Malta trip #12 – Day 4 – Lazy and Free

As a tourist I am the lazy type, but as a photographer I make more effort to get the shot I want than I would put in anything else. But this morning, which was a Sunday morning, both sides of my personality were satisfied at the same time. I wanted to take a great shot of the sunrise, but I didn’t have to go anywhere for it. I could shoot the sunrise right from the balcony of my room, in my pj’s. What can be better?

For some reason, I got up very early in Malta on most days. I am talking 0430, 0530 type of times. And I got up easily without having to force myself to keep my eyes open. I didn’t feel fatigue or sleep dep type of symptoms from it either. Was it the sunshine, the nice weather, the sea air, I don’t know. This day also I went and looked out the balcony a couple of times for the colour in the eastern sky and when I didn’t find it I went back to my writing. Yes, I had carried that keyboard from Gozo back to Malta.

Then the next time I went out, I found Roberta on her balcony, quiet as a ninja, shooting the sky with her camera. The sky was just beginning to show some reddish colours. I set up camp on my balcony and shot a lot of photos. There was a low, rambling building in the sea on our left. The waves crashing against its base presented a great scene. I used my mirrorless camera for a couple of long timelapses and used the phone for videos and photos. In case you don’t know a timelapse is when you set up the camera in one place and used the programmed mode to take photos at set intervals. The result is video that flows like a....ummm, well, like an animation,  you could say. It’s used in films a lot to show the passage of time.

 

For some reason, Blogger is not able to display the videos that I upload. Might be it’s too high resolution or the file sizes are too big. For now I will share just the photos from that morning session and later I will see if I can compile the videos into a vlog episode.

After shooting the sunrise our paths parted. Don’t worry, just for the day. Roberta wanted to cover a couple of sights today and I wanted to just roam around which I find to be a good way of getting to know a place. Plus, the first spot on her list was Mdina and I don’t know why but I could not get excited about that place no matter how many people recommended it.

 

Here is the story in two parts. Roberta left for her sightseeing and after lazing around for a bit, I got ready and went out by myself. I found a café to have a coffee and sandwich. Have I mentioned Latte Macchiato yet? Well, they didn’t have it. The sandwich was ok. Then I walked through St. Julian’s clubbing area to find the nearest bus stop. Have you ever been to a nightlife spot in the morning? It looks like the tail end of a misspent life.

I grabbed the bus for Valetta which is the capital of Malta and a historic city. Again, this was a crowded bus and I had to stand for a large part of the journey. Not fun. In Valetta I just walked around and took pictures of anything that took my fancy. That was the plan to begin with.

 

Although, I got tired in Malta a lot, it was quite funny in that way that it was not my knees or legs that felt tired but the bottom of my feet. They felt kind of rough from all the walking around, kind of like blisters but not as severe. I think I have been too sedentary during the pandemic and the soles of my feet might be too soft now. Need to work on that for the next trip.

Reminds me of an Urdu sher which you won’t understand but I will explain:

Jinke hothoN pe haNsi paavon mein chhale honge

Haan, wahi log tere chahne wale honge.

 Translation: Those who will have a smile on their lips and blisters on their feet, yes, those people will the ones who will be in love with you.

 What’s the deeper meaning? I have no idea. Actually, I do but it doesn’t fit here so let it go.

 

Valetta main street was like a normal market and here I was able to do something I had been wanting to do since I arrived. I went into a tourist trap shop and bought a couple of tshirts. Both were great. See pictures. They were €10.99 per tshirt which is not expensive but quality wise they were only ok. Hey, nobody twisted my arm to buy from there. They also had lots of souvenirs and I really liked the small soldier statues they had. I am the poster boy for buying things I don’t need but lately I have been thinking about toning down this habit, not stopping, just toning down. I thought about my living room and decided that I didn’t have any place to display that figure. In front of my TV would be ideal but that space is limited in height and it would block the screen. I have two small angel figures there that my nieces gave me on a birthday long ago but they are small so they fit in that space. Anyway, I liked it a lot but I left it on the shelf. The story of this soldier is not done, wait for the next part.

