HONORABLE MENTION:
Newton and I remained for a few more days in Provence once my fancy docent trip to London, Paris and Provence ended. We marked the transition by staying in a convenient home exchange with leftover exchange points.
The beautiful hilltop towns and vistas in the Luberon Valley provided an excellent extension—Bonnieux & La Coste, Gordes, and Roussillon.
This is La Coste, the Castle ruins of the Maquis de Sade. I was puzzled about what the outstretched arms were expressing...
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| We flew from Marseilles for my birthday weekend in Malta...
 HIGHLIGHT #3  After hurrying in past him and getting settled, we joined the happy crowds enjoying a beautiful day at the outdoor bars along a nearby thoroughfare. How annoying to spot the same beggar shaking his cup as he neared our happy table. "Oh no, that's the same beggar that was at the hotel," I said. He stopped at our table, ignoring Newton's waving him away. Watch to the end: If you don't recognize him without his wig, that is our son Jake, who lives in Austin, Texas. He is famous for his elaborate, international pranks! This is the actual birthday surprise I alluded to when the Paris waiters surprised me with the giant fake cake a week early! His wife, Larissa, was hiding and snapped the photo by the hotel door. To pull off this second attempt, Jake first cleared it with the bar owner, having noticed there actually are no beggars around Valletta. A bar employee got so excited, he insisted that he video the encounter!  Jake explained how he thought we might recognize his clothes, so he bought the soccer jersey, hat and cup at a tourist shop. Shiny new for a beggar! Because we were trying to ignore and not encourage him, we never observed the beggar closely enough until my asking near the very end of the video, "Is that Jake?" Too bad we didn't take the chance to impress generous humanity on our son by giving him some damn money, but the guttural moaning was too creepy. HONORABLE MENTION: After the shock and delight, we all had a lovely, relaxed, sometimes rainy weekend in Malta. Jake and Larissa treated us to Birthday dinner at Valletta's Michelin 2-star restaurant, ION Harbour, open to the gorgeous harbor at night.   The next morning we met at the plaza by 16th Century Saint John's Co-Cathedral (honoring John the Baptist). There are two Caravaggio paintings there I was looking forward to seeing. Not only was it raining, but an intrepid line going down the block of soaked, hopeful entrants discouraged us. There were Jake and Larissa ensconced at a table for four at a plaza eatery, under an umbrella large enough to play Hearts with dry cards. (Jake never leaves home without cards!) I was trying to meet-up there with a fellow museum docent, Gina, who was coincidentally visitng Malta with a friend. We didn't manage to pull it off, but Gina did manage to make it into Saint John's and said the long wait in line was worth it.  I did look up the 1607 Saint Jerome painting inside by Caravaggio, who lead the way of 17th Century Baroque extreme light, shadow and drama. If you look closely in the lower right you'll see a Maltese cross! Caravaggio had fled the law in Rome for killing a man in a brawl...this guy was all drama...and he painted for a while in Malta, becoming temporarily a Knight of St. John until he blew that, too and had to keep running. But he continued painting masterpieces till his early death in 1610.  We also tried to see the Basilica of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, but it was closed, so no gorgeous church interiors on this stop. We did hit some bars in the rain (hotel umbrellas!), including a top-floor bar where the dark and pummeling Mediterranean rainstorm could be observed while continuing our Hearts game inside. Once the rain cleared, we joined the great mix of mostly European travelers roaming the wonderful stepped streets heading down to the island's edge.   The most fun dinner was at a crowded pizza restaurant on the steps where the varied nationalities of the tourists was matched by the varied nationalities of the wait staff. Our darling waiter was from Brazil, so I got to brush-up on my Portuguese; however, everyone we encountered in Malta spoke English, and I understood why when I tried to make any sense of this street sign in Maltese: The harbor by day offered the ins-and-outs of rock shoreline and stone structures, the medieval fort of the Knights of St. John and the 16th Century fortresses against Ottoman invasion and piracy, adapted for WWII defense. A lovely water taxi ride took us to a jutting point across the bay and returned us bathed in the evening light.    We ended the day with Jake's 5-day-away Birthday dinner at an excellent Japanese restaurant, and were all flying off the next day: Jake back to Austin (double jet-lag); Larissa to join her mother for a cruise out of Athens; and Newton and I to Istanbul for a couple of weeks in Turkey. |
