Chosen Fugue

Montenegro: Highs and Loehs

(if you get this via email, the pictures might work better on the blog and the blog has the big featured picture. Just click “read on blog” in the top right corner)

Bosnia-Herzegovina*, Albania*, Croatia*, Bulgaria*, Romania*, Czech Republic, Hungary* and now Montenegro. Each of these former communist countries are fascinating and some of the most beautiful places we have been. Each of these countries also have long convoluted histories, some were well established countries that now are transitioning to new forms of government; dictatorship to democracy (well Hungary might not be transitioning well) others are now actually new countries.

We have now been to three of the Balkan countries that previously existed as a united country, Yugoslavia (name means “south slavs”). When the Yugoslav dictator, Tito, died in 1980, and communism collapsed in 1989, the center did not hold and Yugoslavia eventually broke into 7 different countries; Slovenia, Croatia, North Macedonia, Serbia, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Kosovo, and Montenegro. The birth of these countries was not easy; rising ethnic nationalization, long simmering racism and endemic religious differences led to religious and territorial war, The Balkan Wars, from 1991-95. Loose alliances formed based on religious majorities in these religiously mixed countries; Roman Catholic predominates in Croatia and Slovenia, Islam in Bosnia&Herzegovina and Kosovo, and Eastern Orthodox in Serbia, Montenegro and North Macedonia. As a result of the ethnic violence of the Balkan Wars, some of these countries became more homogeneous.

We traveled (Flix bus) south from Sarajevo to the Montenegro coast via Dubrovnik, Croatia. Some of this spectacular landscape we saw on an earlier trip to Croatia/Bosnia* but this time we covered more Bosnia.

We were really surprised at how mountainous this area is, again displaying our geographic ignorance, -these are the Dinaric Alps with multiple peaks from 6,000 to almost 9,000 feet.

Montenegro is a new and poor country that like Albania, is trying to establish it’s tourism industry as Croatia successfully has. It definitely has the draw with just a crazy beautiful coast, but with its narrow mountainous roads and mountains that crash into the sea, beach, space is limited. Not that this is stopping building.

We focused our 10 day Montenegro stay on the coast in Budva, on the Adriatic Sea and in Kotor at the crux of the Bay of Kotor. Budva was basic. It felt like a typical working city on the coast, with some more upscale neighbors. A long promenade with Bečići sandy beaches and massive resorts/condos at one end and the walled old town at the other.

so many cafe/bar/playground combinations

The old town was fine but after a few years of traveling, we have seen others that were far more striking.

Our favorite site in Budva might have been the combination bus station-restaurant-zoo a block from our apartment (bunnies, tortoises, peacocks/hens, swans, ducks, pigeons)

We did enjoy our apartment which was nestled in a residential area and each afternoon we could hear kids playing after school which along with the look of the apartment buildings, brought us back to the 1990s.

Kotor was definitely more scenic with its dramatic limestone fjord-like cliffs dropping into the water.

Kotor’s old town was larger and a bit more interesting than Budva’s.

one side of the wall around the old town

There is a trail up to the church ruins on the hill

The old town was very popular and on our walk through old town we dodged selfies from the crowds who spilled off the massive cruise ship and flooded the cobblestone streets.

A bus trip up the bay took us to Perast (on very narrow roads) resulting in a 20 minute lap around the pretty tiny town (it was all old town) before catching the bus back.

It is just beginning to get crowded, must be packed in the summer

Montenegro’s inland rugged mountainous landscape is dramatic and while we planned on going to the national parks, lingering winter weather prevented this. But we did get to bus through no-shoulder-big-drop-narrow roads along the Lovcen National Park on our way to Cetinje and Lake Skadar (no, we did not do the zip line).

More so than Budva and Kotor, Cetinje, the original royal seat, felt a bit more uniquely Montenegrin.

Our big day trip was to Lake Skadar a massive lake that forms the border with Albania. We had read so many positive reviews about the lake and the train- a 17 minute ride through staggering beauty. The only trouble was that we were inside staggeringly dark tunnels for the first 10 minutes, the staggering beauty must have been on the outside of the tunnel. The last 7 minutes were fine.

this might have been the most scenic part of the train ride

We planned on taking a walk around the lake, it is a National Park, followed by our 2 hour boat tour. We also were eager for some bird watching after our great boat experience at the mouth of the Danube in Romania (link below). But, there was only a small little road above the lake that went about 1/2 a mile

of course a narrow road with no shoulder to walk on

and again, due to our seasonal timing there were few birds. The lake itself was underwhelming as well but again, due to timing, the huge lily pads were not in bloom.

A bar in the summertime on the lake-coffee in the morning, beer in the afternoon

The bigger excitement was at the train station where some stray dogs befriended Nick, then more than befriended Nick with a lot of loving nipping and jumping so he had to hide in the abandoned train station for an hour as we waited for our return train to Kotor.

In trying to put some context around our trip to Montenegro, we thought about Loehmann’s, the iconic discount clothing store. The one in Northridge in the San Fernando Valley was a frequent destination for Patricia and our daughters. For years, Nick was shown the bargain purchases from Loehmann’s Back Room and heard about who else was in the dressing room, to him, they always sounded like celebrities (Raquel’s grandma?). So, when Nick (who hates to shop, as evidenced by his static wardrobe) finally went (was convinced to go?) his inaugural (and only) Loehmann’s visit response was “This is it?” He was so surprised- nothing fancy, no velvet couches, no red carpet or searchlights, just a basic somewhat rundown store (really no different than Marshalls) that maybe had seen better days (nope, that is how it was). Ever since, any time our expectations are met with “meh”, it is now a “Loehmann’s moment”. Montenegro was kinda a Loehmann’s moment.

