Malta & Gozo

Returned from Malta today after spending 3 days here to celebrate Kat's birthday. Malta is south of Sicily and one of three Islands (Malta where the capital Valletta is; Gozo & Comino). We arrived at Luqa International Airport and caught a taxi, which is prepaid so fixed price, to our hotel in St George's Bay. The Corinthia Hotel was really nice and if only it was hotter we would have made use of their pools.

Travelling around Malta, public transport wise, is either by taxi or bus. I'd hire a car if it was hotter as you can get to alot more places much quicker. We hoped onto a bus outside our hotel to take us to the capital Valetta. It was an experience cause the bus didn't have any doors and when you wanted to get off you had to pull this string hanging on the top of the bus. The bus takes the only route around the island passing by all the bays including St Julian's Bay. We hoped off alot earlier than we should have but we managed to get some great shots as we walked towards the capital, Valletta.

The capital of Valletta is the usual touristy town but wasn't overcrowded. Because it was winter when we visited, most sites like churches and musuems either close early, close during lunch times or are not open at all. Definitely would like to have seem the difference if we came during summer.

We visited a number of churches including the St John's Co-cathedral (in St John's Square) which was in the centre of town. After strolling around town we found the ferry terminal which took us from Valletta to Silema. The cost of the ride was like €0.93 each (very odd prices but cheap!). Silema was pretty much another populated tourist area but not as big as Valletta. We searched for our bus stop and finally found it. Dinner our first night was at a place called the Paparazzi in St Julian's Bay. We had pizza (which was better than what we tried in Italy) and seafood. The prawns were finally decently sized but all the dishes were huge so we didn't have any more room for dessert.

On our second day in Malta, we travelled by bus (again) to the Cirkewwa Ferry Terminal to catch the boat across to Gozo. This was a ferry carrying both passengers and cars. I must admit I didn't expect it to only cost only €1.60 for a return ticket but thats good. When we arrived in Gozo we hopped onto the Gozo Sightseeing Bus which took us around most of the sights in Gozo but cause we arrived in the afternoon we ended up very short on time so stayed on the bus most of the journey. We hopped off at Gozo's capital Victoria, but everything was closed so it wasn't worth the stop. All roads in Gozo lead into Victoria (also known as Rabat) where the fortified citadel sits atop a summit. The bus drove by Mgarr and the fishing villages of Marsalforn and Xleindi as well as the famous Azure window - which is a cliff on the ocean with a massive gap through it. We also drove past the Statue of Christ which looks like the very famous Christ the Redeemer in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Gozo was cold though but after a few hours on the sightseeing bus we head back to the ferry terminal to catch the boat back to Malta. We had a nice dinner around Paceville (which is Malta's party area) at a place in Bay Street. Again, the food servings were huge as we tried a very puffed up pizza and grilled meat platter.

There's quite a number of popular bars around Paceville including Plush, Havana's and Footloose. You only need to be over 17 to drink in Malta or at least gain entry into the bars & clubs. There were alot of teenagers out at night and some looked alot younger than 13 but its safe anyhow.

We caught an midday flight out of Malta on Sunday but did get a chance to take in a massive breakfast at Cafe 24 near the Corinthia Marina Hotel (we stayed at the Corinthia San Gorg) very close by our hotel. The scones were the size of your average buffet plate!!

Definitely would go back to Malta when it gets much hotter. We don't recommend going there in winter as most things are closed but we still had a good time. A holiday is a holiday after all =).

Until our next trip.. in two week's time!

Kat & Will.