Mellieha in the sunshine

We've all ticked most of the places we wanted to see off our list, and after a couple of weeks, our pace has slowed down somewhat. My feet keep me slowed down more than somewhat, but I've found a pair of stretchy sandals that allow me to escape much of the grief. The fact that the sandals are stretchy means that if I slip on uneven pavement (it's everywhere), the shoes just kind of wander in the direction of their choice and test my balance. Luckily there are walls everywhere to grab onto when needed. 

Speaking of walls, the terraced hillsides are criss-crossed with dry stone walls, usually about three to four feet high. Because it's so hilly, the areas used for agriculture are mostly terraced. Here and there you find valleys which, in my experience, would usually have a river flowing at the bottom. Nope, not in Malta. There are no rivers. Right now the hillsides are green and almost lush. In a couple of months, they'll be brown in the hot, dry summer season. Ten percent of the agricultural land is used for vineyards. 

There are small plots with grape vines scattered among other fields, although there are also areas with more extensive space given to the vines. I wonder if individual farmers sell the grapes to the vineyards or if they make their own wine for personal use. 

Today I chose to take my new stretchy sandals on an outing to Mellieha. I'd passed through there en route to Cirkewwa where we got the ferry to Gozo. The scenery en route was lovely, and I wanted a closer look at part of the city. The bus ride was a little more exciting than I'd counted on. The driver must have been practising for the Indy 500, driving a bus loaded with passengers for a bit of a challenge. We had more than one close encounter of the accident kind. But, they were close encounters and not actual accidents. How? I don't know. I'm sure there are road accidents here, but fortunately, I have not seen any, let alone been in one. There have been police cars and ambulances racing around though.

The buses are equipped with a rolling screen that tells you the next stop. Well, not always when you need them. I knew the name of the stop I wanted in Mellieha - Adenau. Fortunately, I'd used Google maps to not only look at the route but I'd checked the streetview and knew what the area looked like. None of the stops in Mellieha showed up on that rolling screen. BUT, I had prepared well and disembarked at the right place by keeping my eyes open. 

The distance between stops is not always short, nor are they always at the same altitude. If I had missed the stop I would have required climbing gear to return to my chosen spot. Well, maybe not ropes and pitons, but given that I was wearing those stretchy sandals, it would have been a challenge.

Safely off the bus, I walked towards the church and onto an area with incredible views over the valley, down to the largest beach in Malta, and over the stretch of sea to Comino and Gozo. And I could see the Red Tower. Remember that from last weekend? 

The graveyard next to the church in Mellieha
There is no cremation done in Malta so how do they fit so many graves into this small space?
And every grave has a photo of the "occupant" and often his/her family

View to the beach from the area of the Church.
Do you see the Red Tower?

Part of the road I would have had to walk if I'd missed my bus stop. This shows the downhill
part that is followed by a mini-mountain

I spent about an hour just wandering and taking lots of photos and eventually ended up back at the Church. It was open and I wandered in. It was quite beautiful and had at least a dozen altars. I'm really not sure why so many are/were needed. This year that church celebrates its centenery. It was in perfect condition and I think there might have been recent cleanings for the occasion. 

I've never seen an open confessional before

One view of the exterior of the church

And the inside

And the usual view from the front

Back outside I decided to take the staircase down (yay!) to see the WWII air raid tunnels. They are open from 9 - 3 according to the sign on the door. It was 2 pm. They were closed. Ugh. But I had a brief conversation with an Irishman who was also disappointed at the timing. 

If they had been open I would have been able to see the WWII air raid tunnels

And then it was time for a gelato. 

Although it was tasty, it was a mere shadow of the gelato available right across the street from our digs in Qawra. The "scoop" must have been a teaspoon and it was in a skinny little plain cone. A couple of licks and it was gone. Tasty, but gone. Here we get a large scoop in a sugar cone for the same price. 

