for exiting was extremely heavy and had an intricate locking system, which apparently had closed behind me. I tried several different ways to open the door but nothing worked. I realized there was a list of instructions on the back of the door explaining how to unlock the door, but it was only in German and way too complicated for my less than elementary German. My solution was to phone Mike and see if he was close by; he laughed but did open the door from the outside.
Eventually we took the elevator down so that we didn’t have to make this into an all-day affair. As we descended on the elevator to the street level of the old town (7 floors below where the church and castle stood) we walked through a well-lit garage with piped in classical music. The car area, like all of Switzerland was immaculate, bright white walls, and freshly painted parking stalls done in red. As we walked underground from the parking area to the old city the music continued and the walls kept changing colors – a sophisticated light, changing show making all the white walls turn first to green and then blue and then purple and then red and then orange!).. Like walking through a light show.
The stroll around town was amazing. Every inch of space surrounding the river was taken up by street musicians, restaurants, shops, and more. As we crossed the two narrow rivers that run through the town we realized that people were swimming and “surfing” (near the locks which create waves), paddling, and just having fun in these rivers that abut buildings. We even spotted two women swimming with their dog. The river is so clean you can see bottom. These water activities make the city so alive and vibrant. And the swimmers were joined by ducks and swans who also seemed to really enjoy the river as well (and certainly entertained all the kids). We chose to have lunch at a little restaurant adjacent to the river to be able to watch all the different activities going on… After strolling some more, we headed to the car to get to Bern. We left Thun at about 4:00 to head for Bern, our next destination.
The drive through the Swiss countryside (we opted for no highways and no toll roads) was amazing with the cute and charming quotient going off the top. Tiny, narrow roads skirting the edges of tiny villages No fences around farms; everyone on bikes; lush, lush green and occasional corn growing in perfect rows. Great old farmhouses and residences made of wood, with red tile roofs (although many now sported solar panels).
We arrived in Bern at about 5, and are staying at the Bellevue Palace Hotel—the state’s guesthouse for visiting heads of state (like us?) We settled into our gigantic room and eventually headed downstairs for drinks on the terrace. And then we walked to “moment” with a lower case ‘m’ – a restaurant we had read about. The walk was about ½-mile in each direction through arcaded streets filled with mostly an under-30 crowd, so we fit right in. It was a beautiful night, so it seemed like all of Bern was out having drinks and dinner… truly blocks and blocks lined on both sides with small restaurants. Don’t know how anyone chooses which place to eat at. ‘moment’ did not disappoint. The place was very very casual (as is all of the country). We started out outside … but moved inside halfway through the meal as it started to get a little chilly. Not sure I can recall all the details of each course… especially after some prosecco and a few glasses of wine… but I recall a few things: each dish was fantastic and used some surprising combinations of ingredients. Here goes:
Started with a set of about five little plates which they called the bread course.. great homemade bread with all sorts of tidbits like homemade “potato chips” with an herb dip; a curd with herb spread, celery and apple juice shot, and more; small piece of trout with yummy veggies and a bed of cooked greens; flat iron steak (sliced) –cooked perfectly, sous vide and quickly seared with polenta and a mustard sauce of some kind and roasted zucchini cut the long way; a tomato dish which melted in your mouth and included a tomato sherbet; and finally a dessert with berries and sorbet sitting on a sort of sweet muffin with cream – Anyway, it was a great meal and then we meandered back through the arcades to the hotel…
Oh, and we are trying to follow the news… and hope to see Trump in jail by the time we return!!!
Tomorrow we explore Bern –
Fern
3. Lakes, Rivers, Winding Roads, Rain, and a Few Castles (From Lucerne to Thun). 8/30/22
Greetings from Thun, a small city/village in the Bernese Oberlander area of Switzerland. The castle of the town was built in 12th Century and the church is from the 14th Century. But we haven’t really explored the town yet, since we arrived around 6:30 pm, having taken a very slow rural route from Lucerne.
Started the day at our now regular breakfast hangout: Mill’Feuille. after being there for two days in a row… Then we finished packing and headed out in our sparkling Alfa Romeo. Decided to avoid highways so that the GPS would force us onto country roads – much longer but much greater sense of the country. We headed to Brienz through multiple tunnels cutting through the mountains and great vistas and scenery; amazing wooden barns; traditional chalets; green hills and the most amazing teal color lakes and rivers. The relationship between the green forested areas abutting the teal blue river was an artist’s delight.
From Brienz with a plethora of 18th Century chalets and lots of little carved wooden figures which acclaim the woodcarving history of the region, we headed toward Beatenberg which is home to the famous St Beatus caves (which we didn’t visit but where we stopped to photograph the amazing houses built under and around rock cliffs.
And then we stopped in Oberhofen ams Thunsee. Eventually, we arrived in Thun, just as the rains started to soak the town (and us). We got lost a few times and had to make u-turns, but we made it. It took a while to find our “boutique” hotel—partly because we had a very different visual image of the place than what it actually is! We booked based on descriptions on the web—“pays homage to its 19th Century past with exposed oak beams juxtaposed against mid-20th Century design….Each of the hotel’s individually designed rooms…. “ What they failed to note is that the tiny hotel is bordered by railway tracks on one side… a supermarket on another side… and god knows what on another side. And there was no real way to drive up to the hotel to drop off our bags. Honestly if you could move this place to another location, it would be a gem. Finally, we parked the car under the supermarket.
