Cameron was off snowboarding in the Pyrenees with his school, which left Kate and me with a rare open week and a short flight’s worth of options. Malta won, mostly because neither of us had been there and someone had recently mentioned it on a call. It sounded good.

There’s also some amazing pre-Egyptian history on the island — the megalithic temples here predate the pyramids by about a thousand years. We saw none of it, though we did hit a history museum, which was cool.

Valletta was our base of operations. Honey-colored limestone everywhere, narrow streets that funnel you toward the harbor whether you meant to go there or not, and plenty of cafés and wine bars tempting you at every turn. St. John’s Co-Cathedral is the showpiece. Caravaggio’s Beheading of Saint John the Baptist was a highlight. The floor is its own thing: hundreds of pietra dura tomb slabs for the Knights of Malta, inlaid in colored marble. Fun to spot a few Catalan references in there.

We rented a weird three-wheeled motorcycle for a day, which I’m sure has a proper name but felt mostly like a motorcycle and a quad had a brief, ugly relationship. Took it around Gozo, the separate island to the north. Caves, sea arches, the Blue Lagoon out at Comino, salt harvesting, and a small church at noon where the caretaker waved us over to ring the bell.

No agenda, no kids, no jet lag.