Vacation from our Vacation: Malta

One of the many ports in Malta

As I've said before, writing a blog is more work than I thought it would be!  Here I am, more than a month after going to Malta and I'm finally getting around to writing about it.  Ah well, time flies when you are having fun!

Ok so Caroline and I headed off to Malta on our own while Courtney stayed back in Firenze to hold down the fort.  We basically had just gotten back from Barcelona and then we were off on another trip and we thought Malta was just going to be a nice beach-y vacation.  Truthfully, we made the decision to go to Malta only because Ryanair flew there from Pisa (there weren't a ton of options) and the flights were CHEAP - 10 euros each total for roundtrip.  Since both of us hadn't even really heard of Malta, we had no idea the amount of history we were going to find there and it's strategic importance in some of Europe's, and the world's, many conflicts.

Before going into all of it's history, here is some background on Malta.  Malta is a group of islands just south of Sicily, east of Tunisia, and north of Libya.  The three largest islands are the only ones inhabited.  It's actually one of the world's smallest and most densely populated countries.  As I said above, Malta was located in a prime position in the Mediterranean so many powers have ruled over it in it's long history.  The last power to have control was Great Britain, which is why the 2 languages spoken there are English and Maltese.  Thank goodness they spoke English because Maltese made no sense to us.  Aesthetically the island looks like a mix between a British beach town and a North African city.  When we got on the bus to get to Valletta from the airport, I couldn't help but notice the many buildings that were just crumbling.  It may have just been that area, but it was not very beautiful.  I learned later that a lot of those ruins were from the Siege of Malta in World War II.

So on to our trip!  The buses were our main mode of transportation, which was great since they were CHEAP!  One way was 47 cents - an interesting amount, but still cheap.  However, at times it did feel like these buses were deathtraps.  They looked like they were from the 60's and the doors didn't close so if you sat at the front it felt like you could fall out at any moment.  Lastly, the bus drivers were not unlike bus drivers you would find anywhere else...aggressive.  One time the bus we were in was tailing and trying to pass a student driver whose car said "Student Driver - Stay Back", obviously directions the driver didn't heed at all.

The Ohio State colored bus on the island of Gozo!

The apartment Caroline had found for us was located right in the night club district of Paceville.  We figured this would be ok since we wanted to go out and the price was amazing; 11 euros a night each for an apartment with a full kitchen.  You can't beat that at all!  Our apartment was actually over a club, but thankfully that club was being renovated otherwise I think we would have had a hard time getting any sleep.  Once we got to our place we noticed that they weren't kidding at all.  It was just a full street of clubs and bars, including gentlemen's clubs, yikes.  Here is a (blurry) picture of what the street looked like at night:

Since we were being a little more frugal because of the money we spent in Barcelona, we immediately headed to the store to stock up on food to make in our kitchen.  We also picked up some Maltese wine and asked for a recommendation of a liquor.  The clerk pointed us to a Maltese pomegranate liquor, which sounds good right?  Well, I'll get to that later.  After making some lunch we wanted to explore our neighborhood.  We walked to the mall right down the street, to the little beach near us, and we saw a casino way in the distance that we decided to go to.  Caroline really wanted to go in, but apparently you needed to become a member to do so.  So of course we did since it was free and we just walked around inside realizing after we couldn't find penny or nickel slots that it was waaay out of our price range :)  Back to the apartment to get ready for our Saturday night out!

We made some dinner and opened that Maltese wine and liquor I mentioned earlier.  The clerk said that a lot of people like to mix them together so we were up to try it.  Ugh, worst decision ever!  Well I should have also mentioned that we went a little cheap on the wine since we were used to buying 2 euro wine in Italy and it still being fabulous, but I guess that is not the case in Malta.  I should also mention that we bought wine that said "buy 2 for 4 euro and get one free" - yep, another red flag.  When I tried opening our wine, the cork wouldn't budge.  It seemed like these bottles had been sitting in that store for years.  It took me 10 minutes of probing and pulling and I finally got it out.  Then we tried it with and without the liquor and it was absolutely dreadful both ways.  Literally undrinkable for me, though Caroline was a little bit more forgiving.  This caused us to head out a little earlier and just buy cocktails and what we saw when we opened the front door was a huge surprise.  There were a million people walking around and music blaring from all sides.  Though these "people" were not average adults going out, they were 16-18 year olds.  Caroline and I were so taken aback by the young kids running around in 5 inch heels that we immediately ran into the lounge beneath our apartment (club was closed, but the restaurant/lounge was still open).  We decided to get some drinks there and just watch the madness outside.  We were so shocked by the amount of what seemed to be children out there that Caroline asked the waitress if this was normal, which apparently it is.  We had a little more liquid courage before braving the droves and decided to give this area a chance.  I was pretty disappointed with the whole thing - crowds, adolescent guys grabbing you and thinking they are awesome, extremely loud music, etc.  I was kind of over it even before we started.  Finally we found a bar that looked more adult so we ducked into there.  I think we both kind of felt defeated so we only hung out there for a little - enough for Caroline to have her first small taste of Absinthe! - and grabbed a slice of pizza on our way back to the apartment.  First night out, kind of a fail though the pizza was delicious!

The next day we were determined to have a good day of exploring.  We headed to Valletta, which is the de facto capital of Malta and is a small walled city.  It is located on one side of the Grand Harbor and after the Ottoman Siege of Malta in 1565, the Knights of St. John decided they needed to fortify this city so it could defend itself better from further attacks.  The city boasts a couple palaces, gardens, churches, and a fort so it is definitely the most impressive city on Malta, in my opinion.

Upper Barakka Gardens

View of the Grand Harbor

View of the Harbor from one of the small streets

Since it was a Sunday, many of the places we really wanted to see in Valletta were closed, but the National War Museum was open.  I wasn't so big on going in there, but we did because it seemed like the only thing open and thank goodness we did.  I learned more about both World Wars than I really ever knew before and it was very interesting seeing how much Malta was involved in these wars.  Since they were in such a strategic position in the Mediterranean, Malta had to endure many hardships especially during the second World War.  Walking through that museum was very eye opening and I thought about my Grandpa Legge pretty much the whole time (he worked for the Royal Airforce during WWII and I found out later that many of his friends had been stationed on Malta).

view of Valletta from the other side of a harbor

We would have to return to Valletta on a later day to see the Grand Palace and St. John's Cathedral, so I will recount those in a later post!  The next day we headed to the island of Gozo to see the world's oldest free standing and religious structures.  Be excited! :o)