We eventually got our bearings and settled in … just in time for dinner, which we had at the hotel’s entry floor. Food was quite good; not exotic, but very good cuts of beef and prepared well. So we ate.. and once I finish this note I’m going to crash. Switzerland is a beautiful country but even countries that appear to be near-perfect have dark sides. Still not my cup of tea but I can see that living here would be a great way to find peace. But, for now, enjoy the final days of August—I’ll be in touch after we arrive in Bern, which should happen late tomorrow.
All the best – Fern… Onward to Bern, tomorrow.
Hope all is well stateside. We are getting CNN at the hotel, but it’s not very US-focused, so we only have some little tidbits of news in the states. Maybe that is for the best. We have been in Lucerne for two days but heading to Thun tomorrow afternoon.
We began the day with a nice breakfast at a little outdoor café located a few blocks from the hotel. I had the baked eggs in tomato sauce (sort of like shakshuka but not as spicy; Mike had a bagel with lox… and I was quite the happy camper because they had iced chai lattes. The hotel is pretty wonderful and the view from our room quite spectacular looking out across the river to the other side of the old town. Lucerne is almost too perfect – beautifully preserved with the old section pretty much intact and well-designed newer buildings (concert hall, museum, train station, etc.) located on the edges of the old city – sort of framing the precious, preserved structures. Many buildings have passageways and structures that bridge across narrow streets. And then there are the covered wooden footbridges from the 14th Century—still in use to move easily from one side of the river to the other. We probably crossed over these bridges dozens of times yesterday and today as we strolled the city.
Lucerne is lovely (as was Zurich) with incredible vistas to the mountains, great food, the cleanest streets you can imagine… but frankly just too perfect for me. I guess I thrive on the stress of real cities and their problems… and their diversity. The New Yorker in me kicks into gear when I’m in these sweet and near-perfect places. What, no honking horns? No litter? No people sleeping in the streets? No yelling taxi drivers? Safe enough for kids, little kids to appear to be walking on their own (probably with parents not too far behind, but alone enough to feel independent). Everyone on bicycles; dozens of walking streets where pedestrians rule. But I am serious, it’s just a little too calm and soft for me; I need the edge. We’ve traveled through a lot of Switzerland over the years and while Lucerne might be more charming than many others, most Swiss cities seem to fit the same characteristics.
That said, Lucerne is truly beautiful; probably one of the most beautiful and livable cities I’ve seen in all my travels. Beautiful in that picturesque way. Now for a few points that I hope answer some of the questions some of you have asked.
Covid: No one is wearing masks. Indeed, it’s like the pandemic never happened. While the Bay Area might have gotten lax about mask wearing, most people seem to don the masks in supermarkets, pharmacies, etc., I can count on one hand the number of masks I’ve seen in Switzerland since we arrived.
Costs: Switzerland is truly the most expensive country I know. Meals (in good restaurants) are probably 50% higher than in equally upscale restaurants in either San Francisco or NY. Good hotels are also very pricey. Our simple breakfast was close to $50; gel manicure is about $80! Not sure how Swiss salaries rank, but I assume they must be high. Obviously, many of the expenses we have in the US are non-existent here, given the social benefits – good schools, health care, university education, and more.
Now for our day today… After walking the covered bridges, we strolled the old town including hiking up to the top of the ramparts and having to walk up and down very steep, old wooden stairs that were at a 45-degree angle to reach the top of the old watch tower from which we had spectacular views of the whole city. After deciding we really deserved some gelato, given all the walking,. I did a teeny bit of retail therapy (really teeny) and we photographed a great deal. I think I clocked in at about 350 images today—everything is just so photogenic!
The Lucerne Festival is taking place (most of August and a little of September), so we decided to go to one of the free concerts which was part of what was dubbed the “Diversity” track. We dashed to the Concert Hall which was well worth it even if the concert wasn’t going to be so great. The Concert Hall is located in a complex adjacent to the main train station and is in the same building as the major art museum. There are literally dozens of eating establishments within and outside the building. And the Hall sits at the edge of the river with water features literally coming directly into the building. And because there is so much outdoor space, people gather in the area – families, kids, older people, tourists, etc. taking advantage of the pools and the water edge. Boats are also docked there, and people literally came to the concert via train, bike, boat, walking, buses, and more—somehow terminating in this “house of culture.”
So, we got to the concert hall just as the doors were closing. It was a very casual crowd (probably since it was a free concert) with a pretty good mix of ages. I think if we had arrived 30 seconds later, we would not have been able to get in… after all the Swiss really respect the clock! It was the “diversity” concert but the audience was all White (my understanding is that there are about 100,000 Blacks living in Switzerland – out of nearly 9 million people). Anyway, it turned out that the term “diversity” had a very different meaning from what I imagined (I thought music from Africa, Latin America, Middle East, Asia). The focus of the program was on the work of graduate students (and maybe young faculty) who were pushing the edges of their instruments—playing with different potentials of their instruments—tapping on violins, using various tools to get different sounds on large gongs; stretching wind instruments to reflect different ways to bring sound. It was interesting but I had to laugh because it was so different from what I was expecting.