Luck was with me as I only had to wait a few minutes for the bus back to Qawra. It was late, but so was I. This driver was not quite so determined to break land speed records. I managed to get a seat on this bus, but had I embarked two stops later I would have been standing. To date, I have not seen anyone give up their seat for any "person of a certain age range" within which I exist. If seated, the young occupant just doesn't seem inclined to make sure that older folks can enjoy a seated experience if the bus is crowded. 

We dined in this evening, eating up most of our remaining groceries. Tomorrow I may return to Rabat to visit the catacombs. The weather has been glorious, and always windy. Very windy. 

Nothing much happened today other than hanging around, picking up a couple of things at the local convenience store, and resting my sore feet.

We went for dinner at a nearby restaurant called Michele's, and met a group from Ottawa on the Travac Tour. Glenn even knew one couple. It's almost inevitable that someone in your group, in our case a trio, meets someone they know from home on every trip. Small world.

There's a glimmer of hope that we might get to visit St John's Co-Cathedral on Monday. The bishop's funeral is tomorrow and the Cathedral is supposed to reopen on Sunday. If we pack up and get organized on Sunday, then we might get into Valletta for that last visit. Fingers crossed.

Breezy day in Valletta

I got off to a lazy start and took a bus to Valletta at 10:30. The chaps had left at 8. Once again I marvelled at the traffic. Do people here really just drive around cutting off other drivers, and buses, for entertainment? Sometimes, it seems that's a national pastime. But I must commend their parallel parking skills, slipping into spaces barely longer than their vehicles. I've never noticed any driver having to make a correction when squeezing between two other cars. One and done!

The risks the drivers take in roundabouts and pulling out from parking spots or side streets is enough to raise the blood pressure. There have been many close calls that I've seen from the safety(???) of a bus. I suppose safety is a relative term, and in this case only because the bus is bigger, is there any feeling of security. But I digress.

On disembarking from the bus at the terminal in Valletta, I headed directly to the Malta Memorial to the War Dead. I was on a mission to find the name of a particular airman who lost his life in the Battle of Malta. By a stroke of fate, I walked directly to the panel on which his name was inscribed. The names are organized by year, by service (RAF, RCAF), by descending order of rank and then alphabetically. This is the memorial.

From the memorial it was a short walk to the city entrance and onto Republic Street. The original plan had been to visit St. John's Co-Cathedral. It's home to the original Caravaggio painting of the beheading of John the Baptist, but that is only one of its attractions. Sadly, because the Archbishop had not been informed of our plans, he died at an inopportune time, and the cathedral was closed in his honour. It will not reopen during our visit. We'd been about to visit shortly after our arrival in Valletta during our first week, but seeing long lineups, decided to postpone the visit. Bad decision. We have to resort to googling or using the website to see the interior.  

https://www.stjohnscocathedral.com/

Not to be deterred I carried on to the Grand Masters' Palace and it did not disappoint. The interior courtyard was lovely, but the many stairs were somewhat less lovely. It's an immense structure and is currently used for special events, mostly involving the reception of monarchs and heads of state. In this place was displayed the George Cross and the letter from King George VI, to the people of Malta for their heroism in WWII. Malta was the most bombed country during the war and much of Valletta lay in ruins. The citizens had sheltered in the many underground passages which are found under the city.

When it comes to the George cross, there is no mention that it is a duplicate and the same can be said of the letter beside it. But, at the same time, at the War Museum, they have what is the original. I have not been able to figure this out. There would be no shame in saying it is a copy of the one at the museum but nowhere could I find any information about that. If you are so inclined and eager to research something of this high importance, please advise me of what you find.

So is this the original or a copy?

One of the places I really wanted to visit was The Malta Experience. There is a great deal of fuss made about this presentation and I was hoping to learn more in terms of geography and places to visit. Learn I did - the history of Malta. Not what I'd expected. Talk about the target of attack, this place has an invisible "hit me" target, although I can't find an actual painted target. Supposedly this was a 5D experience. It was 2D. But the theatre was large and at each place was a headset and controls. You could listen in any one of about 20 languages. I didn't count. Not surprisingly, I chose English. The Maltese must be the most resilient race in the world. Interesting but not a mind-blowing experience.

