For the past 6 weeks, a lot of my time in Barcelona has been spent studying Spanish and simultaneously neglecting this blog. I attend class 5 days a week, 4 hours a day and have been supplementing with Duolingo, podcasts, reading basic Spanish books on my Kindle, watching TV in Spanish and attending language exchanges I find on Meetup. After 6 weeks, my vocabulary has improved and I can read and write a little better and say basic sentences but once someone talks to me too fast I’m lost. It’s been fun though and I’m really enjoying it.
For my first break (for Easter weekend we had Friday and Monday off) I went to Malta. My friend Sarah from the US, who currently lives in Amsterdam, and I had planned a long weekend trip to Malta a couple of months before I had left the US.
To be honest, like many other North Americans, I hadn’t heard of Malta before. Malta is a fascinating island. It is actually a group of islands, the primary one being Malta itself. They speak two official languages, Maltese and English. Many signs are in English. And in case you were wondering, yes this is where the Maltese dog is believed to have originated from.
- It is about 200 miles south of Sicily
- They use the Euro
- They are an independent country, having gained independence from Britain in 1964. They drive on the left and you can still find red phone booths around
the island - They have some of the oldest buildings in the world
There is a direct flight to Malta from Barcelona on Vueling, offered a few times a week in the evening. I left at 9:45pm Thursday evening and arrived in Malta close to midnight. The hotel we reserved was on The Strand which is a street facing the harbor. The hotel itself was directly above a crowded bar and there was a separate entrance for guests.
The first morning I had a few hours on my own before Sarah would arrive. After finding a delicious sandwich and juice at and organic juice bar, I made my way to Independence Gardens which was listed as one of the top 10 “Things To Do” for Sliema on TripAdvisor. It mentioned a cat sanctuary and statue. My inner crazy cat lady was sold. In total it was about a mile walk through Sliema, and every so often I stopped to take pictures of the old buildings, painted windows and the traces of British influence. Once at the gardens, I admired the giant cat statue and the views of the bay with a latte and a couple of cats.
Back at the hotel, Sarah arrived and we walked down the Strand intending to take the ferry to Valletta, which is 1.50€ and about a 10 minute trip. On our way, one of the tour guide operators asked us if we were interested in a tour of Gozo and Comino for the following day. We skeptically listened to his spiel until he mentioned that the ferry had an open bar, and then we immediately handed over our credit cards.
Day 2 – Gozo and Comino Island Tour
After an evening exploring Valletta and taking a packed bus back to Sliema, we went to sleep and the next morning at 9:30am we boarded the ferry for a 10am departure. 1.5 hours and a few plastic cups of wine later, we were in Gozo and were instructed to get on a bus, which would be the next part of the tour. Neither of us watch Game of Thrones but we were still little disappointed we wouldn’t get to see the Azure Window. We took pictures of where people seemed to think it used to be, I’m still not entirely sure we were looking in the right direction.
Back on the bus and to the next destination, Victoria, which is the capital of Gozo. In typical “organized tour” fashion, we were ushered to a particular place to eat lunch and encouraged to grab something to go so we would have enough time to check out the city. We ordered sandwiches and ate them at a small table in the middle of the street.
The next part of the tour was Comino Island so back on the boat we went. The Blue Lagoon has amazingly clear and beautiful water. The water was a little chilly and the small beach was pretty crowded with tourists but it was so beautiful.
That night we had dinner at Zeri’s, in the St. Julian’s/Paceville area. I liked this area of Sliema, to me it felt less “Miami touristy” than the Strand. We didn’t make reservations but they were able to seat us at the bar. The whole experience was great, the food was good and the service was excellent.
The following day, Easter Sunday, we took a tour of Sicily that we had booked through Malta Travel Net. This required waking up in the middle of the night at the insane hour of 4:00am to be on the ferry at 5:30am per the instructions. However, the ferry didn’t actually leave until 6:30am. The ferry had a small selection of food and drinks, and a small gift shop.
Once arriving in Pollazzo, Sicily we boarded a coach bus and the first part of the trip was an approximately 90 minute drive up through the province of Catania. I tried to stay awake but after miles and miles of the same view I fell asleep.
Finally, we stopped in a little town called Nicolosi and sampled delicious pastries and drank coffee.
From there we headed up to Mt. Etna which is one of the most active volcanoes in the world. We were given a little over an hour at Mt. Etna, with the option to purchase a gondola ride to the peak of Mt. Etna.
Sarah and I opted to sit in one of the restaurants and drink wine instead. Since we were in Sicily I decided I should order spaghetti which was decent, considering we were at a tourist trap.
While we were at lunch it had started raining and had gotten windy. As we walked back to the coach we were both regretting our outfits of sundresses and sandals and given that neither of us had read the description of the tour (or the weather report apparently), we were not sure what to expect next, and were not particularly hopeful. But it didn’t really matter, I mean, we were in Sicily and there was wine, what else could we ask for?
That question had an answer, and the answer was Modico. We boarded the coach and it headed back down towards Pollazzo to our last and final stop, the small city of Modico. Miraculously the sun came out. Modico was a pleasant surprise with its beautiful churches and narrow streets and staircases to explore.
Sarah had a friend we had met up with that had recommended visiting Marsaxlokk, so our last day we took the bus to this quaint fishing village for lunch. We first had to take the bus to Valletta and then transfer to another bus for Marsaxlokk, the whole trip took about an hour. We had lunch at a delicious seafood restaurant near the water, and then walked around and admired the colorful boats.
All in all, it was a great trip to a beautiful and interesting place. Grazzi Malta!
I’m glad you enjoyed Malta. There are a lot of Maltese immigrants in Australia, due (I think) to their common membership in the British Commonwealth. The previous owner of our home here, for example, was Maltese. However, I not only know little of Malta (except that Valletta is its capital), but I’m not particularly interested in knowing more, don’t know why. I was more interested in reading about your side trip to southern Sicily. Anyway, write more often!