Then we rushed back to freshen up to have dinner at the Michelin-starred restaurant at our hotel – des Balances. We snagged a wonderful table right at the river’s edge so we could watch the ducks and swans swimming around and the reflections of all those great buildings in the sparkling lake whose bottom you can see with the water that fresh and clean. Dinner was everything the reviewers said it would be. We opted for the fixed 5-course meals (which also wound up including numerous little “surprise dishes” over and above the 5 courses.)
First came one of those little specials… a cherry gazpacho. Then some lobster and chorizo for Mike and tuna carpaccio with ginger, wasabi, roe, and mango for me. Then we both had a chilled apricot soup that was scrumptious. Then octopus with some kind of olive tapenade and foam. And for the main course we both selected the lamb chops with vegetables which practically melted in your mouth. While we had ordered the dessert (poached peach with peach sorbet and some herbs), suddenly a pre-dessert arrived at the table. And then after the peach dish—of course on Swiss meal would be complete without Swiss chocolates which they brought to the table.
We complemented all of this with prosecco and then wine.. I think you could have rolled us out. Good thing all we had to do was go up the elevator to our room.
I’m going to sign off now.. More tomorrow from Thun.
Fern
Greetings – Today’s adventures… We left our little hotel in the old town area of Zurich right after breakfast and headed to pick up a rental car so we could begin our journey (Zurich to Lucerne to Thun to Bern to Geneva and back to Zurich.. and home). The wait at the rental car place was crazy; it was as if all of Switzerland decided to rent a car. Fortunately, we had reservations, or I doubt we would have been able to get a car. The wait was so long that we befriended people in line including a lovely Mexican family who are currently living in Stockholm! Their 5-year-old son was super excited about the car (my Spanish is probably at his level, so I was able to understand…) but apparently, he thought his parents were “buying” a car that he would have forever, rather than renting. That will be one sad boy when the car goes back to Hertz. We finally got our car …. And it is a very bright blue Alfa Romeo!! We are clearly driving in style. It took us about 15 minutes to figure out how to start the car, how to get into gear, etc. (later we needed to figure out how to turn the car off). Finally, we were on the road.
We had decided early on that we would drive to the Bruno Weber Park which is about 20 minutes or so from the hotel (and not really on the way to Lucerne, our next stop). We had heard about it in Atlas Obscura, and it did not disappoint. As I understand the story, Bruno Weber—trained as a graphic designer and painter—began to “decorate” his parents house which was located on beautiful grounds (200 acres I think). But the work kept growing and growing (well at least Bruno decided to keep it going) and includes all sorts of phantasmagoric creatures—serpents and elephants with two trunks and snakes and more. Many of the sculptures are covered in colorful tiles.
The structures are mostly concrete and there are hundreds and hundreds of them. .. many larger than life-size. Most can be sat on, stood upon, walked across, climbed on, etc. Some are very obviously situated, and others are almost hidden in the bushes and the ponds… spotting them only as you stumble upon them amid trees and bushes. And it is a photographer’s heaven. Would have liked to be able to stroll uninterrupted without anyone else there and would have liked to see it at different times of day. Should you find yourself in Zurich, this is a not-to-miss spot. Far better than museums and institutionalized art.
After spending a considerable amount of time at Bruno Weber Park, we headed to a lovely restaurant called Winzerhaus located in the totally charming town of Weiningen (sp?), which was about 20 minutes from the Park. We sat on the terrace with the trellises completely overgrown with vines (prompting us to select a wine that came from the grapes above our heads). It was a beautiful day (so far, we’ve lucked out with weather) and we (over-) ate an extremely relaxing meal and were way too stuffed to head to Lucerne, but we did.
The hour-long drive from Zurich to Lucerne was uneventful except that we got lost several times because Google Maps was a little confusing… and the GPS in the car is in Italian; we can probably shift the language, but we haven’t had the time. And, getting lost when traveling is always more fun than just getting their straight-away.
We arrived at our hotel in Lucerne—having to drive through several pedestrian-only streets and a plaza… the only way to get to the hotel— to drop off our bags; we won’t need the car while we are here in the city, so this lovely Alfa Romeo will live in the hotel garage. Have to say this is probably the most luxurious and stressless travel we’ve done in decades. For those of you who follow this travel blog, you’ll be happy to know that the more typical Tiger/Pyatok travel will resume in December when we head to Ethiopia, Egypt, Jordan, and Israel.
Anyway, the Hotel des Balances is spectacular; our room looks out on the river with a totally drop-dead view.
After settling in, we headed to dinner at Lucide which is located at the Lucerne Concert Hall and the Art Museum. We also noted that during the days we are here it is the Lucerne Festival, so there are performances throughout the city. Hopefully we’ll catch some of them. Don’t have tickets so we’ll probably just stop by the free outdoor concerts. More about Lucerne tomorrow, but the river is full of fantastic covered wood bridges that date back centuries and criss cross the river.