What followed, however, was the tour of the hospital established by the Knights. I enjoyed it and our excellent guide. It's on two levels, the upper of which, was for the rich and the lower for the poor. The "room" is 155 metres long, 10 metres wide and 11.5 metres high. This space was being prepared for a conference and the displays hid most of the features, other than the immense size. Each patient had not only his own bed, but his own washroom, and a curtain surrounded each bed for privacy. The colour of the curtain denoted what the person was suffering from. A glance at the scene told you the nature of the various 'ailments du jour.'

The poor would be treated on this level

Downstairs, in the poor section, between the niches housing the toilets, was a very large bed for four patients. As above, they usually used only one side of the room, but had the other side in case it was needed for more patients. Both of these wards treated only men. Women would seek help at convents. If they were very ill a doctor would be called. The nuns learned to almost be doctors by their hands-on experience. 

The hospital is now an event space and they were preparing for a conference when we were there. The setup in the poor section still allowed you to get an idea of the structure and setup. The upper level was full of display areas for merchants? companies? candy?

After having lunch at the cafe, I decided to walk back towards the main city gate via Merchant Street. It is parallel to the main Republic Street. What I had not bargained for was that this street, while home to many restaurants, is even steeper than the one parallel to it. How is this possible? 

Merchant Street - I started at the bottom

By this point, my painful feet were almost screaming, but I wandered to the Upper Barraka Gardens to enjoy a fabulous view over the Grand Harbour to the Three Cities. You can see the Gun Battery where a noon gun is fired daily.

Not a bad view 

I met with John and Glenn at the Triton fountain at 4 pm, and we went in search of our bus to Bugibba. The route ends at the bus terminal up the hill from our base. Luckily, returning 'home' is all downhill. Yay. We communicate by email when not all in the same place.

We caught the #48 bus, which takes a somewhat different route than the #45 which had been our transportation into Valletta. Was this designed to be snarled in the worst traffic? It took us 90 minutes to get back but had taken just under an hour to get to Valletta. There were lots of near-misses, in my opinion, but nobody on the insanely crowded bus seemed to notice. Except for the three of us and we were lucky enough to find seats. I saw no examples of courtesy to any standees who should have been the occupants of the courtesy seating.

The evening was spent icing my feet and dining in on whatever could be thrown together. I had a prepared meal that included couscous and some kind of vegetarian meatballs. The packaging was in Maltese. I managed to pick out the olives. Not being able to read the label (sorry for the rhyme) meant that I had bought food containing my least favoured (most hated) ingredient.

A slow day today - Friday. We have two sets of keys for three people who don't always travel together. I'm currently trapped in the condo as both sets have gone off in other directions. Without a key I can't use the elevator, but there are stairs. There is no way other than by mobile phone, to contact the others if you are out and they are in. There is no buzzer to open the outer door from within. But, I'm catching up with this post and apologize that it wasn't on time. I hope to take a bus to Mellieha just to have lunch. Why not?

No wandering today

 It's a national holiday and there's not much open today so we're taking a day off. Nothing of interest to report. No pictures either. Just a weather report: cool, sunny and VERY windy. See you tomorrow.

Barely a breeze when we started out ...

Today we took the South Tour of Malta on the Hop-on Hop off double decker bus. The tour actually started in Sliema but we boarded in Qawra across the street and enjoy a bit of a cool ride on the upper deck. I had two warmer jacket options hanging in my closet. Ah well, it didn't kill me. 

The traffic was unbelievable and there was a lot of stopping. That happened all day long no matter where we went. However, as it was a Tuesday and the skies were grey, there were no crowds of tourists which is a good thing.

Along the way I snapped a lot of pictures from the moving bus. As we were up top, there is no window glare included, but the pictures aren't spectacular. And of course, I forget what many of them are. Here's one of, um, a gate somewhere in/near/past Valletta.

Somehow the audioguide was saying that one of those passages was fake but I don't remember why it was built. I think it's the right one which looks like the left. There's a good view of a regular bus across the street. How I snapped a picture without showing the backed up traffic I don't know.