We had heard and read incredible things about Montenegro, and yes there were Back Room level highs from the stunning scenery of Kotor Bay but we just were not finding the right fit. We also struggled on our one restaurant experience and our frequent market shopping, there’s only so many things you can put on a corn thin, and Montenegro lacked 1/2 of them.

Montenegro is very young country, only gaining its independence from Serbia in 2006, it’s finding its own style. Regardless of fit and expectations, like Loehmann’s we still loved it.

History repeats itself

Sometimes in our travels we are just emotionally overwhelmed by a place. Sometimes it is staggering beauty, other times it is the history; cities whose names represent the worse of humans, places where religious differences are used for hatred and killing people. Cities such as Munich, Jerusalem, Belfast and now Sarajevo have evoked these emotions. Sarajevo seems unique as it has a long history of coexistence between different groups of people, that history has been upended by recent history; the trigger point of World War I, ethnic massacres in World War II and genocide in the 1990s.

Sarajevo’s geography is a timeline. Starting at the eastern edge, where the Miljacka river curves and enters the city.

On the right,the striped building is city hall built in 1896 . It was the National Library. Set on fire during the Siege of Sarajevo in August 1992. Over 2 million books/periodicals burned. The famous Sarajevo Haggadah, an illuminated manuscript from 1350,one of the oldest of its kind was there but had been hidden away at the outset of the war. Rebuilt (2014)and replicated as it was.

Ottoman Sarajevo was a city that was proud of it’s acceptance of others, seeing someone different than yourself as a neighbor. Rather refreshing right now.

Within a 200m diameter radius the 16th C Gazi Husrev-beg Mosque, an Eastern Orthodox church both built in 1500 (and maybe before) and synagogue built by Sephardic Jews expelled by Spain in 1492

Sebilj Fountain providing water to residents since 1753, reconstructed in 1891, iconic Ottoman symbol of the city.

With the fall of the Ottoman empire, Austria-Hungary was gifted much of Bosnia; occupation began in 1878 than annexation (1900). The local population was not consulted or pleased. To celebrate the opening of the national museum, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the heir to the empire, came to Sarajevo, and was assassinated by a Bosnian Serb revolutionary, Gavrillo Prencip, WW I followed.

These men are standing on the spot where Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie were shot in front of the Latin Bridge. Tourists are over at the museum where the shot was fired.

Central market where two separate bombardments during the Seige of Saraevo, February 1994 with 68 killed and 144 wounded and in August 1995 with 43 killed 75 wounded. The second attack led to the NATO air strikes that ended the seige.

Our apartment was across from the Merkale market. The buildings here are the stereotypic European Succession reflecting the massive modernization and building spree after occupation by Austria-Hungary. This is the outside of our very, very lovely modern and clean apartment. Typical in these post-communist countries that the exterior -jointly owned- gets little attention.

It’s always interesting to go to contemporary art museums in smaller countries, seeing artists that rarely are shown elsewhere. We had our own private tour with a great guide.

Keep going west along the river and you enter the new city; parks, high rises, shopping centers and a few soviet style apartment blocks and the Olympic stadium (hosted 1984 Winter Olympics).

Although the style of the buildings kept changing, the one thing that was constant were the bullet holes peppered on so many buildings (you can see them in many of the pictures posted). These remain from the siege. (pictures below from an exhibit at the History of Bosnia-Herzegovina Museum).

Siege/After Siege from an exhibit at the History museum

We keep referring to the siege which was kind of a cloud over the trip. The Siege of Sarajevo lasted from April 5 1992 to February 29 1996 triggered by the establishment of the multi-ethnic country of Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1992 after the fall of Yugoslavia. Instead of a mixed country, Bosnian Serbs (usually referred to as Chetniks) wanted to create a Bosnian Serb state of Republika Srpska that would include Bosniak majority areas- including Sarajevo-just without the Bosniaks. The Chetniks blockaded Sarajevo. For 1,425 days, Sarajevo was isolated; limited water, scarce food, intermittent electricity and constant bombardment from snipers in the hills surrounding the town. Hills that before April 1992 were neighborhoods, now, neighborhoods were commandeered by the Chetniks and anyone who was not a Serb was kicked out of their homes or killed.

Sarajevo sits at the base of a bowl shaped river valley; allowing the prolonged siege and isolation of the city by the Serbian forces. Due to the mountainous topography of Bosnia-Herzegovina, similar sieges occurred in other Bosnian valley cities such as Gorazde, Srebrenica, Mostar and Tuzla.

Look back at most of the pictures and you can see how close the surrounding hills are to the center of the city. We walked up to the old Jewish cemetery, the second largest in Europe after Prague. It was a little disturbing how it was in such disrepair (a new and poor country rightly has other needs), but what was far more disturbing was this was used as a sniper nest to bombarb the city. (irony or tragedy that the holocaust memorial to the right was shot up in the middle of a genocide?)

View of the city from the Jewish cemetery

The short documentary film Miss Sarajevo was made during the siege, worth watching (click it). Snippets of the film are included in the video for the U2 song of the same name https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdczQ2LsY0I The Bosnia-Herzegovina History museum presented life during the seige; describing how they got water (risking their lives to do so), got food (many died lining up for food), held concerts and tried to live. Most of the collection were items donated from people who lived it.

One of the most compelling pieces was about Nermin Divović, a 7 year old Sarajevan killed by a sniper on November 18, 1994,. A knitted sweater for each year.