Our hotel was originally built in 1178 – nearly one thousand years ago—as two houses/mansions. Over the years as it expanded it was a town hall, a school, occupied by Benedictine Friars, two guild halls, and more. There was some kind of fire in 1893 which caused severe damage and the need to rebuild and renovate, but the foundations are original. It’s a spectacular building with a consciously attentive staff. For those who follow this kind of stuff, the comedian “Emil” began his career at the hotel performing Emil and the 40 Thieves. The front of the building— which is next to impossible to photograph— is painted in a Hans Holbein style (by the former director of the art school, in 1893).
We strolled back from dinner – lots of people strolling – and went through the train station in order to cross two very busy streets that have no apparent pedestrian crossing. So, actually, I think we did it the right way along with the locals.
I’m going to sign off now.. Its pretty late here. More tomorrow.
All the best –
Fern
Pre-Travelogue. Midnight in Zurich. 8/27/22
Greetings from Zurich –
Just a reminder… as I say every time I write this blog… feel free to delete or ignore; no hard feelings; everyone is busy.
Anyway, here we are in Switzerland – a very calm and not very exotic trip, so probably shorter notes than usual and less exciting. Bigger travel to come in December. We are here in Switzerland for Michael’s niece’s wedding in Geneva which will take place on Saturday, September 3. Given that we were in Geneva in May en route to Malta, we were originally coming just for the wedding – four days and then back to the US. But as we thought about it and reconsidered. We decided to make a little Switzerland journey out of the trip—visiting cities we have not been to in many years. And so, here we are at the start of our trip – in Zurich. Took non-stop flight from SF and after watching 5 episodes of Yellowstone on the flight—I’m now hooked!—and one little sappy story about Barack meeting Michelle, arrived in the ultra-clean city of Zurich and similarly clean and scrubbed Switzerland. Apparently there are about 2,000 homeless in the entire country of nearly 9 million people. They are pretty invisible, and I have heard that there are very strict laws against sleeping on streets and in parks.
After checking into the tiny Hotel Helmhaus which is on the edge of the Old Town and about one block from the river, we set out for a walk along the river’s edge. The water is incredibly clean and supposedly is safe to drink. The Limmat River runs through the whole city and it is a delightful respite. As we strolled we noticed that there were literally hundreds or more people floating in the river and hundreds more in line to get into the river. Each had a little duck float that they were holding, tied to, or merely playing with. Adults, kids… everyone. And this had been going on for hours. Apparently it’s the end of an art week and this was some kind of celebration. I think it might also have been a bit of a fundraiser, but not sure (hope it was since it could have yielded some good funds for some organization). We watched everyone enter the water and float down river and get replaced by others just entering the river.
After a brief nap, we headed to Gul, a Turkish restaurant we had read about which turned out to be pretty great. Very casual.. three courses as a “surprise menu”.. but each course consisted of about four small plates. It was about a mile from the hotel so we strolled back at a leisurely pace passing lots of cyclists and pedestrians along the way. Tomorrow, after we pick up our rental car, we head to Lucerne; we will be back in Zurich for three nights at the end of our trip. Our drive will be: Zurich to Lucerne to Thun to Bern to Geneva, and back to Zurich. Hopefully pretty relaxing, although I did bring the final chapters of my book with me to try to move that along to meet my deadlines.
All the best –
Fern
8. Final Day in Malta. 5/20/22
Greetings –
May 20th–our final day in Malta, we headed to Rabat which was originally part of Mdina or vice versa but about a thousand years ago the Arabs walled and fortified Mdina. Actually. yesterday, when we went to Domus Romana we were at the edge of Rabat. While there are many religious sites in Rabat including the grotto where St Paul is said to have lived when he was shipwrecked, and a cave painted with 14th century murals (where St Agatha—the one whose breasts were cut off) was supposed to have hidden.. we opted for the 21st century and strolled the wonderful narrow streets (which are actually several centuries old) where people still live and work.
We stumbled upon an open door and were greeted by Harry Mallia, a former “tree surgeon” turned woodworker who invited us into his teeny studio. In what is probably less than 100 sq ft, he is turning wonderful wood bowls and other small vessels, in shapes driven by the grain and shape of the wood. He collects stubs and branches of pruned trees grown on the Maltese Islands as his medium and as he explained, he feels he is keeping pieces of Maltese trees alive forever. Basically he turns and hollows the stub to his desired thickness (really thinness) without letting the wood split, and then he preserves the wood by using natural oils which sometimes he must do over and again for as much as 300 days. He signs all of the pieces HMH, which doesn’t stand for his name which also happens to use the initials HM; rather it stands for something like “heart, mind, hope”. We were totally captivated by not only the objects and his love of wood but his passion for the integrity of wood and of his work. This is a guy who truly loves what he does. We wound up talking and seeing all of his tools and his lathe.
Of course, now Mike is set on getting a lathe and adding this skill to his own passion for carpentry. Harry loves to talk about wood and he found a good listener and questioner in Mike, so he went on and on and would have been happy to keep going, but we might have missed our flight. Since we spent so much time there we figured we should make a purchase. Each piece is signed and at the bottom he carves the number of hours each piece took him to make. His prices are based on that number (of hours it took him to create) times 12.5 euros. The pieces are all very small—between 2” and 8” I’d guess. I was most interested in a very simple plate, but It turned out that was his plate.. the one he’s been eating on for several years. It’s clear he practically lives in this tiny studio. So, the plate was not for sale. We bought a lovely little (2.5”?) vessel made of hibiscus wood. He made sure it was signed and then gave us some authentication papers and some instructions for keeping it in good shape… mostly we need to remember to oil it once every century!!! I think we will pass on this information to someone else.
