Malta? Where’s that?

I am presently squeezed into a window seat a few miles above France on my way back to London from the tiny micro-nation of Malta.  For those who do not know (and I am unashamed to admit that I did not just a few weeks ago), Malta is a former UK island colony in the middle of the Mediterranean that obtained independence in 1964.  Prior to its membership in the empire it served a brief period under French rule (during which the British were called for “help”) and a long period of independence.  Its principal cities were built by the knights who acquired Malta in the 1500s and defended it during the “great siege,” which despite my having never heard of it, I gather is an event of importance unmatched in history.  Without it, Malta would have been Turkish, and then who knows what would have happened?  I spent just under 48 hours in the nation, which seems either just right or a tad too long. 

I arrived on Friday afternoon after a leisurely morning journey to the airport (my other option was a torturous early-morning journey to a much more remote airport, which did not seem worth it), and decided to take the scenic route into town.  I hopped on the bus (the only only service, plied by authentic 1950s equipment) to the capital city of Valletta (if a nation of 380 sq km can be said to have a capital city).  My ride (cost €0.47) took me through narrow streets and hilly neighborhoods, and I felt that it allowed me to really see where the locals live.  I arrived in Valletta and after a bit of aimless wandering that found me in a hilltop park overlooking a sailboat-filled bay whipped out my mobile phone and used the GPS to scout my way down some very steep, stepped streets and underpasses to the bottom of the hill and the ferry to Sliema, where my hotel was situated.  A short wait and chat on the phone with some people in the States and the ferry arrived.  After a quick journey (€0.97) I found myself on the shore of a much flatter “town” full of hotels and tourist destinations, and I set off for the approximately 10 minute walk to the hotel.  I managed to get my room key (I was meeting my friend) and found myself in a massive, recently-constructed two-bedroom apartment with floor-to-ceiling slide-away windows giving way to a balcony overlooking the bay. Very nice.

While I didn’t manage to see all of the sites, I feel like my day trip the next morning to the country’s second-largest island, Gozo, consumed rather more time than it needed. 

While I still maintain a proud record of having never booked an organized sight-seeing tour (I do not count my overnight boat trip on Halong bay in Vietnam, since it was less sightseeing and more yachting), my travel companion did sign us up for one.  Fortunately it was free of any guides, so we were merely given a brief introduction to every stop by our driver, and were then free to wander around.  Unfortunately, he made the grave error of signing up for the included meal, which doubled the price of the journey but halved its value.  Of course you do not know whether you will have the chance to eat somewhere else, but as it turned out our wretched included sustenance (did you expect otherwise) was in a small seaside village that included much better food for less money.  No worries though, you live and learn!  In this case we learned: ask if there will be other restaurants near where we will be getting lunch.

So, what did we see?  The highlights of the trip included such wonders as:

• A church that Pop John Paul II visited.  Apparently built in the 30s, it was a church.  It had an apse and a nave and some stained glass windows, along with some lovely photos of the pope looking popely.
• A folklore museum.  I didn’t go in, because I don’t care much about folklore.  Instead, I walked around the small, deserted hilltop village we were in and bought some stamps, a coke, and some mint chocolate.  The stamps were the largest stamps I have ever seen.  The coke came in a tall can, and the mint chocolate was very tasty.  Sadly the chocolate bore the Aero brand popular here in Europe, which signifies that half of the chocolate has been replaced by – you guessed it – air.  Allegedly this gives it a cool “bubbly” taste, but I suspect that the marketers wake up every morning, log into their bank accounts, and have a hearty laugh about how they were able to convince people to buy half the chocolate for the same price.
• Capers.  Apparently they are famous capers.  Our driver pointed at them out of the window.
• Quarries.  Also spotted through the windows of the van.
• Bamboo.  Not only spotted through the window, but also present near where we struggled through lunch.
• Fungus rock.  A small rocky island (about 200 feet across) that is the only place where a particular fungus grows.  It was unclear whether this fungus grows elsewhere in the world.  It was used by the knights to create medicine, but we were not informed of any modern usage.
• Some beautiful cliffs and an archway over the ocean.  In fairness to fungus rock, these were all in the same place, and the complete effect was really quite beautiful.
• The world’s oldest freestanding human-made structure.  It looked like a disintegrated pile of rocks arranged into walls, but apparently was used as a temple.  Probably.  It was built around 3500 BC.  Probably. It was old, and unremarkable.
• The city of Victoria.  Other than the ocean-side at fungus rock, this was the only thing I found worth visiting.  The city was a beautiful, hilly town overlooking the entire island.  It was topped by a citadel (which was really a cathedral) and a great viewing wall, and included a quaint square filled with coffee shops, as well as another church. 

Upon returning to the island of Malta on a mixed pedestrian and vehicular ferry and riding back to our hotel, we went to a well-known local restaurant for some local Maltese food.  Apparently Maltese food is distinguished by a local fish and rabbit, and as I had consumed rabbit on the previous day (in a delicious rabbit ravioli appetizer) I opted for the local fish as the main course in my set menu, which was great. 

Today, Sunday, we hopped on an ancient local bus to travel around the bay to Valletta, where we wandered around the town and had a nice cup of coffee before nipping back to the hotel and on to the airport.

All in all a quaint visit, and while I might take the opportunity for a visit if it is offered to you, I wouldn’t make a destination of it or travel very far to get there, especially if you haven’t yet seen the (sorry Malta) much more interesting destinations nearby in Europe.  The one thing I would probably have done differently is that I would have gone to see the city of M’dina (after Medina, meaning “city” in Arabic) that predated the crusaders of the 1500s.  Of course, I’m sure that there are many similar cities in the world, and I’m sure that I will see something similar in the future, if I have not already.