The final sweater was the one he was wearing when he was shot.

As Sarajevo was tortured, the Chetniks were massacring Moslims throughout Bosnia. Gallery 11/7/95 is a memorial gallery dedicated to documenting the ethnic cleansing of Bosniak Moslim towns along the Bosnian-Serbian border, including the Srebrenica massacre https://galerija110795.ba/exhibitions/permanent-exhibition-srebrenica/.

You can watch the film shown at the gallery here https://tariksamarah.com/srebrenica-video/.

Up more hills to just outside of the Olympic stadium, rows and rows of graves of people who died in the siege.

History repeats itself. So many correlations with current events in Ukraine, Gaza, Sudan and now Iran.

Makeshift memorial to the children killed in the US airstrike on an elementary school in Tehran March 2026

Stolperstein in Sarajevo, memorials to those murdered in the Holocaust

A Sarajevo “rose” , red resin poured into mortar holes from bombs where at least three people were killed. There are 200 roses in the city.

The problem about going to a place with so much history, so much tragedy, is not taking the time to experience it’s present. Sarajevo is a vibrant, growing, struggling city. Worth a visit. These books (and Wikipedia) helped us understand:

Available in the Libby (library app): How the Soldier Repairs the Gramophone by Saša Stanišić and Safe Area Goradze by Joe Sacco (graphic novel)

Southeast England, 2

We’ve been living (short term) in a lot of houses with our 57 pet sits so we have seen a lot of different houses. Plus our 8 houses. Then add in all of the apartments we have stayed in or rented between sits, in our almost full time traveling over 9 years. So, our life has kind of been perpetual House Hunters. We are always asking ourselves could we live here; in Greenwood-Seattle; Split, Croatia; Lewes, England; etc? Could we live in this house? Sometimes we find really clever or beautiful features that would definitely go into our next aspirational house like the really great European windows that open both up and out.

More often, we are ready to redecorate our temporary home. Would you have put white carpet on a floor with so much mud outside? Wouldn’t the couch look better on that wall? There was actually an Austrian-German movie (The Edukators) about group of young people who would break into houses and rearrange the furniture as an act of rebellion. So, thusly inspired we have recently entertained fantasies of rearranging or painting a room while the owners are gone, but that would most likely destroy our run of 100% 5 star sitter reviews.

With these thoughts in mine, we went to Charleston House. The main impetus to pet sitting in the Brighton/Lewes area was due to the sisters; the Stephen sisters, Virginia Woolf and Vanessa Bell. Monks House, Virginia and Leonard Woolf’s house https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/visit/sussex/monks-house and Charleston House https://www.charleston.org.uk/event/house-visit/, the home of artists Duncan Grant and Vanessa Bell; the catalysts of the Bloomsbury group of artists https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloomsbury_Group

Charleston House was tucked away, reached from the bus stop by walking along a long driveway passed grassy, pheasant-filled fields. You approach through a lovely garden .

In light of Virginia Woolf’s death, it was kinda of disturbing to see this sculpture in the garden. The Levitating Lady was made by Vanessa’s son (Virginia’s nephew) Quentin Bell. He said it was inspired by magic tricks. This is the back.

While Duncan Grant and Vanessa Bell (and her 3 children- 2 with her husband, 1 with Duncan) were the “permanent” residents, Vanessa’s husband (Clive Bell ), Robert Fry, Lytton Stratchey, David Garnett (Duncan’s partner) and John Maynard Keyes were the “semi-permanent” residents. Duncan was the last remaining, he died in 1978. The house is as it was when they lived there.

Their goals with the house were to blur boundaries between life and art, elevate the cheap furniture that they bought and improve the existing falling apart house- much like our goals for each house we have moved to. The wallpaper, rugs and most of the fabrics, (including on chairs and lampshades) were either from their travels (fabrics) but usually designed by Duncan, Roger or Vanessa. Almost every surface painted by Duncan and Vanessa. Guests were encouraged to join in. At the time (they moved in 1916), their use of a very specific color palate (strong colors, pinks, coco browns) and bold patterns was as shocking as their lifestyle.

Dining room with a portrait of Stratchey

A lot of bedrooms.

Vanessa and Duncan painted together and designed a studio which they added on to the rented house. This was done while they were renting, another way they were inspirational to us; they acted on their fantasy of redecorating someone else’s house.

Charleston House was vibrantly eclectic. It was like walking through a house designed and decorated by naughty and precociously talented 5 year olds, every surface that could be painted on was, even cups and plates. It just felt very free- which is how they lived.

Monk’s House, doesn’t open until April, but that didn’t stop us from walking 4 miles from Lewes through the South Downs, along the muddy banks of the River Ouse to go see it. The River Ouse is infamous as the river where Virginia Woolf drowned herself.

We slogged through the muddy road along the banks of the river, just before we made the turn from the river towards the path to Monk’s House a woman magically appeared from over the berm of the river bank and immediately began talking to us about her tooth pain, which lead to her obsessive rumination over her tooth, which lead to loss of her job, which lead to deep depression. She walked with us down the same final fateful road taken by Woolf continually returning to her bad tooth which wasn’t properly treated after it was extracted and how her life has spiraled downward including hospitalization, medication and diagnosis of bipolar disorder. It was truly sad and spooky. Her name was Annabelle (Virginia Woolf’s sister was Vanessa Bell), and later we looked up and read that Virginia Woolf was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, hospitalized, and had significant dental problems that were linked to her struggles with physical and mental health. Too weird, feeling like we had run into the ghost of Virginia Woolf on our journey.