From there we hustled to grab a quick bite along our walk back to Mdina and the hotel where our bags were waiting. We then drove to the Malta Airport in Valletta, dropped off the car, and flew to London (about 3.5 hours). We were reminded by the rental car folks of our little mishap with the car being stuck in that nasty hole and AAA coming to tow us out—-they had a video to remind us. Funny, so much had happened between then and now, we totally forgot about it!
And then we realized all the places we wanted to see but didn’t find time. It was a good trip and I’d definitely recommend a visit to Malta. You need at least a week to really see it and feel it. It’s known for its beaches and diving and we never went anywhere near those places, but we did note that the water was crystal clear. The old settlements and towns are incredible—wonderful to walk in the day and also in the nighttime. It’s unfortunate what they’ve done in recent years on the outskirts of all these wonderful towns and villages—uncontrolled growth and very ugly buildings. Not sure who is building all these apartment complexes and for whom; their population is not growing and it appears that these new condo or apartment high-rises are empty. My guess is developers see Malta as a prime location for second homes for Europeans??
Anyway, if you stay inside all the wonderfully charming older cities and towns you’ll never see those places. You only run into them when you’re on the road driving from one place to another. People are delightfully friendly; the streets are immaculate; food is good and at times great; and though it’s a small island with about as many people as Oakland it’s quite international because so many foreigners come here to work. It’s also more cosmopolitan than you’d expect given that so many young and middle-aged Maltese return after living abroad.
Enjoy Malta. Happy to make suggestions.
Fern
Day Seven. 5/19/22. Mdina, Mosta, and Rabat
Today, we walked practically every street in Mdina, the wonderful original capital of Malta until the seafaring Knights arrived in the 1530s and sidelined the “city.” But it exists almost as if time stood still… bustling with tourists and school children on class trips by day and totally silent at night when only the 300 residents and about 40 guests at the hotel and some small inns remain (us among them). We visited the Domus Romana, which had been a Roman villa around 100 BC and over centuries others built on top of it and the remains were finally discovered in the late 1800s. A tiled central courtyard was found and during WWII several feet of sand were poured on top of that floor to protect it. We also stopped into a few churches, and lunched in a lovely courtyard. Then we drove out of Mdina to Mosta to see the Mosta Dome—a gigantic dome (used to be the third largest dome in all of Europe but is now the fourth largest because a newer and supposedly bigger dome was built in Gozo in the 1970s. Still the people of Mosta believe their dome is bigger if you measure the width rather than the height. Either way….. the Mosta Dome is visible from much of the island.
We really just wanted to see the inside space of the dome which is a parish church, but when we arrived we had to follow the course prescribed at the ticket stand. So we started by walking down some rather precarious uneven concrete stairs that led to the bomb shelter about 15’ under the plaza where many Maltese hid during WWII. Then we emerged back up…at the other side of the plaza and began the trek up 74 steep spiral stairs (again pretty uneven) to reach the balcony at the rim of the dome. From there we could see the inside of the church and also see the dome up close. And then it was down another set of 74 spiral steps to get into the actual church space.
Also, as the story goes (most of it factual), on April 9, 1942 about 300 people gathered for Mass, when a German bomb hit the Mosta Dome. The bomb sank to the floor and somehow never exploded. The Maltese have interpreted this to be a miracle. There is a replica of the bomb in the lobby of the church, along with photographs of the church during WWII.
Malta is definitely not a country for people with disabilities or those having difficulty walking. Indeed, in the whole week we really never saw anyone in a wheelchair. Then again, you do see a lot of elderly people, some with canes. Not sure how they really get around.
And continuing my quest to know who is living in Malta, I’ve now questioned all service people we have encountered (waiters, hotel reception folks, bartenders, taxi drivers, car rental folks, shopkeepers, etc.) and thus far we’ve met (mostly young people) from India, Italy, France, Australia, Spain, Philippines, Africa (unclear where); many came during Covid and several had interesting stories about their route. One Indian waiter (who holds an MBA) had left India in 2019 to do graduate work in Europe and then had to leave during Covid—initially he went to Portugal and then to UAE and then to Malta. He’s from Delhi, but finding Malta (especially Mdina) peaceful and wonderful. The manager of the restaurant we ate at last night was from Malta, but 12 years ago decided to move to the US (NY in fact) and says in retrospect “What was I thinking coming from this little island and going to such a busy place… but he said for three years he learned that he could get anything he wanted at any time of the night; everything was always open. From NY (he lived in Kips Bay) he went to Chicago, took a train across the US to Los Angeles via Colorado and New Mexico, and eventually took a job with an airline in Abu Dhabi for five years… met his wife who is Japanese and studied in Boston.. and returned to Malta to raise a family. His kids are fluent in Japanese!