We inched our way around the perimeter of Valletta, Floriana and the Three Cities of Senglea, Cospicua and Vittoriosa. The next while was spent inching along other very urban areas. The residents are certainly proud of the city they live in, but I dare any tourist to define where one stops and the next one starts. What they have in common is narrow streets, hills and lots of balconies.

How would you like to carry groceries home on this street?

One thing I've noticed in these crowded cities, if they need more space they just build on top of what's already there. There can't be many cranes to spare as this is a small country with a LOT of construction. I don't know if they have a homeless problem, but there are a lot of empty buildings in poor condition. Given the lack of land, I'm sure they are just waiting for the demolition crews to come along.

We wended our way past places we'd already explored and got off in Marsaxlokk. There's still a market there every day but nowhere near as extensive as on Sundays. There were tourists of course. That's what we are, but no crowds. We had our choice of restaurants.

By this time it had cooled and the breeze was starting up so we opted to eat indoors. We found a restaurant that had tables by the windows upstairs. Good choice. The view was of the harbour and we were out of the wind. The food was good too. Part of my fish platter was two shrimp. I'd forgotten that you get the whole thing. I managed to get a wee bit of the meat out of the shell but abandoned the effort. The two types of fish and the mussels were good. Today's Cisk was the 0%.

The view from our table in Marsaxlokk. I love the colourful Luzzo (small boats)

We wandered through the market to pass the time before the next tour pickup. As we waited it started to rain a little. Fortunately, it didn't amount to much. My rain jacket was warm and dry "at home."

I do love the Bird of Paradise plant, in any surroundings

At the end of the tour we got onto another bus to take us back where we started. What a huge traffic jam we had. One remarkable part on a narrow street is still stunning to think about. Our bus and another one were going to pass, driving in opposite directions. We were holding our collective breath hoping they didn't scrape together. Out of nowhere a cyclist went streaking in between the buses. I saw it and still don't believe it. 

As we drove along we saw that the waves on the Mediterranean were much larger than we'd seen and provided quite a show as they splashed the rocky shore. Farther out we saw a couple of passenger ferries pitching and rolling. We patted ourselves on the back for having chosen calm sea days for our ride to Gozo.

There may not be much to blog about tomorrow. It's the feast of St. Joseph and a public holiday. We have no special plans other that to rack up some steps around the neighbourhood.

A great start to the day and then ...

St Paddy's Day - the wearing of the green. Luckily, it was a bit cooler today than it has been and I was able to wear my green sweater and be comfortably and suitably attired. It's impossible to say if the green shirts I saw on other people during our wanderings were all worn for the occasion. We opted NOT to go to St Julian's to join the surging multitude celebrating the occasion.

We travelled to Rabat on our favourite bus, the X3, to meet our host at the National Archives. It was a short walk from the bus and decorations were in evidence as preparation for the Feast of St Joseph on Wednesday. It's a national holiday. The narrow streets sported banners in honour of the occasion. 

At noon we heard what seemed to be a loud cannon, but it turned out to be the first of a group of fireworks. Rest assured, that in the daytime the biggest bang IS the bang. There's nothing much to see but puffs of smoke. I think it was a dress rehearsal for tomorrow's beginning of the Festa of St Joseph.

But I've gotten ahead of myself. We got to the Archives and were met by Melvin who gave us an excellent tour. To work in such beautiful surroundings must be wonderful. The views from the courtyard alone are enough to make you agree that where you work is important. Of course, they are short of space for storage and conservation, but they have some amazing materials.

The building was a hospital until the 1960s when the last patients were transferred elsewhere. It also served as a long-term care facility and an orphanage. There was a niche where parents could anonymously place unwanted babies in the 1600s,(don't quote me on the dates) and they would be raised in the orphanage until the age of about five. Some were adopted but it wasn't clear to me at what age. Often the child's name was included in a note with the child, but only the first name. Over time, the surname "Esposito" evolved from the term used to indicate the babies who were left, initially on church steps, and exposed to the elements. 