We walked through the tiny village of Rodmell, passed Monk’s house and then we opted to take the bus back to Lewes avoiding more mud and misery.

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Southeast England 1

Maps are deceiving. The entire United Kingdom is about the size of Oregon. England itself, is about the size of Alabama. There is a lot to see which is great because we still had to balance our Schengen time so that we could return to mainland Europe in the spring and UK is not part of the Schengen agreement. https://chosenfugue.xyz/2018/10/07/schengen/

England is also surprisingly far north. Liverpool is along the same latitude as Hamburg, Germany and Edmonton, Canada. It’s further north than Winnipeg or Calgary, Canada. In February, England is still cold. We thought that southern England might be a bit warmer. We have adapted to thinking 50 degrees is warm, ( we don’t wear shorts at that temperature….. yet.) but unfortunately, in mid February, 50 degrees is not happening anywhere in England.

Our first stop was northeast London. Weirdly, we actually haven’t spent much time in London but you could spend years visiting because every neighborhood seems like a different city. Walthamstow was a cosmopolitan treat exemplfying London’s reputation as a world city- restaurants and markets from all over the world. An Albanian restaurant next to a Caribbean market next to a Middle-eastern restaurant-next to chicken shop next to a Romanian market next to a Mosque which was above a Tesco Express next to an egg-free bakery! Walking with an adorable labrador named Champ surrounded by chatter in about 100 different languages. It was a blast.

Besides (Olympic) Champ the labrador, the other highlight here was going to the V & A East Storehouse. It was exactly that, the storehouse for the Victoria and Albert museums. It was so great, we went twice.https://www.vam.ac.uk/east

While most items were on the shelves (kind of like a supermarket with specials on the end caps), we particularly enjoyed these two little “rooms”.

Onward to the still cold southeast coast for a return trip to Brighton, which we had visited just for a day in 2018 https://chosenfugue.xyz/2018/10/10/bonfires-bands-and-beaches-in-eastbourne/ . Brighton, the Berkeleyesque, seaside town was our base for two very different dog sits.

From Brighton to Lewes, where we watched two little schnauzers. Walking along the river, through the fields, in the mud, everyone passing, stopping and saying “Hello Arti, Hello Ella”, chatting with us as we joined the doggie community. Ella and Arti were our amabassadors to the Lewes community, and with each introduction we immediately apologized for the behavior of the US president as he tries to ruin the world.

We added to our pet resume with worms; helping to set up a worm bin 10 minutes before the pet owner had to leave to catch her train. The worms proved to be more work than the dogs. Like us, the worms kept trying to escape the wet and cold, we had to keep collecting them from outside of the bin. Once we read the instructions, problem solved, they need a day or two of sunlight to borrow into their new home (good luck in England). Who knew that worms needed to be housetrained.

Adorable Lewes had a full bingo card of classic British town features:

We had one day between sits so we took the opportunity to explore the downs and walk to the next town to stock up on groceries at Tesco since the next house was a bit isolated. Paths of mud interspersed with green marshy fields where we could use the grass and puddles to clean the mud off our shoes so we could get them muddy again.

On to Ditchling, kind of an upscale suburb of Brighton. We stayed at an inn above a pub, The Bull to the right in the picture. The town describes itself as a “candy box”, it was essentially an intersection, but a cute intersection. The house was the opposite, more like a candy store; San Fernando Valley mini-mansion, Calabasas meets the South Downs.

Dudley, an old terminally ill sheepdog with a weeping wound and an old but not terminally ill English Bulldog named Dorothy, Dot for short. Caring for the sheepdog was pretty bittersweet, caring for Dot was …… she was like a stubborn truffle pig constantly on the prowl for any morsel or crumb. Checking off british dog tropes. No one moved much. Our first experience with either of these breeds and it was memorable.

Off to Leigh-on-Sea because apparently second to muddy paths, hurricane level windy seaside cities are our jam. https://chosenfugue.xyz/2026/01/02/the-brrrritish-coast/ A two cat, one beagle mix awaited us in Leigh-on-Sea. Night before our sit was spent in a B and B, we generally avoid these, but this was Bingo time in England. Then we spent the day escaping the wind by having a pint, hanging out in the mall and going to the local museum; every British city seems to have one displaying the ancient artifacts found when putting in a highway, parking lot or apartment building.

A windy, cold tour of England, but it beats touring Alabama.

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It was just so French

We like to be useful. We like to experience what it would be like to live in different places, to step into a different life. So pet sitting works out well for us. We use Trusted Housesitters to find pet sits, but almost 4 years into pet sitting, family and friends are keeping us pretty busy. Let people know you will lovingly and responsibly watch their pets and opportunities just pop up. This time it was an offer to spend a few weeks dog sitting in a 100 year old farmhouse in rural Burgundy, for a long-time friend of Patricia’s, Patricia’s mentor, someone who really shaped her life.

We loved our month in France last year, traveling counterclockwise from Bretagne to Paris, so why not, especially since January is pretty cold, wet and gray and their house has geothermal heat plus it is always nice to see an old friend.

But first we had to get there from Malta. We flew into Marseille for a detour to visit Nick’s nephew in the lovely town of Aix au Provence, which is just a 30 minute train ride from Marseille.

From Marseille to Chalon sur Saône, another classically French town, followed by a meandering car ride through rolling hills of vineyards occasionally punctuated with old stone houses and chateaus.

Yes, there were supermarkets (pretty nice ones) and big box stores, but we avoided those and took the scenic route so not to break the Beauty and the Beast spell.

