A So-Called Sabbatical

After living in Geneva for four years, we decided to spend a few months traveling in Europe before moving back to the U.S. We called it a sabbatical even though it was really an extended vacation before my partner started his new job in Seattle.

We thought we had it figured out and would work our way south as autumn progressed, spending September in Scandinavia, October in Italy, and November in the south of France before joining our daughter in Paris at the end of the trip.

What we didn’t bank on was the energy and effort it requires to change cities and hotels every few days; something we’d done in our twenties and thirties when we lived out of backpacks for weeks at a time, but not recommended for people in their sixties who prefer a slower pace to appreciate new places.

September in Scandinavia

We kicked off our trip in Norway where close friends invited us to stay in their home outside Oslo. They couldn’t have been more welcoming. After the stressful weeks of packing up our apartment in Geneva and shipping our belongings home, it was reviving to take walks around Drammen Fjord and explore the streets and galleries of Oslo with friends.

Our son joined us, and we drove through central Norway and north to Balestrand, a village perched above the longest fjord in the country. The Sognefjord slices deep into Norway’s interior, carving narrow canyons with sheer walls that plunge hundreds of feet into the sea.

Huge cruise ships that ply the fjord in summer were mostly gone in September. We took a boat tour of the Sognefjord’s inner bays and got off in the town of Flam for lunch before returning to our hotel in Balestrand.

Our friend Cam drove us from Oslo to the west coast of Sweden so we could stop in quaint fishing villages along the way. We had lunch in Fjallbacka before hiking up a steep path along a gorge to a rocky knoll with views of islands along the coast.

We stayed in Farrs Hatt for the night, in a hotel situated next to a forbidding castle. After touring it, our son declared it the best medieval castle he’d ever seen.

Cam left us in Gothenburg where we intended to spend a few days enjoying its laid-back vibe, nautical museum, shops and restaurants. Traveling on to Stockholm by train, we ended up spending a week there touring such landmarks as the Nordic Museum and the Vasa ship that was resurrected from the ocean floor and meticulously restored.

Though Stockholm is a big city, its parks and waterways, cobbled streets and lanes made it easy to navigate. We stayed in Gamla Stan, a tiny island that’s home to the royal palace as well as to restaurants and cafes.

One day we did a boat tour that meandered among the many islands—14,000 of them in total—protecting Sweden’s east coast. Disembarking at the outermost island, we ate lunch in a Sand Point restaurant and ordered a Scandinavian specialty we’d come to love—tiny shrimps and crab salad on toast—known as Skagen.

Another day we took a train and local bus to the nearest national park for a brisk autumn hike in the countryside. We couldn’t have been luckier with the weather with clear skies and mild temperatures during our sojourn in Sweden.

Our luck held as we sailed from Stockholm to Helsinki on an overnight ferry. Leaving at sunset, the ship zig-zagged through the islands off the coast of Sweden before traversing the open sea. We arrived in Finland early the next morning and made our way to a hotel in the center of Helsinki.

Though the city isn’t as polished or grand as Stockholm, it has a funky down-home feel of its own. Stefan enjoyed wandering through the design museum and shops that had innovative household items. Helsinki also has excellent restaurants at more affordable prices than Sweden and Norway.

The cuisine was the highlight for me. We ate fish that we hadn’t encountered before in inventive forms—like pike with a pike and crab terrine on the side, and baked celery root with celery root shavings topped with an apple-celery foam. At one restaurant I had fried Jerusalem artichokes with an artichoke puree on top while Stefan ordered pike with pike dumplings and a pike-laced mayo with lettuce foam. Spelt bread came with sour milk butter, Nordic humus from sunflower seeds, and barley-spinach puree with a yolk foam.

To work off holiday calories, I found an inner-city spa and swam on a day designated for women only. It looked like a spa from the 19th century, and most of the clients bathed in the buff or lounged in sauna and steam rooms. By the time we left Helsinki, it was late September and the chill of a Scandinavian autumn was in the air.

