Escaping the Mediterranean heat in the best ways possible

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Up she went. Took a couple of hours, but eventually she was settled securely on the hard and ready for a few weeks of beautification. We tied up the many loose ends, including removing our sail bag for its zipper replacement and mcgyvering a protective UV cover for the new sail in its place, then shouldered our packs and climbed down the ladder for the last time in August. We had a laundry list of what we wanted and needed done while she was up and braced ourselves for the quote from Galizzi (the shipyard who hauled her out).

Our flights to London and Oslo were still a couple of days away, so we settled into our Airbnb in the old city and figured out where we wanted to go for dinner. It was bliss to know we were getting a break from the boat for weeks, and everything else was rosy because of it.

The next day we decided to be fairly random and just walk around the old city, end up at the Palermo cathedral, then see the Palermo catacombs. Our wandering eventually took us to the Fontana Pretoria, then up the main drag in the historic center to the cathedral. The cathedral is very impressive, particularly from the outside, with its two clock towers, and belltower on the other end. The inside was surprisingly plain though, and we thought perhaps that was a relative thing after growing used to Greek Orthodox churches, which are ornate with décor on every available surface.

From there to the catacombs, which are famous for the 8,000 corpses in the basement. Photography was verboten, so I can only assure you that row after row of mummified bodies, their clothes hanging loose and dusty and faces frozen in the most god-awful grimaces, were overwhelmingly disgusting. There were rows of children, others of families, there were bodies grouped by profession, and in the last stretch, the monks who did all the work of preserving these bodies. Some were very old, but most were from the mid-1800s. The last was embalmed in 1920. Peter (and apparently most others down there with us) was fascinated by it all. I couldn’t get through there fast enough, but then found myself loathe to return to the surface. It was cool down there, and very, very hot above. I’d only just stopped sweating. I found a corner near the stairs and waited. Blech.

We arrived in Oslo late the next evening after a Norwegian Air snafu at Gatwick. We woke up the next morning to cold, grey rain, and knew we’d made the right choice – as far from the burning heat of the southern Med as possible. And Oslo is a beautiful city. After coffee and pastries we found the Paradox Museum, which is devoted both to displaying classic two dimensional optical illusions and participative installations that you can actually crawl into or on top of, and docents help you figure out how to get the best effect – and a good picture of it. Had a great time watching all the kids giggle and gawp, and we loved having our own time to play.  

After that we spent a couple of hours in the national museum – we DID hunt down The Scream, but there were many other good exhibits, including one of a Sami woman’s activist embroidery (Britta Marakatt-Laba). The Norwegian government has a history of mistreating the Sami ethnic group and their lands. The political repression and environmental degradation mean the Sami are in danger of losing their herds of reindeer, their ways of life, and identities to the whims of the government. Her work both glorified the Sami culture and put a pointed stick in the crotch of the police specifically and the overarching government by implication. An excellent exhibit to spend some time with, if you find yourself in Oslo.

One of the things we noticed immediately about Oslo is that there are a lot of Irish pubs there. Displaced Irishmen and women? Do Norwegians vacation so much in Ireland that they need to recreate the iconic pub? Whatever the reason, where there’s an Irish pub there is frequently Guinness on tap. We found one, settled in for a pint and watched some of the Olympics on the telly. (And what a revelation. Did you know that there are other countries in the Olympics, not just the US? And athletes from those other countries compete with – and sometimes BEAT – American athletes?? It’s true. So yes, we were delighted when we realized Norwegian tv was focusing entirely on Norwegian athletes!) There are also a lot of Italian restaurants, and later we had a delicious early dinner in one of them. Clearly hadn’t been in Italy long enough before we left.

Our flight to Tromsø in the Arctic Circle the next afternoon felt long, and we climbed down from the plane in the bright sunshine, feeling like we were in another country, not just wayyyyyy farther north. And it was chilly up there, even though we were there only a few weeks after the last full day of summer sun. Peggy was to arrive on a later flight, so after settling in at the hotel we took a few hours to walk around, find the bike shop where we needed to pick up our touring bikes the next morning, and have some dinner. Once Pegs was there, we talked packing strategies for the first day of cycling, weather forecasts, breakfast plans, and arrangements for paying for things we’d set up in January when we booked the tour and we’d long since forgotten details on. It was starting to feel real!