Yes, it seemed that we were in Belle’s village, which was confirmed as we drove up to the farm house, Belle’s farmhouse; six miles from Buxy France and not a bus stop in sight.

We had a tour of the workshop, greenhouse, billiards/pilates cottage and wine cellar ending with a pre-dinner glass of local Crémant (Patricia’s new favorite). A dinner with more local wine, followed by a dessert wine and we were now properly initiated (inebriated ?) to our new life. The next day was capped off with a dinner out at one of those restaurants that would not be out of place in one of the Trip movies (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Trip_(2010_TV_series) or a New York Times “36 hours in… ” , oh and the dogs went with us, well behaved through the multi-course, multi bottle of wine meal.

The farmhouse, not walkable to anywhere. Trapped by mud everywhere. Rained at some point each day. But, it was beautiful. Each morning, we took the dogs on muddy paths, said hello to the neighbor’s horses, chickens, (caged) rabbits, cat, dog and sheep, and sometimes to the farmer himself.

Then the next morning, we would feed the dogs, hang out, take the dogs on muddy paths, say hello to the neighbor’s horses, chickens, (caged) rabbits, cat, dog and sheep, and sometimes to the farmer himself.

Then the next morning…

On Saturdays we went to the market and walked the Voie Verte, a walking /cycling path (not muddy) connecting some local villages https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voie_verte.

Everywhere we went looked just like a page out of this French children’s book, even down to the l’echelle and pneu in each yard.

We topped our 3 week French dip with some Dijon. Two days in Dijon. A fun natural history museum, a food museum, classic cathedrals, plazas and the always beautiful buildings.

A quick morning run through the streets of Paris to get to Charles De Gaulle Airport for a flight back to the UK.

PS: We just noticed that reading the posts from the email does not include the featured pic, which often is our favorite one and sometimes the pictures don’t all show up in the emails (empty squares). Click on “blog” in the right hand corner of your email to go to the blog so you can see all the pictures.

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Malta Pans Out

January in Northern Europe, we needed some semblance of warmth. So, Malta! We got a malt a deal on Jet2, so off we flew!

12-15 degrees celsius (54-59 F) which is kind a funny that we now consider that warm, but after chilly, freezing Liverpool, it was. Except almost everyday in Malta we were caught in torrential downpours and dried off by the gale-force winds.

But mediocre weather was not the only reason to go to Malta, we were looking for the knight life. Like all of southern Europe, but even more so due to its strategic location in the mid Mediterranean Sea, Malta has had a long string of foreign rulers. Romans, Phoenicians, Byzantines, followed by the Sicilians, Normans, Moors and Spanish. The twist came in 1530, the Holy Roman Emperor gave Malta to the Knights Hospitaller, homeless crusaders (like us!), for the cost of one Maltese Falcon a year (an actual peregrine falcon). These knights were like the Catholic Army so in their 200 years of ruling, they fortified the island (mainly against the Barbary Pirates). They built castles and forts along the ports

and the impressive walled city of Valetta (now home to well protected restaurants and every name brand clothing store).

And of course some churches, lots of churches and roadside shrines for every saint imaginable.

Another St Maytag? (https://chosenfugue.xyz/2018/10/21/liverpool/

Eventually Napoleon broke through, so then it was French, then British before finally having full self rule in 1971. Even now there are still invasive foreigners; forty percent of the country are ex-pats. People from the UK, Serbia (apparently a high number of retired Serbian footballers), Filipinos, Northern Africans, Italians have settled here.

The legacy of this carousel of foreign rulers seems to be an ambiguous identity, at least to us. The rulers were foreign, even the Maltese Falcon is an ex-pat (ex-pet?) as it is not originally from Malta. Even the souvenir shops struggled with zeroing in on essential Malta. All we saw were T-shirts, wooden spoons, hats, and tea towels with the word Malta and sometimes a generic geometric tile design (all not made in Malta). Just one country specific Playmobile, a generic knight. Maybe that is why we had trouble getting a sense of Malta identity, beyond it being very Catholic. We did find one authentically Maltese item-salt. Along the Malta coast are tons of salt pans sea pictures below), naturally collecting sea salt (Patron saint of salt-St. Morton?)

Finally, something authentically Maltese but we only saw it available at one farmer’s market and one supermarket (and we go to a lot of supermarkets). Through our two week tour, the defining features of Malta seemed to be sea salt and Pete Buttigieg. (His father was from Malta, and Buttigieg is a very common surname in Malta).

Has campaigning already started for 2028?

Malta did have a very distinct architectural styles. The houses/stores were all limestone with characteristic closed balconies (Gallarija). The newer areas also had a characteristic look, not 2-3 story limestone boxes, rather large, new hotel or apartment complexes lining a horseshoe shaped bay (a lot of horseshoe bays).

The sameness sometimes made us feel like we were walking in circles, but we probably were. And walking we did. The main Island of Malta is roughly 9 x 17 miles and its smaller island, Gozo is 4.5 x 8.7 miles. In the capital city of Valetta on Malta and the central city, Victoria on Gozo we could walk to the sea and back in almost any direction. Everything was close, especially the narrow roads with no shoulders. We were constantly clinging to the edges of the roads, stepping into the bushes to avoid cars (although the drivers were exceptionally polite).

And, to add to the confusion, they drive on the left side of the road like in England. So, we were constantly looking the wrong way as we would almost get sideswiped. Fortunately, since Malta is the most demonstratively Catholic country we’ve been to, every step of the way, on most corners and every house, Mary or some other saint was looking over us.

We really enjoyed our three days in Gozo, starting with the windy 20 minute ferry ride from Valetta.