We took another ferry across the Gulf of Finland to Talinn, the capital of Estonia. The tiny Baltic country had gained its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991 after holding a “singing revolution” that lasted four years. Tallinn quickly became my favorite city as far as old towns go.

The city walls are well preserved and many of the buildings and cobbled streets date from the Middle Ages. Tallinn also has a huge sports complex with an Olympic-size pool where we could swim. Another day we took a tram to an art museum complex that featured protest paintings from Communist times.

After a month on the road, we were tired of living out of suitcases and changing hotels every few days and decided to spend a week in Germany with friends. In Ludwigsburg, our friends showed us around their lively little city with a daily farmers market in the town square.

We also toured the grand palace surrounded by manicured gardens and a Brothers Grimm Park. A pumpkin festival in the gardens held hilarious displays of pumpkins and gourds carved in clever effigies and arranged in patterns.

From Ludwigsburg we took a train to Enkenbach to visit a dear friend who had studied with me in London. Gitte drove us through vineyards along the Rhine at the height of the Reisling festival, and we dined in an old institution on a square in Deidesheim. Gitte was an inspiration, as she’s been a staunch advocate for the many refugees who ended up in Germany in 2015.

After 200 Syrian and Afghani families were resettled in her small town, some of the villagers had mixed feelings about having them there. So Gitte started a café in the town’s community center where refugees and locals could meet and mingle several times a week. She also helped refugee families with legal needs, doctor visits, and language tutoring.

October in Italy

After the hiatus in Germany, we flew to Cagliari (the capital of Sardinia) and were surprised to encounter even more refugees. Most of them originated in Africa and crossed the Mediterranean by boat. Some had to be rescued by the Italian navy, and they weren’t accorded much of a welcome in Italy. One woman told us that Cagliari alone had 85 centers that dealt with refugees. Their legal status remained uncertain, which meant that they couldn’t go to school or work legally.

We spent a few days touring Cagliari, a sun-soaked city on Sardinia’s south coast that seemed slightly shabby and was teeming with people. At an excellent archeological museum—built within the walls of an old 15th century bastion—we learned about an ancient people called Nuraghe who inhabited Sardinia in pre-Roman times. We also visited a cathedral on top of the highest hill that had eight altars stuffed with art in a pink marble interior.

From Cagliari we drove to the west coast along twisting mountain roads to see the ruins of a settlement nestled in the steep hills. The Nuraghe had flourished in Sardinia around 1000 B.C., well before the Romans came and built their structures on top of older settlements. Driving along back roads, we reached the west coast town of Oristano that had an even larger settlement of Nuraghe.

Oristano was a lively place to be on a Saturday night. We joined throngs of families, teenagers and couples who surfaced in the evening to promenade in the cobbled streets of the old town. Later, we had an excellent meal at our hotel restaurant that cost far less than comparable restaurants in Scandinavia. We found it to be the case all over Sardinia—that everything from meals to hotels were much less expensive in southern Italy.

On a peerless Sunday morning, we drove a short 10 miles to Tharros, an unspoiled site on a peninsula that held extensive Nuraghe and Roman ruins. From a tower on a hill, we could see the ruins of waves of settlers, from the Nuraghe to the Phoenicians and then the Greeks and Romans.

We wandered among the ruins of temple pillars and half-walls of baths in the ancient village, with vistas of blue sea shimmering around us. It was so hot wandering around the ruins under mid-day sun that we ended our tour at a nearby beach where we jumped in the water to cool off.

It was a straight shot across the island and a two-hour drive from Oristano to Olbia in the northeast corner of Sardinia. Our destination was the small coastal village east of Arazchena where we stayed in a time-share apartment complex a block from the beach. It ended up being the most relaxing week of our three-month sabbatical; lounging on our deck or on the beach while reading, and eating all our meals outdoors with views of the sea.

The Mediterranean was still warm enough to swim in mid-October, and we had the beach to ourselves when we took long walks. The landscape reminded us of New Mexico with its scrubby vegetation and ochre terrain, and it made for beautiful sunsets from the deck of our condo.

