Malta

I must say, it seems as though every time we go someplace I always say
"Wow,  is my favorite place in Europe".  But I would have to
say that Malta is definitely one of my favorite destinations so far.

The place really has everything going for it.  The climate is almost
tropical, the food is mainly Italian, the location is smack dab in the
middle of the Mediterranean, it's only a three hour flight from London
and the main language is English!  No wonder real-estate has increased
by 25% over the last two years.

We arrived at Valletta International airport after an early morning
flight from Gatwick.  It's a very 1950's looking terminal.  No movable
walkways here, only stair trucks.

We had exchanged a bit of money at Gatwick before leaving, which was a
little painful.  The exchange rate is almost two pounds (four dollars
Canadian) to one Maltese Lira.  Oddly enough, the locals call the Lira
"a pound".  Presumably a hold over from the years of British rule
which only officially ended in the 70's.

Being an island of about 15km by 25km, getting to our hotel from the
airport was a simple bus ride away.  The bus, as it turns out, was
also a hold over from the 1950's, which provided an exciting bumpy
ride.  On route the driver stopped to visit the loo and smoked the
whole way into town.

All the buses congregate at the City Gate where everyone hub's out of,
to connect with buses headed for different locations on the island. 
It's an amazing sight  because nearly every bus is different.  From
different decades, and varying  paradigms of bus technology.  Some of
them were honestly from 1940s, while others were just as new as some
of the newest London buses.  They also name all of their buses
differently.  Each have different customized horns, that they love to
all blow when they are ready to leave the square, four times an hour. 
It's pretty interesting.  I'd hate to be one of their maintenance
people, tending to all those different types of buses would be a
nightmare.


We took the bus, and walked to our hotel.  Our Hotel was in St.
Julian's which is a separate city from Valletta (the capital), but
Malta being the small island that it is, the cities are touching and
seem to be all one.  We keep ending up in extremely posh hotels!

This one just opened this month, so we got an amazing deal.  It's a 5
star and looked *really* nice.  Things weren't running as smoothly as
they could, and our room wasn't ready when we came, so they kept
feeding us drinks to keep us happy.


After our drinks we decided to wander the city until our room was
ready.  There is an unbelievable amount of construction going on in
St. Julian's and Valletta.  It seems that since they joined the EU,
they've been doing really well.  Over 50% of their GDP is tourism.

We went out and had some coffee and wandered along the beach

The shorelines in Malta aren't sandy, they are made up of some kind of
porous rock.  Probably limestone.

Eventually we made our way back to the hotel.  We were impressed with our room!

Not that we don't like our Australian flat-mates, but it was nice to
have so much space to ourselves.

Then it was out to dinner at a nice little bistro.  I love Italian
food, it's definitely my favorite.


The next day we did a boat tour of Valletta Harbour.

It's the largest natural harbour in Europe.  There are actually two
large inlets.  I think that we would call them 'sounds' in Canada. 
They naturally create calm water and create a little peninsula upon
which the walled city of Valletta was built.

This is one seriously fortified city.  Valletta has been attacked a
number of times, but the walled city itself has never been sieged by
outside attackers.  The only time it's ever been under siege is when
the Maltese (helped by the English and the Spanish) attempted to oust
Napoleon and his French colonialist cronies from their reign of
nastiness.

Malta was heavily contested during WWII.  The Germans were heck-bent
on gaining control of Malta, and using it as a jumping off point for
their north-African campaign.  The British General in charge of Malta
during the war was within 4 weeks of surrendering the island. 
Apparently at that point, every four people were living off of rations
suitable for one.  An American cargo ship managed to make it through
the German blockade and was able to restock Malta.  That one ship
would allowed Malta to continue on long enough that the Germans gave
up and moved their attention elsewhere.  The Germans never landed on
Malta, but it was heavily bombed.

Before recent history, Malta was ruled by The Order of St. Johns for a
number of years.  They were a weird Christian group that did all sorts
of nasty stuff, and were involved in the crusades.

Valletta is full of picturesque Mediterranean architecture.


It's also very Catholic.  You can't shake a stick without whacking a
statue of Mary.  Many front doors have cut-outs with little statues
and Catholic symbols.
Even the buses had pictures of Mary plastered all over the place.


We took a bus to the other side of the island (12km away), and checked
out a neat rock formation called the blue grotto.


Tons of horse drawn carriages and people using their little horses as
a cheap mode of transport.


Something else that seems to be in plentiful supply in Malta are cats.
 They're all over the place, are bold and definitely aren't afraid of
heights


We decided to checkout the facilities that our new hotel offered.  The
buffet was pretty darn good (amazing presentation) and the steam room
and pool were great.  We had to take a picture of the "regular price"
room rates.  The room that we had, at our off-season rates would have
been about 145 Lira (nearly 300 pounds or 600 Canadian dollars) a
night.  Peak season it would have cost more than that.  We paid around
40 pounds a night.  Ya gotta love the deals!


Then it was off to the markets.  I lathered on the sunscreen to avoid
getting any more burnt than I already was.

Then we did a walking tour of Valletta.  Their big central Church is
where they keep a big statue of Mary that they bring out once a year
and parade around the city.


Malta is proud that they consume more soft drinks than alcoholic
beverages.  Very non-British.  All the bottles are glass, which made
it all that much yummier for some reason.


We then went off to the other side of the Island again to see some
cliffs. We didn't find any cliffs, but we found a nice view of the
ocean.


We had a late night flight home, and the flight became a *very* late
night one when it was delayed by three hours.  We tried to sleep in
the terminal, but it wasn't terribly comfy.

On the up-side, we arrived back in London late (early) enough to be
able to take the morning trains back to Greenwich from Gatwick
Airport.  We got into our flat at 7:00am, took a shower, then headed
off to work.

We're not sure what we're doing for Easter weekend (four day weekend
over here).  We're planning on going to Belfast and driving around
Northern Ireland, but we'll see.  The end of this month, we're in
Barcelona, then after that we're booked to go to Berlin.  Fun fun.

Here are all of the pictures of Malta