Malta

This weekend, Ben, John and I took advantage of a long weekend (well, aided by an annual leave day) and headed to Malta!

We had booked the red-eye flight so we could go after work (and save on costs). Unfortunately, the crash at Heathrow the day before meant all flights were severely delayed, so we didn’t end up getting to Malta until about 4 AM. Consequently, Saturday saw a very tired and late start for us. Ben was still half asleep when we finally did venture out, and walked straight into a truck driving past our hotel. Thankfully, the truck wasn’t moving too fast or our weekend may have ended very prematurely!

Anyway, the view from our hotel was fantastic, and the dining areas were cleverly positioned such to take full advantage of it.

The view was by far the best part of our hotel; by far the worst was how badly wrong the TripAdvisor review was. We were expecting a young, vibrant atmosphere, but instead, the place was crowded with oldies!

Malta has a fantastic public transport system – a fleet of brightly coloured buses that whisk you around the island for a maximum charge of €1.16 per journey. Though they’re not exactly comfy, and most of the “roads” leave a lot to be desired, the system works well, so we had no trouble exploring.

 

No doubt those party animals were on their way to grab the early-bird dinner special…

Malta is the first place that I’ve been to in the Mediterranean Sea (as an adult at least), so I don’t know if it is representative of other places or not; but, I thought it was absolutely beautiful! Our main goal for the weekend was to relax in the company of friends, and with such a beautiful backdrop (like this harbour in Velletta), it was hard to be stressed about anything.

Of course, boys will be boys, and on Saturday night we checked out the nightlife capital of the island – Paceville (pronounced “Patchy Ville” by the locals, or “Party Ville” by us). It was great fun, though I did feel a bit old when the girl at reception advised us that the place “starts getting busy at 10PM” (yes, PM!). I just hope we didn’t stand out too much, given that the average age of the kids around us must have been 20 at most. Still, we resisted the call of our beds until a rather respectable 3 AM, and slept soundly (and late) once again.

Possibly the only thing we could have to complain about (besides Air Malta’s tiny, tiny seats) was our trip to Malta’s sister island in the north – Gozo – on Monday morning. We took a bus then a ferry to get there – about an hour-and-a-half – and were “greeted” with mobs of taxi drivers telling us that we needed their services because “it was 12KM to the city” and “no buses were running”. We all smelt a scam so we ignored their advice and set about on foot. Surely it was a scam – the harbour was so beautiful it must have been buzzing with activity!

Well, unfortunately not; we walked uphill for about half an hour through fairly deserted streets before we gave up and turned back. We still feel as though the taxi drivers were trying to scam us – they kept changing the apparent distance into town, and there actually was a bus service running – but perhaps we should have take one, anyway. We were feeling ripped off and annoyed by the time we got back to the ferry, but at least I got a chuckle by asking one of the taxi drivers if he’d ever been up to Oxo Tower.

Still, it didn’t make a dent in what was otherwise an absolutely fantastic weekend. I really, really loved Malta, and I’m keen to plan a four or five day driving holiday around the island for later in the year.