 

 

Walking around in that pleasant weather was great and when I found an ice cream shop I did not hesitate even for a second. But then I was ready to go back. On the way back, I didn’t even consider taking the bus and simply called a Bolt. I don’t know if it’s because of the size of the country or what, but whenever we book a taxi, we didn’t have to wait very long. Ten minutes would be the longest we had to wait.

 

Roberta was still out when I got back to the hotel. She got back in another hour. She had been to Mdina and also the Blue Grotto. The latter was one of the sights on my list as well but I preferred walking around as we had only one day left. The sea was too rough today but Roberta’s taxi driver drove her to a high point from where she could take photos of the natural arch that makes it photogenic.

 

The Corinthia had five swimming pools including one that was indoors and warm. Roberta’s plan for today’s included swimming. I had packed my swimming shorts as well because, well....I was going to an island. We found that you had to book your time in the pool so we made a booking for 1800H and looked around the hotel in the meantime.

 

At 1800, we were back there. There were only four more people there with us who were all good swimmers. Roberta is a better swimmer than me so did a couple of laps. I did my usual thing of walking as far from the shallow end as I dared and then swimming back to the shallow end. It was super fun. We tried the hot tub and even the sauna for a bit.

 [Photos from Roberta's travels. Unedited.] 

Next part – Malta Nightlife.

Malta Trip #11 – Sunny and the Sea

 

 Roberta had checked the times of the various boats but she wanted us to get to the Mgarr harbour early because she needed to “make enquiries”. I was joking that she is like a Scotland Yard inspector, always making enquiries. But her enquiries got results. She found us a boat that would follow the exact itinerary we wanted to follow.

On this day we were moving from Gozo to Malta where we were going to stay for the next two nights. Between the islands of Malta and Gozo is the tiny island of Comino which has a permanent population of three people (don’t ask me their names.). The famous Blue Lagoon is on the coast of Comino. This boat was going to take us to Blue Lagoon, show us the sea caves and then take us to Malta. For the small payment of €15. And that’s how started my nightmare.

It was not a big boat, not a rowboat but well, it had an engine and 12 seats in total. Let me find a picture for you. The back of the boat was open and on the left hand side there was a big opening. The boat pilot (captain?) told us to sit in the front two seats. But Roberta and I crowded near the opening on the left. I should have listened to him. The sea was a little bit rough today due to the wind and the boat bounced along on the waves like a pebble on the surface of the water.

 

 

Did I tell you how everything scares me? Add rollercoasters to that list. Roberta, of course, was enjoying it immensely, but I was whiteknuckling on the support rail with one hand. Still, I could not have been too scared as I was still taking photos with my right hand. Those were not well-composed shots though, once again I was simply pointing the camera at things and clicking without having any idea what was actually in the frame. The boat pilot looked at us from time to time and smiled reassuringly. That did make me feel better to see that he was not scared. Also, he gave it the gun as soon as were away from the harbour which made it bounce a little less. Other than us there was only a couple in the backseats who got thoroughly drenched while they took photos. They got off at Blue lagoon.

 

Blue Lagoon was a bit of a let down because pretty as it was, there was not much to take photos of there. There were a whole lot of people swimming and tanning so it was again a doing place then looking. The water stunningly beautiful, very blue and clear, but it’s hard to take photos of that. We stayed there only about ten minutes then our pilot/captain was ready to go. He took us this place where there caves in the cliffside all around us and did a full 360 between them. I took pictures, but the boat was again bouncing so they are not great pictures.

 He again gave it gun and headed for Malta. If anything the boat bounced more this time. We had already been sprayed with water, this time we got sloshed. The left leg of my jeans got completely soaked and my camera also got a faceful of water. Fortunately, I was carrying lens cleaner spray and a microfibre cloth which I used later in my hotel room to clean off the salt from the lens and the camera body.

 If I am totally honest, the boat ride was not that bad. It was a bit of a thrill. I have done white water rafting, twice, on the Ganges in India and while this reminded me of that it was not nearly that bad. If I had to go on that boat ride again, I would, even knowing what I know now. I would not go white water rafting again.