We took a boat tour of the surrounding islands one day and hiked up steep Monte Moro on another. We also found Nuraghe sites similar to the ones we’d seen in the south. The discovery of the island’s rich history made our sojourn in Sardinia all the more meaningful.

We jumped at the chance to take another overnight ferry from Sardinia to the Italian mainland for our onward journey. Docking in Livorno, we boarded a train to Florence where we met up with our Norwegian friends. Once again, it was more restful to stay in one place for a week as we rented an apartment in a narrow street behind the Duomo.

We were diligent tourists most days and followed Rick Steve’s walking tour of old town. After touring the Duomo and a dozen other churches in the city center, we waited in line to see the David at the Academia, and visited the extensive Uffizi Gallery. With our Norwegian friends, we ate in cafes and restaurants and toured the huge covered Mercado.

Florence still swarmed with tourists in mid-October. It was a shock after the quiet weeks we’d spent in Germany and rural Sardinia. After a week I was happy to leave crowds behind and drive south through a few Tuscan towns.

One night in Siena was enough to tour the elaborate (though smaller) Duomo and see the paintings and frescoes crammed on its walls and marble floors. Climbing a nearby tower, we had sweeping views of the surrounding hills and countryside as well as the terra cotta tiles on roofs below the Duomo.

From Siena we drove to a Tuscan town known for its thermal baths. Chianciano Terme is an optimal respite for weary travelers, and we soaked for hours in the outdoor spa.

Once revived, we drove on to the sprawling hill town of Montepulciano above a wide valley dotted with vineyards. Gazing down on the yellow and tangerine leaves of grapevines and trees, we witnessed autumn in full swing.

Other hill towns like tiny Pienza and Monticchiello also had a main piazza with a church, and we’d have lunch or a snack in the square after touring church museums and other sites.

It was in Assisi that we had our most memorable meal in Tuscany. We arrived hungry and tired on a blustery night and dropped our bags at a hotel before walking into town to find a restaurant. Stumbling upon Il Duomo Ristorante in a narrow lane at the top of the town, I ordered minestrone that was chock full of local veggies and white beans, followed by cannelloni stuffed with spinach and ricotta. With a piquant tomato sauce on top, it melted in my mouth.

We didn’t have such a satisfying experience with the spiritual aspects of Assisi, however. The tourist industry that grew up around a holy man who’d turned his back on society 800 years earlier to live closer to God seemed a stinging contradiction.

The Medieval streets had an authenticity reminiscent St. Francis’s time, especially at night when the town was devoid of tourist buses. But by day, so many tourists and pilgrims flooded the churches and narrow streets that it was impossible to feel a spiritual pulse in the place.

After Assisi, Spoleto was a welcome retreat. We stopped there on a whim—and at the suggestion of a friend—and ended up spending a week in a rented apartment. The small Umbrian city is famous for its annual summer music festival; but in October it’s a quiet town on a steep hill that has few flat places for its multiple piazzas.

Spoleto felt more like a working city than a showcase Tuscan hill town that catered to tourists.

*Exploring the autumn forest in Spoleto*

It has a fascinating archaeological museum as well as an amphitheater and an old Roman house. There’s also a big cathedral and a medieval bridge linking the fort to the nearby mountain.

We explored the museums and took a few memorable hikes in the surrounding hills, the October air so invigorating that it never felt like work. Spindly oaks in the forest sported golden leaves and made the hillsides blaze with autumn colors.

Some of our most memorable meals in Italy were in Spoleto—at the Appollinare Restaurant and Il Tempio del Gusto. I can still taste the seared tuna in a sesame crust that was topped with a buffalo mozzarella cream sauce. Stefan’s fish pasta had chunks of sea bass in a broth that included dollops of squid ink on the side as well as yellow roe. The price for a three-course dinner with wine was under $70 for two of us.

