A Load of Maltesers

If you're anything like us, what you know about Malta and the Maltese could be comfortably be written on the forehead of a small white dog. Hence over Easter we thought it would be fun to head to this little island in the middle of the Mediterranean to learn more, courtesy of those crazy leprechauns at RyanAir. Coming along with us for this particular adventure was Bec's old uni mate Kieran, who has been doing "The London Thing" for about 5 years now, and has visited Malta before, making him a very useful resource. We were all in search of a little sun, having endured a pretty cold UK winter.

The first Maltese surprise was that Malta was now using the Euro, and not the Lire. Turned out they switched on the first of January, and our year-old guidebook was now a little bit more useless. Bugger. The second surprise was the weather, which we'd hoped would be glorious mid-twenties sunshine, was really not much better than the mid-teens greyness we'd left behind in Blighty. Double Bugger.


Our first excursion was to the ancient town of Mdina, which Tone Loc fans will be relieved to hear, was both funky and cold. Made entirely of sandstone from the local quarries, a town has been here for at least 6000 years. Wandering around the streets, it was easy to understand how this former capital got its nickname "The Silent City". We got back home thanks to one of the elaborately decorated and passionately well-maintained buses which grumble their way across the island:


When we got back the weather was still somewhat chilly - as an optimistic Kieran can be seen demonstrating here on the pool deck:


The next day we took an organised tour which would show us some more distant parts of the island. First stop was one of the many quarries which produce most of Malta's building materials (Malta has no natural wood supply, so houses are built with the bare minimum of expensive imported wood). There's only so long you can spend in a big hole in the ground before your attention starts to wander though, and we thought that this bunny was in a pretty brave position considering Rabbit Stew is Malta's national dish!


Next stop was the harbour town of Marsaxlokk - pronounced "Marsa - shlock". A mouthful to say, but a pleasure to visit. The harbour here is filled with the traditional brightly-coloured boats of the Maltese fishermen. Each one features a pair of painted eyes which ward off bad luck while at sea - this is an ancient tradition and failure to repaint the "eyes of Osiris" each year could have disastrous consequences! Hence we bought some magnetic ones to protect the contents of our fridge from evil. Judging by the smell of our last cleanout, it's not working...