 The boat dropped us at Cirkewwa and I remembered that we were supposed to buy ferry tickets on the way back from Gozo to Malta. That’s how we cheated them. We didn’t take the ferry back. From here we took a taxi to our hotel – Hotel Corinthia in St. George’s Bay. Again, thanks to Roberta’s expert planning, we were going to live for two nights in a 5-star hotel, paying what you would normally pay for a BnB in London. Both our rooms were sea view rooms.

Well, they were supposed to be. The first room they assigned me was far from Roberta’s room and while hers was proper sea view room, mine was more of a pool plus sea view. We went down to the reception and asked for a change. I had taken a picture of the view I had from my balcony and was ready to go into my irate tourist routine but they didn’t let me. They couldn’t have been nicer. The girl at the reception changed my room to one next door to Roberta’s and now I had the same view. That view was stunning.

For the rest of that afternoon we settled in and took possession. My room had twin beds put together and the reception girl had offered to get the mattress changed to a double bed mattress. So, I had to wait for them to do that. In the evening, we went down and walked out of the back of the hotel, right down to the water. It was not a beach just a sea front, but it was nice to waves crashing there.

I was realising how much my life was revolving around photography that I could not think about anything at all without thinking about its implications in my photos. So, I left my camera behind and just tried to enjoy the moment. 

The compound had many eating establishments. We looked around and settled on an American diner whose menu seemed to interest us. We were early so we could have a table otherwise all their tables were reserved from 2000 onwards. They had a nice burger that I enjoyed. They also had happy hour with two for one cocktails right now. I don’t want to talk about it.

Because of the way the balcony was facing, the sunset view from the hotel was not good. But you know what, where there’s a sunset there’s a sunrise. Wait till I tell you about the sunrise from that room.

 

Malta trip #10 – The Malta Moment

In the morning, following a discussion with Roberta, I had texted Phyl our plan and asked her if she was ok with it. She was happy to help. We had packed our bags before leaving the apartment and left them in the living room. We had also talked to the owner, Roberta had, to ask if we could check-out late, at Noon. He was fine with that. Original check-out time was 1000.

 

After saying bye to Sam in Nadur, we got in the taxi with Phyl. First of all, I emptied that bottle of water in my stomach. I needed it. You might not have noticed but we had left without breakfast this morning. I also wanted to eat that “Cheese thing” but it looked like it would be flaky and I didn’t want to mess up Phyl’s car. She was moved by my tales of hunger and tried to find me a paper napkin so I could eat it while she drove but tough luck. By the way, the cheese thing was called Qassattat, I found out later. It will feature in the story again later. 

 

Following our plan, Phyl brought us back to our apartment so we could pick up our bags. On the Segway tour I had used a small crossbody bag which I had recently bought for photography day trips. This I left in the car for the time being. I had one backpack and one suitcase. During the flight to and from UK the crossbody bag was emptied and stuffed in the suitcase. I was travelling light, so there was space for it. In all my years of travel, it has been only once when I have travelled with three pieces of luggage on a trip to India and I regretted it very, very much. Now, I only ever have two. Backpack goes on the back, one suitcase I can push with one hand, the other hand is free to hold passport, boarding card, ticket, phone or take support on escalators.

 

Right now I behaved completely ungentlemanly and left Roberta to deal with her bags (she always did anyway) while I used my free to hand to devour the Qassattat as we went from the apartment to the car. By the time we had stuffed our bags in the boot, my Qassattat had disappeared and my stomach was happy. It was absolutely delicious, by the way.

 

Now, let me try to paint you a picture while knowing that I won’t be able to do it justice. As we drove off from there to do sightseeing with Phyl in the driving seat, this was my mindset. I was in a car with a good friend and a friendly driver (call her a second friend). The sun was shining, the weather was warm and pleasant. I was on a beautiful island far from conference calls and meetings. I had been fed and watered. I had my cameras and I was about to go see some beautiful sights. I think the French have a phrase for it – bien être  – the feeling of well-being. That moment for me, was Malta.