We left behind reasonably priced restaurants and quiet streets when we headed to Rome at the end of a week in Spoleto. We hadn’t known that it was a long holiday weekend since All Saints Day fell on a Tuesday. With cheap flights throughout Europe, the city was mobbed with tourists.

We’d inadvertently rented an apartment on the Via della Corso—the busiest shopping streets in Rome—and whenever we stepped out our front door, we had to wade into a steady stream of shoppers. The chaos and crowds in the city center were a shock to my system.

We were equally unprepared for an earthquake of magnitude 7.1 in Rome. We had experienced two earlier quakes in Spoleto while were walking home from a restaurant one night. The shutters on buildings all around us had started flapping violently as the earth trembled under our feet and people poured into the streets for safety. The earthquake in Rome was even more unsettling since it lasted almost a minute, and there were no open spaces or fields where we could get away from the buildings.

I wasn’t sorry to leave Rome after five days as we were tired of crowds and concerned about after-shocks from the earthquakes.

November in Southern France

We flew to Toulouse in the south of France and determined to explore the city on foot. Joining a walking tour of the old town, we heard lengthy descriptions of the waves of settlement and building styles—from Roman to Medieval to Baroque. The red-brick city center with its wide squares and pedestrian-only zones was full of fancy shops and restaurants. It was also full of homeless people and panhandlers, many of them immigrants who stooped or knelt in humble postures with their hands held out, shivering in the cold.

One day we took a train to the medieval fortress-town of Carcassonne and were amazed at the scale of the citadel on a hill. The oldest walls were built in Gallo-Roman times, with later additions in the 13th and 14th centuries.

We toured the ramparts, watchtowers, and museum before heading into the town that grew up around the citadel. It happened to be market day, which was fun for meandering. The town had an excellent art museum (the Musee des beaux-arts de Carcassonne) that showcased the work of local artists.

From Toulouse we took a train to Montpelier, a white-washed city on a hill above the Mediterranean. Dating from the 17th and 18th centuries, it’s a newer city built with local limestone and laid out in a grid like Paris, only on a smaller scale.

Once again we joined a walking tour of the old town and learned about the medieval buildings sandwiched between later constructions. One of the old buildings housed a Mikwe, which was a ritual bath for Jewish women in the middle ages. The city also had a remarkable art museum with an extensive collection of Dutch masters from the 16th century as well as French painters from later centuries.

On a bright blue day, we took a tram and a bus to the coast and walked from one small town to the next (ca. four miles). It was the perfect temperature for strolling along the seashore in late autumn, and we arrived in a quaint fishing town in time for lunch in a port-side restaurant.

From Montpelier we traveled by train to Marseilles on the south coast of France. Even in November, the sandstone city sparkled against the bare hills and blue Mediterranean. Our hotel room overlooked the Old Port, allowing us to watch yachts and fishing boats coming and going.

Among the churches and museums we visited, our favorite was the Historical Museum of Marseilles with its many artifacts from the city’s Greco-Roman origins.

Compared to sunny Marseilles, Paris was grey and rainy and the last stop on our travels. There’s always plenty to do indoors in the city of lights. We visited less-touristed sites like the Grand Palais, the Musee Marmottan (with its huge collection of Claude Monet and Berthe Morisot), and a newish museum called the Musee de Quai Branly.

But mostly, we visited with our daughter and went to Christmas markets, cafes and restaurants with her and her friends. She was about to move from Paris (where she’d lived for a year) to Luxembourg (where she was about to start a new job), and Stefan was staying behind to help her move.

I traveled on to Geneva to say goodbye to friends there before heading to Atlanta. It had been an action-packed sabbatical that I vowed not to repeat, realizing too late that I didn’t enjoy hopping from one city to the next and from country to country in a matter of days or week.

Next time we’d do a European sojourn by basing ourselves in one town and country and taking excursions from there. In the meantime, I faced the task of settling down in Seattle—another new city for us—where we were about to start new jobs, reconnect with family and friends, and establish roots again.

September in Scandinavia

October in Italy

November in Southern France

Footnotes from Abidjan

Last Lap in the Lake