There are some remarkable documents, available for research. The passport applications were particularly interesting and often involved correspondence as well as photos and family details. Church records dating to the 1500s made me jealous.

Passport applications and correspondence pertaining to their issuance

From there we wandered off to find the Crystal Palace for what are supposed to be Malta's best pastizzi. We each bought one (50 Euro cents each) along with a drink (water for me) and enjoyed them in the nicest park I've seen yet. There were large trees and lots of benches. The public washrooms, while handy, were less noteworthy in so many ways that I won't describe them.

My feet were unhappy so I splurged on a horse-drawn carriage ride around Mdina, the silent city. Getting into the carriage was a chore in itself. Standing on the curb made it possible for me to reach the 'step' and actually get in. Getting out was a bit easier, but no more graceful. I certainly hope nobody was taking a video as I got in or out. 

Mdina now has only about 200 inhabitants, all wealthy. Well, except for the huge Benedictine convent which currently houses only four nuns. It's a cloistered order. The streets are very narrow but there were a few cars, to my surprise. If you are looking to buy a historic home, there's one available for a cool €7 Million. It's been on the market for two years without offers. Here are a couple of photos around the town.

The main entrance to Mdina. The pointy red ears are those of the horse pulling my chariot.

St Paul's Cathedral

A typical street in Mdina, the silent city

After my carriage ride, I was heading back to the main gate and met up with John and Glenn and we tried to find St Paul's catacombs in Rabat. Rabat is mere metres from Mdina. My feet thought it was kilometres. But although the map seemed to indicate we were in the right place - no catacombs. So, we went to find some lunch. For me, it was lunch bag letdown and doesn't bear describing. I'll just say that a soggy bun doesn't make for a very tasty chicken burger that was just a bun and a fried breaded hunk of chicken - nothing else inside. There was a small side salad. BUT, the Cisk Lemon didn't disappoint.

Over lunch we were struck by an email message. Our flight from Malta to Amsterdam on the 25th was cancelled. No substitution was offered. No alternatives. We'd just have to figure things out when we got back to our digs. 

Heading back to Qawra we took a different bus than usual, which showed us more of the town of Mosta and included another look at the domed church we'd visited a few days ago. All public buses, for us, end up at the Bugibba terminal about half a kilometre from "home" - luckily all downhill. I stopped at a Pharmacy on the way to get some bandaids for my feet. I'm hoping the investment is going to prove its worth in the coming days.

So - once home we had to get our bookings changed. We settled on heading back to Ottawa two days early since there was no way to get to Amsterdam. The flight from Amsterdam to Paris was still on. Handy, eh? 

Glenn had booked directly with Air France and although it took a little time, he was able to get a seat on a flight to Paris and then on to Ottawa on the 25th. I'd booked John's and my tickets through Expedia for TD. Everything had always gone smoothly in the past. Not this time.

Logging into the website proved challenging as they wanted to send me a text message for security. I stupidly forgot to turn on Flight mode so opening up my phone number for this purpose resulted in a $16 charge for roaming. Okay - my bad. Well, once logged on, the itinerary showed up, including the cancellation. Getting it amended was a nightmare. 

The Virtual Assistant (online chat) kept repeating the same thing and showing me the itinerary. Finally, it said to call the helpline. It didn't work. We tried from two different phones using every possible combination of long-distance prefixes before the number. Call Failed. and failed. and failed. There's no email address to use. Finally, on the Expedia Facebook page, I sent a message, and that brought an instant response from a live human being - the very helpful Mae. 

But it turns out that Expedia and Expedia for TD are not quite joined at the hip. After explaining to Mae what had to be done, she couldn't help directly. Ultimately I provided my phone number, since I was roaming now anyway, she called me then conferenced in another woman also named Mae, from Expedia for TD. It only took three hours in total, but John and I are now heading home on the 25th with Glenn, and bypassing Amsterdam altogether. That will be a trip for another day - hopefully with happy feet.

Now to reserve our seats on the Air France flight. Fingers crossed that it's not as arduous as changing dates.

Anchors away? aweigh? a-way?