This trip I did something I’d never done before. I rented an e-bike instead of the usual touring bike. No excess pride and no shame. I’m 65 ffs. I can confidently say it was the smartest thing I’d done in a very long time. The tour we booked through Discover Norway was listed as “challenging” – we were cycling through the fjords for heaven’s sake, and you’ve got to get in and out of those things somehow. Peggy, who is a beast, and Peter, also a beast, would never use e-bikes – but the only beastly thing about me is my capacity for eating. In addition, living on the Fish is not at all conducive to staying in shape. I know a lot of liveaboards manage it to some extent or another, but I am not one of them. And never in my 39 years of friendship with Peggy have I been able to pass her on a climb. Until now.

But the best part about having an e-bike wasn’t being able to pass my comrades on hills, it was knowing I could push a button when I needed it, and I’d get more bang for my pedaling buck. I finished every day with at least half of my battery power remaining (even on the longer days), and I fell into bed exhausted every night. It was great exercise, and zero stress. I really realized how it was affecting me on our second day. We were flying down a bridge when I saw a picture I wanted to take. So, I stopped and took the picture. As I was starting up again, it occurred to me that if I’d have had a regular bike, I would have passed the scene full of regret and hunched further down on my handlebars to keep my momentum for the next hill. Instead, I didn’t even think about conserving energy for the climbs – I just went as fast or slowly as I wanted, stopped when I wanted, and knew I could catch Peter and Peggy up without a problem. It was heavenly.

The route was gorgeous. We did a 6-day trip from Tromsø south to Svolvaer (which is still in the Arctic Circle!) and had the luxury of having our bags moved to our destinations during the days. All we had to do was eat breakfast, pack up a lunch from the breakfast buffets, ride for a while, eat lunch, ride for another while, and arrive in time for dinner. We passed through a very varied landscape along the way, almost all coastal routes but with more fjords in the first half of the trip and flatter terrain in the second. There were glorious, sunny days, a couple of rainy grey days, no wind, lots of wind, tunnels, bridges, ferries – we had it all, and loved it all. 

Warning: many photos ahead…

So many beautiful beaches…..

Pining for the fjords!

Coastal scenes along the way…

We were also lucky enough to have 7 other good humans on the Discover Norway tour with us – we didn’t ride together, but we got our breakfasts and dinners in the same hotel dining rooms and got to know each other a bit over the course of the week. A couple from Germany were the only others with e-bikes, and we did find ourselves now and then patting each other on the back for such brilliant foresight. Another couple, a Norwegian man married to an American woman, had already been cycling for a week on their own, and were doing another week after our tour. And the other couple didn’t do a lot of cycling and had never done a cycling trip at all and were thrilled with the experience. It really was fun.

We said goodbye to our group in Svolvaer and immediately got a bus north to the town of Sortland (where we’d stayed on our ride south). We’d known 6 days wouldn’t be enough, especially after the long journey to get all the way up there, so we’d planned to add a few more days on our own too. When we arrived in Sortland that afternoon, we first picked up our new bikes for the next leg of our tour. We packed what we needed for three days into our panniers, left our packs with the hotel, and headed out to explore the Bø peninsula. Since most of the route to our next hotel was inland, we saw a very different side of Norway’s Arctic Circle. Farms, rolling fields, sheep, cows, lakes and plenty of beautiful vistas. Our hotel was on the coast and, thinking we would do a circuit around the peninsula the next day, we booked two nights there. It was a gorgeous spot, the restaurant served delicious food, and when we woke the next morning to pouring rain it was a very comfortable place to relax and knit for a day instead of spending the day getting soaked to the skin.

And the many moods along the way!

There was little not to like about this cycling trip. Spectacular scenery, friendly people everywhere we went, good food (GREAT breakfasts), comfy hotel beds, daily workouts, balanced weather, and sun for 20 hours a day! Being with Peggy too was icing on the cake – I’m already thinking about options for our next trip all together!

Then suddenly we were back in London saying our goodbyes to Pegs and renting a car for a week of pet sitting in Devon. Wait, Devon? Or Dorset? Was it Somerset? Wherever we were it was in the south and took a few hours to get there, especially since I kept missing exits, which sneak up very quickly and have little room for hesitation or error. And can we talk about hedgerows and their impact on visibility? Narrow lanes with curves and corners? Pulling out into one without being able to look for oncoming cars until the front wheels are in the lane? You could die in this country!