He told us that there are a lot of Maltese that go to the US as many have relatives who fled Malta after WWII because conditions were so bad. And there are Maltese who live in the states for a few years and eventually return because they miss their own country. A group of them gather every July 4th at a plaza and have a 4th of July barbecue and sing American songs and talk about their times in the US.
We drove back to Mdina and then headed to dinner at Root 81, which is named after an old bus route. It’s situated on the stairs leading from the edge of Mdina to Rabat. It’s about an 8-minute walk…or at least that’s what it should be. But there was a lot of construction going on and the path and the stairs were closed. We wound up walking on a major road, in the dark (not helped by my very NY travel wardrobe which is almost all black). There aren’t any real shoulders on the roads here and definitely no sidewalks on the edge of major roads. Then we reached the stairs and they were still under construction, so we climbed very uneven concrete. But I lived to tell the story. After a nice dinner, we walked back along the major roadway which definitely was not laid out for pedestrians. And we spent our last night at the lovely Xara (pronounced “charra”) Palace in the “silent city.”
Tomorrow we plan to walk into Rabat and then head to the airport. More tomorrow about Rabat and final thoughts on Malta.
Fern
Day Six. 5/18/22. Valleta to Mdina
Greetings –
Took a walk this morning along some Valletta streets we had not yet visited, including the network of pedestrian streets; grabbed a bite to eat, and then headed to the garage at the bus depot to get the car to bring to the hotel to load our bags. Went pretty much without a hitch. Arrived back at the hotel at about 3:00 pm and headed out of town to Mdina (pronounced “emdina”). The route was fairly simple and we arrived at 3:30 pm. Everything is very close in Malta, given how small the island is. We could have easily stayed in Valletta and driven to Mdina as a short day trip, but we had decided it would be fun to stay in another town and be able to see it in both day and evening, and we are glad we did that.
After checking into the Xara Palace—housed in a 17th Century palazzo; 17 very spacious rooms—we took a walk through the fortified city of 300 residents (although it is contiguous with the city of Rabat which has more than 10,000 residents. Our room has a loft sleeping area that you access via a spiral staircase; given that we always seem to leave something on the wrong level, we are getting a lot of steps and flights into our exercise app.
The hotel has only 17 rooms. We have what is referred to as a “street view”, but because of the floor we are on and the proximity of buildings within the fabric of the town surrounded by ramparts, we really look at a wall—albeit a very old and nice stone wall. There is a bronze plaque on the building that says “The Maltese nobility assembles within the walls of this ancient palazzo in order to elect its Committee of Privileges.”!!
Mdina sits on the tallest point of the island of Malta. It was founded in the 8th Century and its total area is less than one kilometer…I said it was small. It was the original capital of Malta through the Middle Ages. It’s referred to by the Maltese as the “silent city”—which I assume refers to the fact that there are so few residents and so many churches and convents. I have no idea just how many churches and convents there are in this little village—but I’m pretty sure that we walked by at least 9 churches and convents.
Then we headed to dinner at the Michelin star restaurant called de Mondion which is conveniently located inside the hotel. We opted for the a la carte menu rather than the “tasting menu”—but there was a lot of tasting that they brought to the table as small starters, including a cracker like bite that had tiny caviar sprinkled about and perhaps some other goodie; a tiny cracker shaped like an ice cream cone but very very thin, inside of which was some kind of beef tartar and horseradish; a paper thin tomato that wrapped local goat cheese. Then something that looked like a small tomato arrived, but again the red tomato like covering was wrapping some kind of tuna and capers. Eventually we got to the actual meal: I began with amazing sweetbreads that came with tiny turnips and some kind of anchovy with sage and Mike went for the octopus that had some unagi and also some vegetables that were cut like linguini. For the main courses, I had the pigeon which had beetroot and some kind of truffle cream and a pepper sauce on the side. Mike had the beef fillet and I’m not certain what was with that dish. For dessert we shared a lemon yogurt souffle. But in addition, they brought tiny tastings of panna cotta and some other thing. We had a bottle of wine from Malta—we’ve been drinking local wine the whole time and the one we’ve settled on is called Marinisi (sp?)
By the time we finished dinner, you could have rolled us to the room.
More tomorrow about Mdina as we will explore it more and possibly also Mosta which is nearby.
All the best-
Fern
Day Five Malta. 5/17/22. Tow Trucks and Towers
Hope all is well.
What started out as a really laid back day headed north to the “wild” areas of Malta turned into a wild experience for us, but not because of the natural currents.
We had breakfast at the hotel and headed out to get our car at the garage; following yesterday’s fiasco, today was a breeze—found the car quickly and set out for the day. Mike is now quite good at British style driving and I’m the official navigator. We were headed north to the area around Mellieħa whose landscape is different from the other areas we’ve visited. All went well, except for a few glitches of missing some turns but those were quickly corrected and we arrived at Paradise Bay, where signs told us there was no nude bathing (so we obviously had to change course) and then we were just outside Mellieħa. We saw a sign for the Red Tower and decided to investigate. When we arrived at the top of the hill (pretty high up), I mentioned to Mike that there was a parking spot on the left side, but Mike chose a spot on the right side; there weren’t any markers for parking so it was a bit of a scramble. It was a dirt parking area and there were very very few cars. We then climbed the stairs up to the Red Tower and were greeted by a very chatty 80+ year old who clearly likes his volunteer job.
