Happy Birthday Malta

Smaller than the Isle of Wight, but is the fourth most densely populated places in the world and with 7000 years of human history.  The earliest of its many neolithic temples more than 1000 years older than the pyramids and 500 years older than stone henge. King George VI awarded the George Cross to the entire nation for civilian bravery after holding out against Hitler and Mussolini’s Siege during World War Two.

Originally occupied over 5000BC by inhabitants from Sicily, just 93km across the sea with Gozo in between and sea levels much lower than now.  The local populations of dwarf rhino and dwarf elephant were soon wiped out leaving only their bones to tell the tale.  Malta saw many changes of hands throughout its history with the British 150 year rule being the last which ended in 1964. The last of the British troops left in 1979 and is still celebrated each year by Freedom Day on April 1st.  Must be some kind of joke.  The British forces had been by far the largest employer in the country so Malta urgently needed alternative sources of income one they had gone.  Tourism largely filled the gap.

Geologically speaking, Malta is a very young country with its oldest rocks being only 30 million years old, way after the dinosaurs had died out 65 million years ago.  The islands were formed by the buckling up of the seabed as the tectonic plates of Europe and Africa slowly collided - a process that was also responsible for the Etna and Vesuvius volcanoes.  Malta has no volcanoes or volcanic rock, although it does suffer the occasional earthquake.  Malta is almost entirely made up of limestone of five main strata with the oldest at the bottom.  Malta has four species of non poisonous snake and only 29 different species of birds breed on the islands; however, a total of 384 migratory birds have been spotted to date by twitchers and the like.  Sadly the Maltese falcon was hunted to extinction in the 1970’s and 1980’s.

Malta enjoys 300 days of sunshine a year.  Luckily we look like enjoying three of them.

Maltese love to eat; almost as much as they hate to exercise which makes Malta a European record breaker for both obesity and diabetes.  Consequently they have excellent restaurants.  Sounds like my kind of place.

We arrived at the Intercontinental hotel with no troubles on the way other than not being able to find it in the hare car but we eventually stumbled across it.  Being much busier than I expected and without road signs it wasn’t easy.  Lets hope I don't prang this one because its brand new and I have to pay the first €800.

Our rooms are lovely and Sue is just across the way on the same floor.

There is a lovely outside pool but the bar is “Under Construction”.

There is also a nice view of St George’s bay from the pool floor area.

We had a nice lunch around the bay in a little place.  Trouble was we had the Welsh football supporters singing in the next bar; around 30 of them.  We had showers and then shared a glass of wine on Sues balcony and then headed of to find somewhere for dinner.  Claire found a nice little Spanish place for Tapas with entertainment and we had a really great night; especially as we had been up at 4am in the morning we didn't get back until about 1am the next morning.

I hadn’t had a very good nights sleep, probably because I’m not used to eating so much so late.  I spent most of the night on the loo with Claire purring gently in the background.  Just started to nod of at about 4am when I heard a quiet tap tap on our window.  I opened my eyes to listen and heard it again, a little louder this time.  I could only imagine that Sue had sat on her balcony and had somehow locked herself out of her room and climbed around the balconies to ours for help.  I looked outside but it was several people on the balcony next to ours drinking and smoking.  As I was by the window I heard the taping again; louder still this time and the sound seemed to come from our front door now.  I walked to the door, still naked, and looked through the keyhole thingy and a lady was outside but just then the rooms next door opened, they all laughed and disappeared in there.  They were quite noisy for another hour and then I managed to get some broken sleep.

At breakfast, the hotel brought Sue a nice slice of Birthday cake as its her birthday today.  Happy Birthday Sue!

They also have a nice indoor pool by the spa and Claire has booked the girls in for treatments tomorrow.

As the weather was so good we decided to go on the open top bus trip around the south of the island but it was still a little windy.

There are lots of sights to see; especially around Valetta, the capital.  Almost every building seems to be ancient with castles and churches everywhere.  There are three old towns across from Valetta but the going is slow with the traffic.

We hopped of for the first time in Marsaxlokk fishing village and had a quick toilet break and a drink.

The bus only comes past every hour so we got there in plenty of time.  Somehow we still managed to miss it because several busses had stopped there and as the white one was leaving we could see that it was ours.  All the others are red.  Another hour to kill.

We had a walk around the market and found a nice place on the bay to have lunch.  They had sea Bass, chips and salad for €7.95 each.  It was a bit of a struggle to finish it in time and I almost had to run to catch the bus then stop the driver going off until the girls came sauntering along.  As we had been delayed and it seemed to get much colder at the top of the bus, the girls went down below to escape the winds.  I had intended to stop at Hagar Qim and Manajdra Temples but time had ran out and we needed to get back so we could get ready to go out in the evening for Sue’s birthday.  I hope that tomorrow we will get chance to see some of these ancient Monoliths if we have a drive to Gozo in the car.  Oops, there goes my €800.

Happy Freedom Day Malta and Happy Birthday Sue!