We don’t really like to bounce between towns with one night stays, it feels pretty superficial and it’s difficult to cook when you are leaving the next day (our packing is pretty tight, we try not to carry a pantry). In order to approximate what we wanted to do with the KTEL schedule, that isContinue reading “Our Ancient Olympic Trials”
Category Archives: US
KTEL Presents Greece’s Greatest Rocks and Ruins
Having successfully mastered Albania’s no bus system-no bus station minibus-sedan-tag-team transportation we felt ready to tackle the Greek bus system. Greece had big buses and actual bus stations with staffed information counters, tickets, gift shops and cafeterias. However, efficient travel off season was mythical. Greece’s Achilles heel was its bus schedule. Buses usually ran twiceContinue reading “KTEL Presents Greece’s Greatest Rocks and Ruins”
Los Athens
The spiritual high of walking through the majestic monasteries perched on the Meteora lingered as our bus traveled southeast towards Athens. The landscape changed to familiar, looking like the drive south from Northern California through the Grapevine on the 5. But then the snowy caps of Mt Olympus, home of the Gods, came into view.Continue reading “Los Athens”
Meteora is a hit
A scenic bus ride out of Albania; snowy and mountainous, entertained at the Greek border bus stop with stray dogs and puppies (nice watching the border patrol guys get bags of dog food from their cars and feed the dogs). Dropped off in the parking lot of a cafe on the edge of town, whichContinue reading “Meteora is a hit”
Albania Mania #2
There’s a degree of inherent awkwardness to foreign travel, and we took it up a notch in Albania. Simple conversations, grocery shopping, figuring out other countries appliances. Anything can turn strange, and everything turned strange in Albania. That’s a part of the experience we really enjoy. Since there are virtually no trains in Albania, ourContinue reading “Albania Mania #2”
Albania Mania #1
January’s (2025) plan was 6 weeks in Greece but flights to Albania were half the price, and if we had a bucket list, Albania would have been on it, so we bought the tickets. Our trips to post-communist countries; Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovenia, Bulgaria, Romania and Hungary, have been fascinating. In some ways these are new countries,Continue reading “Albania Mania #1”
The Brrrritish Coast
We are predominately off-season winter travelers, so weather has a huge influence on our perception of place. Usually the effect is positive, like when we strolled through an empty, beautiful and warm (inside) Uffizi Gallery in Florence in mid January or not needing reservations to go to the Acropolis, again in January (plus all GreekContinue reading “The Brrrritish Coast”
Final Flâneur in France
Mainly what we do is walk.Part of the joy of our endless fugue through Europe is walking, just walking. Cities and countryside. The pleasure is being startled by ineffable beauty. You turn a corner in Veliko Tarnovo, Bulgaria and see the Tsarevets Fotress on the hilltop.https://chosenfugue.xyz/2019/06/18/into-the-cyrillic-part-1-bulgaria-interior/ You leave the train station in Florence, walk aContinue reading “Final Flâneur in France”
A Date with Lyon
There is the assumption that as we fugue through Europe we are having these incredible meals- street fare, cafes, restaurants, Christmas market tastes, this is wrong. Partly because our of diet restrictions: vegetarian (we do eat eggs and fish), gluten free, low oxalate, or any food starting with letters from the second half ofContinue reading “A Date with Lyon”
Montpellier Cat-a-blog
For Hercules’s twelfth labor, he had to descend into Hades to capture the three-headed dog beast, Cerberus, who prevented the dead from leaving and the living from entering Hades. Our task in Montpellier, France wasn’t dissimilar to Hercules’s, except our Herculean task was to ascend five flights of stairs and guard three hairless cat beasts.Continue reading “Montpellier Cat-a-blog”
Chosen Fugue 