Malta: Paradise Found, Sanity Lost (on the roads)

Malta was our next destination and thankfully there was a direct flight with RyanAir to Malta. When we had originally booked our flights, the flight was at 10 am but shortly there after they changed the flight to 10 pm meaning we would only arrive in Malta around 1:30 am.

Malta is a small island that has pretty good bus service, so most of those who visit Malta don't need to rent a car, but since we are staying at the northern tip of Malta in a small town called Il-Melieha, we thought a car would be helpful.

Baba was already apprehensive about driving in Malta as they drive on the opposite side of the street similar to those in the UK. And the fact that we were arriving at in the middle of the night made him even more nervous. By the time we got into our car and got into onto the road, it was 2:15am and we had a 45 minute drive to the top of the island. The roads are very windy with little light and we can safely say that there was more yelling and screaming in this 45 minute drive than in the past 20 years of marriage.

We made it safe and sound to the Airbnb, but a little nervous knowing that the next four days would be driving around this small country to see as many sites as possible. After doing a lot of walking and sightseeing the past few days, we only had two historical stops on our agenda Hagar Qim and the cities of M’dina and Rabat.

Since Hajar Qim, Rabat and Medina were all close to each other we decided to bite the sightseeing bullet and do all of these in one day in 95° humid heat. We were definitely the only crazy people who were at Hajar Qim but the prehistoric freestanding ruins were definitely worth seeing as well as the view of the sea in the background. 

Hagar Qim

Doorway into a prehistoric home

Our next step was Rabat where the most famous Pastizzi in all of Malta is served, Is-Serkin- Crystal Palace. Each Pastizzi was 40 cents and so we splurged and ordered 6. Pastizzi is triangle shaped pastry made with layers of phyllo dough brushed with a lot of butter and filled with either chicken cheese or peas and baked to a crisp (our favorite was chicken- a unanimous vote).

Is-Serkin Pastizzi

One of the most famous sites in Rabat are the catacombs of Saint Pauls Cathedral. We started to walk our way into the pedestrian area of Rabat and as we got closer to the cathedral the crowd got bigger to the point where we could not walk or move an inch.  The only way to get to the catacombs was through this crowd or walking a mile and a half outside the city wall to reach the catacombs from the other side and there was no way we were going through this crowd.  It turned out later that it was Saint Paul’s day and there were festivals celebrating Saint Paul in every city in Malta and likely every resident of both Medina and Rabat had come to this square to rejoice; I guess I missed this in the guidebook on Malta. The crowds, coupled with the heat definitely made for an irritable bunch. 

The quiet streets of Rabat 200m from St. Paul Square

The streets of Rabat after the celebration

We had planned to see more sites but with the crowds and our moods, there was no way we were going to see anything else here. After our visit to the catacombs, the crowd had dispersed enough that we could push our way through to get back to our car.

O was considered TALL in prehistoric times

It seemed everybody just needed an air-conditioning car and a cold slushy to remedy the agitation from minutes earlier. With the sightseeing out of the way we could now spend our time beach hopping both on the mainland and on the small island of Gozo.

Thankfully the next day I hadn’t planned for us to visit any sites and so for the rest of the trip, most of the driving was to a grocery store! After staying in hotels for the past 10 days we were eager to cook our own food and stocked our Airbnb with food for breakfast lunch and dinner.  Now that we had tried a pastizzi, we could check that off our list. 

Our first opportunity to go to the beach was at Il-Melieha Beach, a mere five minute walk. Most of the beaches in Malta are rocky, however Il-Melieha is family-friendly town and one of the only cities with sandy beaches. M is terrified of jellyfish and since Malta is off the Mediterranean, she was especially nervous given our trip to Israel 2 years earlier where the water burned from the jellyfish poison. 

Our own private beach behind our AirBnb

Thankfully in this day in age, you just have to head over to the Internet to see people post live about jellyfish and other sea pests at specific beaches. The lifeguard stations in Malta (and later when we will head to Portugal) have different flags to indicate the wave and current strength but also a purple flag to indicate the presence of sea pests. Thankfully there were no purple flags however she still preferred not to risk it. We tried to visit as many beaches as possible in the area, going to stopping at the Golden Bay and Għajn Tuffieħa Beach (just voted one of the most beautiful beaches in the world in Forbes magazine - wow!)

Għajn Tuffieħa Beach

Our last day in Malta we took a ferry to Gozo and hired a private guide to take us around the small island. According to our guide, Maltese is 60% Arabic, 30% Italian and 10% French so both Baba and I could often get the gist of conversations.  For us, the most beautiful beach was in Gozo where we climbed through a secret cave to see -Ramla Bay, Nadur. We didn't have a chance to swim here but the views were worth the short hike. 

On the Ferry ride to Gozo

Not a beach- but salt pans in Gozo

Ramla Bay- Nadur

Since our time in Malta was cut shorter than planned due to the flight change, we didn't have a chance to spend more than a few hours in Valetta, but something tells me, we will be back and this time we won't be driving!