I have finally returned from another two week vacation where I spent my time on the other side of the road and with three prong plugs. It hadn't dawned on me that in all three countries I visited that people drove on the other (wrong) side of the road and used the British plug! But my first stop was Malta, and I wished I could stop there forever. After a train, a bus and a night in the Girona, Spain airport, me and seven friends hopped on a flight to the small island of Malta, just south of Sicily. Our two Maltese friends we had met in Montpellier graciously agreed to let us invade their beautiful country for a week... the best week. I'm going to have to break down my trip to Malta in a few posts or else my readers may grow weary.
We were greeted at the airport by the lovely Stefan and Krista and were off to find our rental car that would be driven on the other side of the road. Some of us travellers felt a little more confident than others driving on the wrong side of the road, so I left the driving up to them. After a few tours around a marina, our first driver Darcy was ready to go and ready to follow Krista's Maltese driving to the island of Gozo for Carnival.
We took a ferry from Malta to Gozo and flew off the ferry in search of our hotel. For Carnival, Gozo is invaded by party goers and it's population doubles... from 35,000 to 70,000. I love Malta. After consulting a map and traveling on what were denoted as "main roads" we made it to our destination, Xlendi Bay and our hotel. By hotel, I really mean huge apartments looking over a gorgeous bay and the Med. I decided right then and there, I never wanted to leave. We spent the day recovering from our overnight in the airport and ate some patizzi, the most delicious food ever. You will find, Malta is full of superlatives, best, oldest, coolest, most amazing... etc.
That night we all headed into Nadur for carnival (after getting lost and traversing the entire island, which took 20 minutes) and were greeted by an insane sight! Carnival is no joke for these people, I've never seen such amazing costumes and in such a concentration. It was just a huge party in the streets with floats blasting music, bands playing every where and thousands of people looking absolutely ridiculous. Amazing. We even found a bar called the "American Bar," but I am sure we were the first Americans to ever grace this bar... epic.
The next day, after some rest, we were off to discover the entire island of Gozo in one afternoon. Mission quasi- Completed. First we went to the Citadel which was the old fortified city where the surrounding villages would take refuge during pirate and Turkish invasions. Malta is covered in old cities with fortified walls to protect itself against invasion due to it's particularly vulnerable placement in the middle of the Med between Italy, Africa, near Turkey etc. Anyway, the citadel was beautiful and we had a 360 degree view of the ocean. Our Maltesers picked us up some authentic Gozitan cheese and galleti (delicious crackers) and we ventured on to attempt to find a new site.
Attempt is a good word for this. If one looks at a map of Gozo, it seems to have main roads, but this is a lie. The main roads are often what one might consider a small side street or a country lane... or a ramp into the ocean. But in our wandering to find said "main roads" we stumbled across beautiful salt pans, had a photo opt, continued on some extremely bumpy roads where Krista's car speakers would fall every 20 minutes or so, and went on a side trip to a beautiful sanctuary called Ta' Pinu. The second car was unaware of this plan so they thought we were lost... no no. We had a strategy, we swore.
We were greeted at the airport by the lovely Stefan and Krista and were off to find our rental car that would be driven on the other side of the road. Some of us travellers felt a little more confident than others driving on the wrong side of the road, so I left the driving up to them. After a few tours around a marina, our first driver Darcy was ready to go and ready to follow Krista's Maltese driving to the island of Gozo for Carnival.
We took a ferry from Malta to Gozo and flew off the ferry in search of our hotel. For Carnival, Gozo is invaded by party goers and it's population doubles... from 35,000 to 70,000. I love Malta. After consulting a map and traveling on what were denoted as "main roads" we made it to our destination, Xlendi Bay and our hotel. By hotel, I really mean huge apartments looking over a gorgeous bay and the Med. I decided right then and there, I never wanted to leave. We spent the day recovering from our overnight in the airport and ate some patizzi, the most delicious food ever. You will find, Malta is full of superlatives, best, oldest, coolest, most amazing... etc.