What to do on a Sunday in a country with 365 churches? Why, take a boat tour of the two harbours, one on each side of Valletta, of course. One is the Great Harbour between Valletta and the Three Cities (Cospicua, Senglea and Vittoriosa) and the other, Marsamxetto. Try to say that after a couple of drinks, or anytime really. Lots of tongue-twisting names here. Just remember X is pronounced like SH. C is sometimes just a C, like Cospicua and sometimes, it's pronounced CH as in Cisk (the beer). But how do you know?

We are well located and to make my reservation for today, I just had to pop down to the tourist office right beside the entrance to our building. The pickup, as usual, was across the street. The bus was a few minutes late but it didn't matter. We made it to Sliema in about 45 minutes, with lots of time to board the Stella Maris for the tour.

It was bright and sunny and very, very breezy. I should have worn my warmer jacket, because it got rather chilly "at sea." However, survival was assured. The chill was a nice distraction from my sore feet. Those feet were the reason I found a tour that didn't tax my tootsies too much. By the end of the day, I'd walked 8,499 steps anyway. And I may not add many more before turning in.

There weren't many passengers aboard, and we did get a chance to move around a bit to take endless pictures of the cities and other boats, from rowboats to sailboats, to a Maltese version of a gondola, to large yachts, naval vessels and a huge cruise ship.

This moving around was not without its challenges. The bow of the boat is on an upward slant. Picture this, the floor is slanted, the boat is riding up and down on the waves as it moves forward, and you need to hold onto the rail with one hand. So, how exactly do you take a photo? With great care and good timing. Of all the shots I took, there are some probably worth showing. So, here are a few:

Fort St Elmo from the harbour. This will give you an idea of the slant of the boat that one had to navigate to get a picture. It was not raised because of being tossed by the waves, that's the actual slope of the floor.

 Getting a straight horizon proved to be the trickiest part. On a few of my efforts, the world appears to be   tilted. Some editing will be required, should I deem them otherwise worthy of the process.

I liked the symmetry of these houses along the Valletta waterfront

Someone had a sense of humour. This crane is on a ship. Everywhere you look in Malta
there is a crane on top of a building (or a ship). In some places it looks like they are adding new construction on top of existing structures. And just like home, pretty much all the streets are torn up.

In this view of Valletta you can see the elevator (grey tower) in the centre of the image. We took that elevator during our first stop in Valletta last week to get from harbour level to the level of the highest street. It was €1 well spent to avoid the climb.

I have a fascination with those window-balconies

One of the vintage buses, now replaced with new modern green and white buses on all routes.
This one has a new life as a souvenir stand in Sliema. I resisted temptation.

After disembarking from the Stella Maris, I enjoyed lunch at Opa! on the promenade at Sliema. I followed up with a walk to The Point shopping centre. I was disappointed, because the selection of stores didn't hold any appeal to me, so I stopped for a Capuccino and gave my feet a break.

The return bus ride to Qawra (awrah) where we're staying, had a few exciting moments. Entering a roundabout, a car pulled straight across in front, missing the bus by inches. There followed an exchange of honking horns between our driver and the idiot in the red car. No slowing down was involved.

The next bit of excitement happened when a couple of British tourists (we were all tourists on this bus) realized that the bus was not heading to drop them off at their pickup point as they had been promised. While parked at the stop where the driver wanted to leave them, a shouting match broke out between the driver and one of the tourists. Eventually, the tourist prevailed and we made a detour to Pembroke. Traffic was wicked everywhere.

Despite the road signs seeming to indicate that we were en route to the north for the ferry terminal, we did arrive back from where we had been picked up this morning. All in all, a very good day. We finished it off with dinner at The Wood Hut which was more than satisfactory. Once again we bypassed the opportunity to try the rabbit stew. We will try it before leaving. And on that note, I'll leave you with a photo of the bar in tonight's dining establishment. See you tomorrow.

This seems to be a favoured spot for some locals. Always a good sign. We had our choice of three soccer, er, football games, depending on which direction we faced. I think one or two might have been live or maybe they had been recorded but we had no interest. Remember, we went to eat.