For 2018 Valetta, Malta is the European
capital of culture. On Monday, and yes just as we leave, there is a
four day Jazz festival here. There is at least one cruise boat here
daily it seems. So as we glided into the harbour on board the Austal
built Jean de la Valette flying the Maltese flag, we joined what
could be described as as yet another invasion.
But what a fantastic visual impression
on entry by sea the place has and what a grand, if difficult history,
this place also has. The Russians have found it as have the
same sex brigades and so the city is alive with loud alcohol driven
voices at times and Yvonne was competing for attention with young men
in the Body Shop vying for lotions and perfumes. As I have previously
said Malta is a deviation from the general thrust of this trip but
Yvonne was certainly correct to push for its inclusion.
We are perched in our eyrie up several
stories of ancient and worn stars (much to Yvonne's initial horror)
in a very small B&B, right in the centre of Valetta and just
metres from the Presidential offices and St John's cathedral. There
are fairly constant religious events going on it seems and fireworks
(and/or cannon) are heard at various times day and night.
The weather remains constantly hot and
we are yet to conquer that, which means beating a retreat at some
point in the afternoon into our air conditioning. Yesterday just in
time to watch Angelique Kerber do the right thing and win Wimbledon
whilst thankfully Belgium executed England, in the football.
We enjoyed an excellent walking tour of
the city (http://www.colourmytravel.com/)
to give us a chance to understand some of the Maltese history before
spending quite a bit of time in the cathedral with the Order of St
John story. Viewpoints around the walled city are excellent and we
will only scratch the surface of place whilst here. It is a good
city to wander around and it is clear that a lot of effort of late
has gone into renovating and rejuvenating the place. Lots of newish
eating places in the lanes and alleyways and in the evenings the foot
traffic eases off which makes the experience a lot more pleasant.
That all means we like it a lot.
We also took the local ferry over to
The Three Cities to enjoy a waterside lunch and a short local walk.
Today Sunday we took a local bus to the nearby fishing village of
Marsaxlokk looking for a few fishing boat pictures and some fish for
lunch. Another success even though the place had a rather crowded
market going and us tourists were a bit too plentiful. From there we
also managed to fit in a late afternoon visit to the old inland
capital of Mdina. This is a city in beautiful condition with ancient
quiet streets and relatively few visitors. Someone here certainly
knows how to make a difference with spending on these places.
There are business attempts underway to
more closely link Sicily with Malta and one of the tangible pieces is
the high speed ferry run between Valetta and Pozzallo which we hope
to be on tomorrow. It leaves a bit early for us at 0630 and check in
is almost an hour in front of that. So I am posting this blog a
little earlier than usual and hopefully the next time I report we
will have something to say about another ancient city Syracusa back
in Sicily.
Rather unsettling for us quasi
Europeans, Malta drives on the wrong (left) hand side of the road so
we have had to be careful with which way we look crossing streets
here. But tomorrow we will be back to more normal events. And
thankfully Les Bleus managed to make an almost completely fine
sporting weekend great in the football and the Joker is back again in
the tennis. All good stuff.
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