We stayed in the heart of Victoria/Rabat, across from a really great supermarket. From our apartment, we could literally get anywhere either walking or bus (great transit system) in under 30 minutes. First stop was Ggantija one of the oldest man made freestanding structures in the world, 3800–2500 BC (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ġgantija).

Our walks to the northeast coast of Gozo inevitably ended up at the salt pans, some built by the Romans, others by the knights. Many still being used today.

Memorial to people from Malta and Gozo buried elsewhere

We split the rest of our 2 weeks in Valetta between two areas; Sliema and Florina which was just outside the walled city. We thought it was a good way to see the whole island, but actually they were only a 20 minute walk from each other. The big draws for us here were the Ħal Saflieni Hypogeum, a multilevel underground burial chamber from 4,000 BCE https://heritagemalta.mt/explore/hal-saflieni-hypogeum/ and the Għar Dalam Cave and Museum https://heritagemalta.mt/explore/ghar-dalam/. Very cute museum detailing the animals that lived in Malta before the land bridge to Sicily and mainland Europe was covered 160,000 years ago. The cave was where many of the bones were found along with ancient paintings plus old and new graffiti. The museum was surprisingly the only place where we saw animals although all were dead. We did not see squirrels, or many birds, no rabbits, but rabbit stew is a national dish, so maybe that explains it.

Egyptian Geese spotted at the Botanical Gardens

Our initial reaction to our taste of Malta was lukewarm. But, by the end of two weeks we definitely warmed up to Malt-a-deal and it actually was flavorful and filling. We flew on to a wet muddy France still enjoying the fullness left over from Malta.

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It was a Tad bloody

We arrived in Dublin for a week of political detox and to see a childhood friend of Nick’s. This was our fourth stop at the Dublin airport as we prefer to fly here to/from the US. It is actually a pretty small airport, and you do US customs here rather than in the US. They also have a combination Burger King and hotel, or at least we thought it was (our second stay!) We had a very early morning flight, so we booked a booth at the home of the Whopper for the night.

Then on to Liverpool where we were treated to “Lights, Camel, Action” our first British Christmas school play and our first time as grandparents watching a school play. It was great. We also treated ourselves to a Labrador dog sit in a flat in the historic Tobacco Warehouse.

Built in 1901, empty for about 50 years before becoming apartments

This was fun because we had noticed this building on our first Liverpool trip (see it here https://chosenfugue.xyz/2018/10/21/liverpool/ ) and the building was also used in Peaky Blinders, another Peaky Blinders connection (https://chosenfugue.xyz/2026/01/12/albania-mania-2/ The other big thing was it was super close to Costco so we had our first UK Costco experience. Almost everything looked exactly the same as in the US. Same layout, sections, Kirkland products, sample stations, food court, except they pushed their giant Costco carts on the left side of the aisles. While the food court looked the same, in addition to the Costco pizza, they had jacket potatoes! Of course Patricia needed to have one, sharing the excessive amounts of tuna from her jacket potato with Nick’s pizza. We went twice.

Everyone came from the West Coast to spend Christmas in Liverpool, and as everyone left, we decided we should too. It was time for a vacation.

Where to go in Britain is often about the name. Some sound like a nursery rhyme (any place in the Cotswalds), some sound kinda of silly (Studley Roger), some are names of cheese (Leicester) and others are infused with history (yes, some are also just bland- Milton Keyes). All are reasons for us to go.

This time we chose history; Leeds and York, 26 miles apart in North Yorkshire. There were ancient ruins, medieval city walls, majestic churches, good museums, historic buildings, pedestrian-only streets, and quaint winding lanes lined with small shops.

Leeds: Corn exchange building now little shops

Leeds: The very first Marks and Spencer,1884

But, the real action turned out to be where we stayed, between the two cities, in the sleepy village of Tadcaster. Other than being roughly equidistance location, between Leeds and York, Tadcaster is the home of the Samuel Smith brewery which was established in the town in 1758 and sits in the center. In addition to their nice variety of flavorful beers (favorites are the oatmeal and chocolate stouts), they also own pubs and Bed and Breakfasts. So we stayed at a beer, bed and breakfast (?) The bed was fine, the breakfast was filling (full English breakfast minus the bangers and rashers), but the beer was not actually served at the B&B. We had to venture out to the town pubs.

Original brewery was called John Smith, his nephew Samuel Smith took it over in 1886, two other smaller Samuel Smith brewery sites in town, as well.

Sam Smith pubs are also famous for their no electronic devices policy, to maintain the pub culture of spirited conversation. This translates to only pensioners at the pubs we went to. We were the youngsters in the room, but we were good youngsters as we turned our mobiles off. The flagship pub was the first we went to. It was closed down. On the door was an advert seeking a couple to reopen it and run it. Undaunted, we found another neighborhood pub. Walking in felt like we had entered a stereotypic small town movie scene, maybe a zombie movie; zombie seniors? Everyone stopped talking, turned to us and stared. It was even more uncomfortable when we left without ordering. Although they had a whole line of Samuel Smiths on tap, it was an entirely bad selection of their lagers, ciders and bitters. We found another pub, with the exact same selection, and maybe the exact same old people with the exact same silent stare.

Not to be deterred we explored Sam Smith pubs in Leeds and York. Exact same selections and people.

The overflowing Ouse River prevented us from checking out yet another Samuel Smith pub, but of course there was another down the street

The zombies were in unison, messing with us. But this time we reluctantly got a beer, and it was not good. Hence the name, bitter. So, we went back to Tadcaster, for the last remaining Sam Smith place that the B&B lady said was the best. (The Royal Oak).