That night we all headed into Nadur for carnival (after getting lost and traversing the entire island, which took 20 minutes) and were greeted by an insane sight! Carnival is no joke for these people, I've never seen such amazing costumes and in such a concentration. It was just a huge party in the streets with floats blasting music, bands playing every where and thousands of people looking absolutely ridiculous. Amazing. We even found a bar called the "American Bar," but I am sure we were the first Americans to ever grace this bar... epic.The next day, after some rest, we were off to discover the entire island of Gozo in one afternoon. Mission quasi- Completed. First we went to the Citadel which was the old fortified city where the surrounding villages would take refuge during pirate and Turkish invasions. Malta is covered in old cities with fortified walls to protect itself against invasion due to it's particularly vulnerable placement in the middle of the Med between Italy, Africa, near Turkey etc. Anyway, the citadel was beautiful and we had a 360 degree view of the ocean. Our Maltesers picked us up some authentic Gozitan cheese and galleti (delicious crackers) and we ventured on to attempt to find a new site.
Attempt is a good word for this. If one looks at a map of Gozo, it seems to have main roads, but this is a lie. The main roads are often what one might consider a small side street or a country lane... or a ramp into the ocean. But in our wandering to find said "main roads" we stumbled across beautiful salt pans, had a photo opt, continued on some extremely bumpy roads where Krista's car speakers would fall every 20 minutes or so, and went on a side trip to a beautiful sanctuary called Ta' Pinu. The second car was unaware of this plan so they thought we were lost... no no. We had a strategy, we swore.
After Ta' Pinu and asking about the entire population of Gozo where the Azure Window was, we finally made it and, to play into my American linguistic stereotype, oh. my. GOD. It was super windy and I was ill prepared in clothing and footwear for this trip, so my plaid lumberjack jacket and flipflops were slighty out of place, but with a little help from my friends I was able to hike some rocks and see one of the most epic views ever. I could have stared at the Azure window for hours... but we had more to see on this little island. We walked down to the Inland Sea to see a little doorway to the ocean that apparently you can swim through. The boys then proceeded to throw rocks into the water for around an hour. Boys will be boys.
So. Since the boys decided to reverse evolution a couple thousand years with their rocks, we missed some other rocks, or actually the oldest standing structures in the world, the Ggantija temples. But
it was okay, we'd just go back to Malta and see the second oldest, that'll do. Missing the temples was disappointing, but we drove on, Krista's car shaking under the weight of five people on less than stable roads blasting our theme song for the week... "I'm in Malta... *expletive*". We rolled up to Ramla Bay and a beautiful beach that contained Romain Ruins. The Ruins were actually stark white stones from an underwater wall just off the shore. We enjoyed the view and decided to try to climb the nearby big hill to see the sunset. My flipflops couldn't make it up the slippery clay hill so me and two other stayed behind while the others made it up to Calypso's Cave. We drove up. Calypso's Cave is the supposed point where Odysseus encountered Calypso on his journeys. Have I mentioned Malta is filled with amazing histories??
So. Since the boys decided to reverse evolution a couple thousand years with their rocks, we missed some other rocks, or actually the oldest standing structures in the world, the Ggantija temples. But
it was okay, we'd just go back to Malta and see the second oldest, that'll do. Missing the temples was disappointing, but we drove on, Krista's car shaking under the weight of five people on less than stable roads blasting our theme song for the week... "I'm in Malta... *expletive*". We rolled up to Ramla Bay and a beautiful beach that contained Romain Ruins. The Ruins were actually stark white stones from an underwater wall just off the shore. We enjoyed the view and decided to try to climb the nearby big hill to see the sunset. My flipflops couldn't make it up the slippery clay hill so me and two other stayed behind while the others made it up to Calypso's Cave. We drove up. Calypso's Cave is the supposed point where Odysseus encountered Calypso on his journeys. Have I mentioned Malta is filled with amazing histories??The sun was setting and we needed to get off the island and back to the bigger island of Malta to find our hotel for the week. After a two hour queue to get the ferry back to the main island, we were rolling again to Sliema, Krista and Stefan's home town and gorgeous place right on the water. After a little Valentine's celebration of "gifts, songs and poems," we chowed down on more patizzi and fell asleep before we could turn the lights out.
give me pictures!!!!!
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