Our sit started the next morning, and we’d booked a tent in a purportedly “glamping” site nearby. Having stayed in a true glamping site in Maine while I was there for Peggy’s son’s graduation, my high expectations were ripe for disappointment. Dirty, plain tents with cots and no other real furniture, two filthy bathrooms for everyone in the place, and the next day we realized we were both itching madly at bites – we’d slept with bedbugs.

BEWARE: BEDBUGS

Our farmhouse for a week was a welcome sight after that. We spent an hour or so chatting with our hosts and getting the tour of the house and introductions to the three dogs (Coco Pop, a 13 yo chocolate lab, Millie, a 7 yo cocker spaniel, and Mollie her 2 yo daughter), five chickens and three sheep). Then off they went for a week on the coast with their three boys, and we were staring at each other marveling at our good fortune. It was everything we’d hoped for when we started entertaining ideas about what to do with our last week away from the boat. We did it all, too. We rambled with the dogs all over the fields around the house, climbing turnstiles and playing fetch. We walked to a neighborhood café/farm stand several times for a coffee and chatted with the locals. We walked to the neighborhood pub and had a pint and watched a darts game. We relaxed in the giant garden behind the farmhouse and got as far as cooking on the top of their Aga, if not in its ovens.

We also got to see friends from our winter in Porto Montenegro! We met Kate and Iain (Intrepid Bear) for a classic pub lunch one day and had a great catch up – they’ve recently sold the Bear and bought a canal boat up near Manchester! Our friends Tim and Karina (Matilda) started that craze among our big Porto Montenegro ’22 WhatsApp group when they bought a canal boat (Clair du Lune) in Belgium and started refitting it as a floating hotel. Awildian has talked about moving onto a canal boat at some point in the future (their motto re: sailing is “we do it until one of us doesn’t want to, then we move on.”) as has Lickety – but I’ll believe it when I see it – those folks love their speed on that HH50! I could see doing something like it in the future, as long as there are plenty of raised beds on the roof for my garden, and my chickens can be free range up there too. Wait. No, not sure that would do it. Pretty sure I’d prefer a little finca somewhere in the boonies. But so cool to have options – and pursue them. Kate and Iain are now on the hunt for the perfect “forever sofa,” which cracks me up. Who doesn’t want the perfect sofa? Especially after living on a boat for years. I DO! I want a forever sofa!

Our old B dock buddies from PM22 on Aquila, Claire and Ollie now live in Teignmouth, about an hour and half from our village, so of course we drove down for a day to see them and their new house. Claire got her dream job last year, so they left off living on Aquila (where they’d worked remotely for themselves) and moved back to Devon. They’re so happy with their new life there! Ollie even stood for Labour in Devon in the recent Parliamentary elections, and despite it being a heavily conservative region and the current MP being a Cabinet minister, Ollie lost by only 61 votes. The guy rocks! We got the house tour (fell in love with it – it’s so Claire and Ollie!), then wandered down the block to the beach and got lunch at the food trucks, then found a spot on the beach to sit and eat and catch up. Not nearly enough time, but it soothed my soul. They’re in the Ionian now, sailing Aquila for a few weeks before putting her up for sale. Bittersweet for sure.

Later in the week Trish, my old friend from Oxford, drove down to us for a day, along with her border collie Connie. Gorgeous, conscientious Connie immediately got to work herding Millie and Mollie, who loved the game and were very compliant with her wishes. We spent the afternoon exploring Sherborne, then had a delicious dinner together at the Red Lion – a great little restaurant found after several long miles of driving among the hedgerows. It was a balm to see her again as well – she grounds herself and everyone around her with a generous calm, and although we’d seen each other in May, we had so much to catch up on. We met her for coffee the next morning too, and goodbyes were harder this time. In May I knew I would see her again in August. If our lives go to plan it will be at least a few years before I can get back to the UK.

Too soon, our hosts and the boys got back from their holiday with sunburns and high spirits, and after a quick debrief and a chat we left for London: a little Airbnb near Gatwick and our flight back to Palermo the next morning. The month off the boat was all but over, and though I was dreading going back, I realized there is a part of me that looks forward to it – it’s my home, after all, and will be for a good while yet.

Next up: September 2024: will we ever be able to leave Sicily?