On way over to the Royal Oak we saw an old man fall, hit his head on a metal railing and then bleed profusely with blood squirting out from a wound on his forehead. A pulsating arterial bleed. His friend was calling the ambulance. He was already sitting in a pool of blood, trousers soaked. Nick applied constant pressure with his always ready handkerchief and tissues and got the bleeding to stop. Patricia stood behind him to support in case he fainted and fell back. We were there for 20-30 minutes holding pressure, waiting for the ambulance.

Our new mate, Ken, had just come from the Royal Oak pub and had had two pints of Sam Smith bitters (ugh) to celebrate his 80th birthday which was that day. It looked like he had lost the two pints of bitters in blood on the street. Eventually, a pediatric ICU nurse drove by and offered more dressings, then a EMT from another county got out of her car and took over, but made it worse by wrapping his head instead of keeping pressure on, and the blood immediately soaked through the dressings. Ken informed us he needed to take a wee, so with Nick and the EMT supporting him, blood pouring down his face because the pressure was removed, and his birthday jumper getting soaked, the three of them walked the 200 + yards, uphill, to his flat, and to his loo. Unfortunately the flat was on the second floor. Patricia and Ken’s younger friend, who told us his name but his accent was so strong, we only caught about 30% of the words, followed the trail of blood and waited for the ambulance.

Finally, after an hour, with more blood (gauze was not as good as the hanky-tissue pressure combination), the emergency triage nurse came, followed by the ambulance. Another 10-15 minutes as all the ambulance and nurses chatted and Ken was loaded in the ambulance, Nick washed all the blood off his hands and rain poncho and we walked over to the pub, and it had same bad selection, so we didn’t get one. A bitter ending to the zombie movie.

Maybe, we will apply for that pub job and turn it into a combination pub-urgent care with a better selection of stouts and medical supplies.

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Sitting Out the Summer

Another California summer watching dogs, cats and llamas, oh my! We seem to have unintentially settled in to a lifestyle of petsitting for family, friends and fellow TrustedHousesitters (see links at the end)*.

Big dogs, little dogs, furry cats and wooly llamas: French Bulldogs (3), Pug, miniature Australian Shepard, Vizsla, King Charles Spaniel, English Spaniel, Portuguese Water Dog, Akbash+Husky mix, Doodles, little terrier mix, and some other kind of mix. Gray cats (2), tabby cats (2), black and white, orange cat, and calico, and various shades of llama.

Boy dogs named Lewis, Rudy, Smokey, Zorro, Henry and Mallard. And the girls; Rio, Olive, Penny, Daisy, Dulce, Abbie, Ellie and Mei Mei. Clementine was obviously the orange cat, Lady Grey obviously grey as was Alice, Reggie a tabby, Sophie was black and white, Tuna the calico, Bella was just bella (see above). And the llamas-Pearl, Freda, Mac and Phil.

We did a lot of walking with our local guides

But we also sat

We enjoyed our stays in many of the historic Northern California hippie towns

Wouldn’t be Bodega without The Birds https://the.hitchcock.zone/wiki/Bodega_Lane,_Bodega,_California

Beautiful tide pools in Bodega Bay which was very exciting because we seem to never find anything in tide pools anymore.

Point Richmond just across from San Francisco, was pretty odd. Nested between industrial East Bay, and the Chevron Oil pier, with a very funny little downtown….

Highlight was the dog sit in San Rafael, a block away from the Frank Lloyd Wright designed Marin Community Center just off the 101. We have driven past hundreds of time, never visited. Now we have, it was worth it. Go see it next time you are just north of San Francisco on the 101.

After enjoying the cool summer of Northern California we dipped down to LA and San Diego, reminding us of how very different San Diego is from LA and both very different from Northern California.

And unfortunately another summer of protests

Sebastopol, Fort Bragg, Santa Rosa and La Jolla. Big turnouts in small towns.

Pets and protests improved our spirits, but by Thanksgiving we were starving for sanity which is in limited supply in the States. So, we went back to Europe on December 1st.

*Our other very pet-centric stories (since we do this much of the time, most include pets) https://chosenfugue.xyz/2023/03/12/the-dog-days-of-summer/ , https://chosenfugue.xyz/2023/03/12/sitting-part-1-location-location-location/ , https://chosenfugue.xyz/2023/03/12/sitting-part-2-animals-animals-animals/, https://chosenfugue.xyz/2025/11/14/montpellier-cat-a-blog/

Trusted Housesitters- how we sit https://www.trustedhousesitters.com/refer/RAF531870/?utm_source=web-native-share&utm_medium=refer-a-friend&utm_campaign=refer-a-friend

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Cheers

Back to the UK to warm up, where cold is better understood than Greece.

We always start with a visit to Liverpool. To prevent overstaying our welcome and limit school week distraction, we did 2 quick dog sits in the Liverpool suburbs

Formby was our first sit. Highlights:

It was near the Red Squirrel preserve, nice place to walk the dogs. Gray squirrels are crowding out the native red squirrels. Unfortunately, we did not see one. Fun fact, gray but not red squirrels like hazelnuts so contraceptive-laced hazelnut butter is being trialed. https://www.wildlifetrusts.org/where_to_see_red_squirrels
The owners preteen kids were nervous about meeting us because they had never met Americans before.
This family had done day trips to Spain- early morning flight out of Liverpool, a walk and dinner in Alicante, then evening flight back. With discount airlines, cheaper than a night out in Liverpool.

