I'm 26 in Malta!

I celebrated by 26th Birthday with a small group of friends in Sucre, a restaurant specializing in deserts. We had a small main course followed by an assortment of deserts, which was then followed by a proper birthday cake. The evening was awesome, and when we got home, Rick and I had only a couple of hours to set off for the airport for our vacation in Malta! It sucked having to catch a 4am flight, but the fact that it was my birthday gift and a vacation all in one made it awesome.

Things in Malta were off to a rough start; we got there too early to check into our room so we napped by the pool, and worse still, Rick's luggage was lost so he was stuck in black clothing in the sweltering heat all day long. We were finally able to check into our room, and they did find his bag that day, so it all worked out in the end.

We were staying in St. Julian's Bay, and went out for lunch on that first, exhausting day. Most of the restaurants we ate at were located in this area overlooking Spinola Bay. The bay was full of Malta's famous, colorful fishing boats, and these are the docks.

St. Julian's Bay - downtown

Day 2
We decided to take it easy easy, swimming in St. Julian's bay and having dinner at a nice restaurant. The city was pretty busy, but we had easy access to a small rocky beach with crystal clear water and a sandy bottom.

Day 3
This day kind of sucked. We took a boat trip to the north coast of Malta to see the famous Blue Lagoon. The boat, however, was over crowded, hot, and full of miserable people. The Blue Lagoon was also packed, and I got stung by a jelly fish.

On the way to the Blue Lagoon we passed the Popeye movie set; the film was shot here in 1980.

The famous Blue Lagoon. It is, indeed, blue.

Passing the capital Valletta on the way back to the docks at Sliema (only a 10 minute bus ride from St. Julians). Valletta has a very distinct skyline, and the next day we even visited that domed church.


Day 3
In the morning we jumped on one of the country's famous (and old and doorless) buses and headed back to Sliema to catch the (equally old) ferry that would take us to Valletta.


Valletta was a very hilly city, which is something I wasn't expecting, and was a nice change after flat Holland.

Standing on Valletta's city gates, overlooking the main square.

Official palace.

This is the country's main bus terminal just outside Valletta's gates. The country is very small so it's easy to get around.

Outside St. John's Co-Cathedral. Malta was in its Festa (Saint's Feast Day) season when we were there, so each city had many statues of patron saints and bright decorations.

These red banners are also Festa related.

Inside St. John's Co-Cathedral. I'm not a big fan of churches, but this was truly impressive.

After wards we decided to grab lunch at this cute cafe I found in my guidebook. Rick's mom owns a restaurant in Holland and was inspired by this photo to create a similar set up at her place.

Inside the Church of Mount Carmel, the famous dome that dominates Valletta's skyline. It was destroyed during the war, and the interior is now very bare; the emptiness was impressive.


Valletta's famous balconies were everywhere; green was a popular color.

Malta is a very religious country, with statues of saints on many corners and buildings. Malta also has many seemingly unsafe construction rigs.

Located across from Valletta's grand harbor are three peninsulas. They are all one urban mass, but each peninsula is actually a separate city: Senglea, Cospicua and Vittoriosa. We took one of these small traditional racing boats on a tour of the harbor and to Vittoriosa.




Vittoriosa is famous for its defense system...

Vittoriosa was a small, quite town, so after a couple of hours we were done exploring. We jumped on a bus back to Valletta (all buses in Malta travel through Valletta), and instead of going straight back to St. Julians, we decided to have dinner in the capital first. We ended up on a roof-top restaurant, overlooking Fort St. Elmo and the three cities, right before sunset. The timing was perfect and we couldn't have planned it better if we tried. It was good Karma making up for the crappy boat trip from the day before.


Day 4
We had made reservations weeks ahead of time to visit the Hypogeum Hal-Saflieni, the only prehistoric underground temple in the world. Entrance is restricted to 10 people per hour, so booking ahead was essential, and you're not allowed to take pictures inside. They're doing their best to preserve the temple, but that wasn't always the case...
The Hypogeum was first discovered by construction workers in 1902, who were building 4 houses on the street above it. When they discovered the temple they first tried to hide it by building over it, but it was eventually found. Today the buildings above it act as a museum about the Hypogeum and the tourist entrance to the temple, and you can still see the remainder of the original house in the form of tiles at the entrance to the ancient crypt. Because of this fiasco, you would never actually know you were standing in front of an ancient temple because it looks like any other street in the town. We had some problems finding it, but people are very friendly and offer help when they see you standing with a map. This is the neighborhood the Hypogeum is in.

In Malta, no one has sex.

Malta has many Megalithic temples; these are the Tarxien Temples from 2800BC. They were just walking distance from the Hypogeum so we decided to check them out, but the complex was rather unimpressive compared to other temples in the world (i.e. Libya).

Back in St. Julians - in the background you can see the church and building we saw from our hotel room. We also spent a lot of time in the water in front of the church.

Did I mention Malta is very religious?

Spinola Bay from a different angle. In the background you can see all the restaurants we tried over the course of the week.



Day 5
Mdina is the old capital of Malta, frequently called the "silent city". It was very pretty and a great place to walk around; the famous Maltese glass comes from Mdina so we did some souvenir shopping here.



The village outside Mdina's walls is known as Rabat, which is derived from the Semitic word "suburb", as it was once the suburb of the old capital. This area was practically deserted and the only reason we were here was to visit St. Paul's Catacombs.

We eventually found the tombs and they were very impressive. Not only were there very few people present, it was also a huge, never ending complex of tunnels you could get lost in. At one point we used our camera flashes to get in deeper, which was quite creepy.

Malta is a world-leader in fireworks, and we were lucky to be there during the local Festas, which frequently end in a big fireworks display (Malta is so small we could hear a different town's fireworks each night from our hotel). The village of Lija is famous for its fireworks (it even has the country's main factory), and we were lucky to be in Malta on August 5th when they celebrated their Festa. Not only did the town look amazing, they also put on a great hour long fireworks display.

After the fireworks, there was a show of spinning fire crackers. No safety precautions in place, you could get very close to the poles of flaming, spinning fire crackers... At one point we had to run from the smoke and fizzle.

Day 6
We booked a day trip to Gozo, the island north of Malta. The capital of Gozo is Victoria.


The most noticeable difference between Malta and Gozo were the gray buses, instead of Maltese yellow.

Knight's Baths

The famous Azure Window...
... and surrounding salt pans.

The Ggantija temples are the main reason to visit Gozo; they are the oldest man made structures in the world, dating from 3600BC. Some believe that Malta is the lost continent of Atlantis, and I agree with these theories. A long time ago Malta wasn't an island at all but was connected to the main land at Italy. When the water levels changed, Malta became an island and to those who stayed on the main land, it would appear as if the entire "continent" sank. Malta is a very small island with a high concentration of these Neolithic temples, and temples are generally built on elevations such as mountain tops to bring them closer to the gods. Therefore, it's logical to assume that current Malta is just the peak of the mountains of an old Atlantis where all the temples were built...


And that's it! The next day we flew back to Amsterdam, but I'm very impressed by how much we were able to see and how much time we also had to relax in clear waters, eat at good restaurants, and enjoy sunny weather.