He inquired where we were from and told us his daughter lives in San Carlos and had worked for FaceBook for several years and then went to a startup with even better salaries! Her husband works for Apple. And then he began to explain about the history of the Red Tower which is also called Saint Agatha’s Tower. FYI Saint Agatha was apparently a feminist and is the patron saint of breast cancer and wet nurses. Because of her “activism” her breasts were cut off and in many paintings of her you can see her breasts on the ground. The story of the Tower is complicated—it was built between 1647 and 1649, and its design is quite different from other towers built at the time. It was the last large bastioned tower to be built in Malta and has clear views of both Comino and Gozo islands and at the time could also see eastward to the line of other watchtowers along the north shore of Malta. It was the Knights’ primary stronghold in the western part of Malta, and had enough ammunition and supplies to withstand a siege of 40 days.
Anyway, we climbed the spiral staircase to the top and got really great views of the coast and the land below. And then we headed out on our journey to visit several coastal villages and areas. We got into the car and Mike inched forward and then into reverse to turn the car around to leave the parking area. But the car didn’t go anywhere and the tires sounded like they were spinning. I got out to see what the problem was and saw immediately that the left tire was suspended in a square hole that was about three feet deep, about two feet wide and about a foot long.
There also was a very large rock wedged between the underside of the car. There was no way for us to get out of the lot; no way to move the car. Additionally there must have been some kind of plastic barrier that was “announcing” this ditch-like situation, which we never noticed or thought it was merely announcing a parking space on that right side. If it wasn’t such a mess, the whole thing might have been pretty funny.
A young couple immediately tried to help. I think they were Scandinavian. But they didn’t have a rope and only had a small rental car like us. Then a woman from Malta came to help and she phoned the rental car company figuring she could do a better job of explaining our location. At this point, Hertz said they would send a tow truck but they are based at the airport at the completely other side of the island. It would take at least an hour. We resigned ourselves to this solution and went back inside the red tower because it was cool and there were chairs. The guide we met when we entered was leaving and the second shift (another 80-year-old guy) had just come on duty. We explained what happened and I said “I’m really glad I was not the driver.” He responded, “I just heard him whisper that it was all your fault!” Later when he saw me photographing the tow truck and the car’s situation, he stated to Mike: “Uh oh… she’s going to post all of this on FaceBook!”
We hung out near the 10-minute video of the history of the tower and I think we “saw” it about 8 times (although neither of us paid much attention). Finally the Hertz guy showed up with a huge flat-bed truck, tied our car to his truck with a cable and pulled our car out of the “ditch” and away from the rock…. And we were on our way again, just about two hours later than planned.
We decided to eat at a beachside place called Munchies. Given the options, this was the best place. We only had salads and they were actually OK. By then it was about 4:45 so we decided to head back to Valletta to avoid arriving in the dark and encountering any more problems. We parked in our now “usual” space (which we now know exactly how to find) and strolled along Republic Street.
By the way, yesterday we stumbled upon a demonstration about a journalist and assumed it was tied to the Palestinian Al Jazeera journalist killed by Israeli forces, but it turns out it was about a corruption journalist who was murdered in 2017. Daphne Caruana Galizia had uncovered all sorts of corruption in Malta’s government. She was killed by a car bomb. A recent report conducted by a group of judges released last week says that the state “failed to recognize the real and immediate risks” to the journalist’s life and “failed to take reasonable steps to avoid them.” According to the Guardian, “Her death was met with outrage across Europe and embroiled Malta’s ruling Labor Party in a political scandal.” The report concluded that the assassination was either intrinsically or directly linked to Caruana Galizia’s investigative work. There is a lot more to the story and I’m sure you can google to find out more. Caruna has been described as a “one woman WikiLeaks.”
Then we headed to Rubino’s for dinner. Rubino’s is a little family-run restaurant about 7 blocks from our hotel. You enter at ground level with the restaurant being on the first floor of a building that has upper floors. There’s a small dining room on that level with about four tables and then another room at the next level down, also with about four or five tables, and then another level below there is an additional dining area with one long table, for probably about ten or twelve diners—a family. The food was really good. We started with stuffed zucchini flowers and moved on to orecchiette with an Amatriciana sauce and spicy Maltese sausage. Then we shared the blue ling fish that was cooked in parchment with white wine, herbs, and lemon. The fish just melted in your mouth. Potatoes and veggies accompanied the main course. With this we had a bottle of Maltese wine.. the Marinisi which we’ve grown to really like. And we ended with a homemade cheesecake that was smothered in fresh lingonberries. Chatted a bit with one of the owners and headed on our walk back to the hotel.
That’s it for today. Tomorrow we leave our little home away from home at 66 St. Paul and head to Xara Palace Hotel in Mdina (they use a lot of consonants in Maltese). It’s only about a 30-minute drive, but we decided to stay two nights in central Malta to see what it’s like. Mdina used to be the capitol…
Best-
Fern
Greetings-
Hope all is well; we are once again in shock about the most recent events back home. But here we are in Malta and focused on understanding more about this small country. We’re also trying to understand their politics. As I understand it, since Malta gained independence from Britain in 1964, its politics has primarily been dominated by the Christian democratic Nationalist Party and the Labour Party (social democrats). More on this later.