Next up was on the Wirral peninsula, the Irish sea side of the Mersey river. Our sit in New Brighton might have been one of our favorite sits. Two big English style golden retrievers (more like hairy labradors), exceptionally nice hosts, comfortable and fun house plus a wonderful elderly neighbor named Ken-who the dogs demanded to visit on each walk. The town was cute too.

From Liverpool we took a day trip to Chester, which is a perfect storybook version of an English town. We walked the city walls around the cathedral, passed the horse racetrack, strolled along the river, looked over the ruins of a Roman amphitheater (in most European cities it seems) and looked over the super cute main street.

We wrapped up this trip with a packed short stay in Manchester. Everything was better than expected. The museums were particularly good; the traditional Manchester museum at the University, the European museum of the year https://www.museum.manchester.ac.uk

The People’s History Museum, the national museum of democracy (oh so needed now) https://phm.org.uk

Patricia’s favorite, the Manchester Art Gallery (https://manchesterartgallery.org) which had a wide variety of pieces, with the information placards next to the pieces just as varied; some traditional descriptions, some written by 8 year old visitors, some a comment on a current event of the time, others gossip about a piece or observations by the museum’s security staff.

Public art also totally hit the mark

“Victory Over Blindness,” WW1 soldiers. Of the 77,000 War Memorials in the UK, this is the ONLY one to honor men disabled in war.

We really hated to leave Europe again, but two of our favorite people were getting married, so we were very happy to go on to Los Angeles.

Greece, ευχαριστώ (Efcharistó)

Nafplio was a 6 night finale to our month in Greece. We took a very scenic, twisty bus ride, from Pyrgos to Nafplio with a stop at every village, no matter how narrow the road. The ride ended with a very dramatic approach as we reached the Argolic gulf.

Nafplio is a star on the ex-pat and Peloponnese travel sites, so expectations were high, but so were the winds and the temperature kind of low. The high expectations coupled with no heat in our apartment, may have tempered our enthusiasm but things did improve when the lodging owner, after 3 days, had told us that yes, the solar heated water could be warmed if we just flipped the switch in the bathroom, but yes heat is very expensive in Greece, so, if possible don’t use it. And, BTW the apartment heater doesn’t work. Yeah ,we noticed. Greek buildings are not built for temperatures in the 40’s. The apartment was lovely though with lemon trees in the garden. But the travel guides were right when they praised the Italian architectural influence, the beaches, the restaurants,

and the proximity to ruins and the islands. We don’t really know about the restaurants (we did walk by a lot) and winter denied access to the islands but we did appreciate the nearby prime archeological sites.

We continue to marvel at the construction of ancient structures https://chosenfugue.xyz/2025/10/11/brittany-rocks/, https://chosenfugue.xyz/2026/01/25/meteora-is-a-hit/ https://chosenfugue.xyz/2019/06/18/into-the-cyrillic-part-1-bulgaria-interior/.

As mentioned, they are typically built at the highest point in an area, using stones larger than cars, appear to defy gravity and are still or partially standing after thousands of years; attesting to the engineering aptitude of the builders. Whereas, we struggle to construct an Ikea coffee table and have it last longer than a Swedish summer. Another chapter in the big book of astonishment and embarrassment for us.

We learned the official word to describe these structures made of giant rocks, Cyclopean, meaning only giant Cyclops could have built them https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyclopean_masonry. So all our architectural questions answered. Mystery solved. The area around Nafplio is prime cyclopean country, easily explored by bus or by foot.

First stop was Tiryns, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiryns, a straight 4 km shot north of the Lidl market, with a good mix of sidewalk, dirt path, wide roads and curse-worthy thorn filled paths on narrow roads. A collage of our Greek walks, but as always, worth it. Another salute to winter travel, Tiryns was just us and 2 middle aged British guys.

The tombs were a kilometer or two away from the ancient city, but these tombs were not just off the main road rather they were nestled in orange groves which were nestled in a residential area. While the tomb was noted in blogs and guides, it was pretty hidden and it was an absolute gem.

Plus we ended up with a few oranges. Very tasty, not street oranges.

Our second trip was to Mycenae (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mycenae). A bus dropped us off just outside of the town of Fichti. Taxis waited at the bus stop, but why take a taxi when you can walk 3 miles, uphill. Our politely stated preference for walking, shocked the persistent taxi driver who now had to change his vision of Americans from lazy to crazy. It was a great walk, primarily because we were joined by a dog, who happily led us on a leash free stroll right up to the Tomb of Agamemnon.

Like the tombs at Tiryns, the Tomb was just outside of the ancient city site .

And the city was huge, able to easily accommodate the school and tour groups, which we had not seen at really any of the other sites outside of Athens.

The pictures are better at doing the heavy lifting of describing the ruins.

There were other sites- some we could see from the road (Castle of Argos) and a few others a bit further away, but still doable, but we decided to spend our last few days in Greece exploring Nafplio and its 3 supermarkets, happy to have a kitchen and not constantly on the move. However, due to an unrealized mixup at the checkout, we ended up with a kilogram (2.2 pounds) package of spaghetti noodles that had spilled over on the conveyor belt from the order before us. Since Patricia doesn’t eat wheat, it became spaghetti week for Nick. Doing the math (Nick is always willing) that was 167 gm of spaghetti a night. A normal serving size 75-100 grams. A six night marathon of Cyclopean portions of spaghetti. Carbo loading for no event, but all the pasta cooking kept the apartment warmer.

Our month long odyssey through mainland Greece over, we returned to Athens for our flight back to the UK. Thank you (efcharistó) Greece for a perfectly ruined vacation.