We were quite late in getting our act together this morning, but eventually hit the streets and walked to the garage (near the bus terminal) where we had parked our car last night. It’s next to impossible to find street parking in the old section of Valletta so we knew early on we’d need to find a garage or parking lot and then walk into town, which was fine. Anyway, we got to the garage and I recalled we had parked on level “-2A” so we headed there. We walked the whole level and could not find or car. We remembered that it was in a sort of triangular shaped area near the ramp. It was really dark in the garage last night but we were sure of these details. But alas, no car. So we went to the cashier desk and explained where we thought we parked the car. The guy said we could not have parked on the second level because that is a “members only” floor and that we must have parked on level 4, 5, or 6. I was sure we did not park on those levels but again the guy stated that levels 2 and 3 were member only. So we went to level 4 and searched everywhere— no car. We had now spent about 25 minutes looking for the car and it was beginning to feel as if we would never find the car or that we needed the garage folks to drive us up and down each lane of every floor. We were about to look at level 5, but I finally convinced Mike that we should return to level 2 where we both thought the car was parked. As it turned out we were parked in a little side section of the 2nd level that is entered before the “members” use a special fob to enter that level. 45 minutes after we entered the garage, we were finally in our car. But then, we had used up the “free minutes” that the pre-paid ticket gives you to exit the garage. So, the arm of the garage exit would not open when we scanned our ticket. The garage guy showed up and looked at our prepaid ticket and proclaimed: “You’ve been in the garage for 45 minutes looking for your car?” And he needed the manager to approve our exit. All in all, could have been a Seinfeld episode (and there was one where George and Jerry and Kramer could not find their car and they were hauling an air conditioner around the garage.)
Finally, we were on our way to Marsaxlokk (pronounced Marsa-schlock, I think)—a little fishing village with about 3,500 inhabitants. The fishing boats are all painted bright red, yellow, blue, green, and white. There are many restaurants lining the edge at the water and naturally the fish dishes are very fresh and literally “just caught.” We ate at one of those little restaurants at a table where we could watch the boats and the fishermen (yup, all men), and then we strolled the town. In the middle of our rather late lunch there were canon-like sounds, followed by what seemed like traditional music from a live band, so I jumped up to see what was happening and was in the middle of a funeral procession coming down the harbor street.
From Marsaxlokk we headed to Ghar Dalam, Malta’s oldest pre-historic site, but it was closed on Mondays—so maybe tomorrow. Mike was very disappointed not to see the prehistoric bones of dwarf elephants. We then headed to see the famous Blue Grotto. I was navigating on the iPhone Google Maps and all was well until we hit a road that was closed due to construction, requiring us to back out and figure out an alternative route. We wound up on some extremely small roads—about 9 feet wide (two-way roads) with 6’ stone walls on either side for many miles; the road we went through vineyards and teeny towns, eventually arriving at viewing points to see the amazing Blue Grotto– sea caverns on the south east coast. The location of the caves is responsible for the seawater reflecting shades of blue on the cave walls and ceilings.
From the Blue Grotto, we headed back to Valleta and to our favorite garage (which we now know very very well) and parked in our same spot on the second level. Hopefully, we will find it easily tomorrow. We strolled along Republic Street past the new Parliament Building and new city gates (both designed by Renzo Piano), which are strikingly effective and blend in to the city well (without much of the fanfare and “look at me” style of many new buildings set into historic settings). The buildings use the traditional materials and echo a lot of the scale of the older buildings.
After some emails and some work, we headed to Guze for dinner. As with all the other meals, our waiter was not from Malta; this time it was a transplant from Macedonia. He’s been living in Malta for 12 years and it’s permanent. We chatted a bit about the reconstruction of the city following WWII, given all the destruction from the bombing by the Germans. Interestingly a lot of the reconstruction was paid for by Libya! Khadafy saw Malta as an Arabic land, with language that is tied to Arabic. The tiny restaurant – Guze—is located on the ground floor (and partly underground) of a building that is 400 years old and apparently was the only building standing on that street after the war. Another interesting fact we learned was that the Italians were supposed to be bombing Malta, but they mostly dumped the bombs into the sea because they had affection for Malta. Once Hitler found this out, he sent the Germans to do the real job of bombing the island; the damage took about 45 years to rebuild
We also chatted about schooling in Malta, especially languages used. Seems as if Maltese and English are taught concurrently. Remember, Malta was part of the British Empire until 1964 so English was the common language. Apparently many Maltese do not know the language and only older people use the language regularly.
Queen Elizabeth, when she was just a mere princess lived in Malta with Prince Phillip from 1949 to 1951. Prince Philip was stationed nearby and they lived in an 18th century limestone villa loaned to them by Lord Mountbatten. It was said to hold very happy memories for the couple, who tried to live a fairly ‘regular’ life (if that is possible while living in a mansion). In any case, just last week it was announced that this villa will become a museum.
We strolled back to the hotel (clocking in at 11,033 steps) across several plazas and down an untold number of steps.
Tomorrow is another day.
Best-
Fern