 

The three of us chatted about a bunch of things while Phyl drove us over some rough roads. It was easy to see why other drivers don’t take that route. The magic of Phyl’s personality was that you didn’t feel like you were riding in a taxi but with a friend who was going to show you around. She was driver, guide, photographer and friend all in one. That’s why I called her a character because she was not your average taxi driver.

 

Often people exaggerate their own goodness and the value they bring to the world. We found that Phyl was not one of them. Everything she had told us was true and accurate – the roads were bad, the sights were stunning and she did care that we got a lot out of that trip. It was like riding with a family member. She even gave us ultimatums for each stop. There were many things to see and we were short on time, we had told her already.

 

Unlike the hop-on-hop-off bus, Phyl’s tour was not signposted with clear stops. She just drove on a route which she knew had great visuals and stopped anywhere she thought we could get a good picture. In some places it meant stopping by the side of the road, I got out, snapped a few shots and away we go again. It was glorious!

 

She drove us by Marsalforn and I saw that it was very pretty if you had the right perspective. Then there was a cave by the salt pans. Then the salt pans themselves. Don’t ask me what they are, see the photos. At each stop I was torn between using the camera or the phone and ended up using both, especially the phone is really good for videos.

 

Remember, I told you about the futility of taking photos from the top deck of the bus? In some places here I literally stuck my hand out of the moving car with my camera, or phone, and snapped a few shots. I could not see what I was shooting, I could just point the lens in the general direction of the scene. So much for composition. Surprisingly, a lot of them came out well.

 

In one place, Phyl told us not to look back just look ahead until she told us. Well, that doesn’t work with me. I sneaked a look and knew what she meant. Finally when she stopped in an open plain and told us to look we could see caves in the cliffside below. It was a beautiful scene. See pictures. The reason she told us not to look back was that the drive up there was in a curve and the caves were coming into view one by one as we drove. If we had looked behind, we would have wanted to stop there, but the best place to stop was at the top of curve from where we could see all the caves. I hope that’s clear from the photos.

 

Because Roberta and I are both photographers our cameras usually point outwards. Roberta does try to document her journey with some selfies but I forget that also. In this place we got a few photos of us because Phyl offered to take them for us. This place was quite windy and because of that felt a little colder than the rest of Gozo. I am saying “this place” because we didn’t know what it was called. Neither did Phyl. She just knew it was a nice place to take photos. We stayed here a few minutes to admire the beauty and marvel at the craziness of those who go kayaking down there.

 

The big stop, and the final stop, on this route was Wied-il-mielah. Unlike the last evening, Phyl got us so close to it that we could see the window spot as soon as we got out of the car. She gave us 15 minutes to do our thing there if we wanted to get to the harbour on time. The window itself was nice, huge, but neighbouring with another cliff and therefore not easy to photograph in its entirety. There was a concrete staircase leading down which got us in a better position to take photos.

 

I don’t mind telling you standing on that small platform was a bit nerve-wrecking because I can’t swim, the sea was noisy and well....you had to be there. I get scared easily anyway – heights, water, work, dentist, pretty much anything. We managed to take all the photos we wanted in 15 minutes, then we were back in the taxi. This time Phyl took the road that we would have taken the previous evening coming down to the window. We timed it to the spot where she had picked us up. It was a long road.

When Phyl picked us up in Nadur, she had told Roberta to create a multi-stop trip in the Bolt app for the apartment, Wied-il-Mielah and the harbour because that was the cheaper way to do it. But the Bolt company would only pay Phyl for driving the route. All the stops and waiting was not included in that. So, we added a tip equal to the meter on top to compensate her for her time. She had been really good to us and I can honestly say that the tour with her was the best time we had in Gozo. A close second was the Segway tour.

 

Let’s break it here, in the next chapter I will talk about the scariest time I had in Malta.

Malta Trip #9 – Day 3 - Mind is Blown

If you haven’t already got it from this story let me repeat it here that Roberta is a whiz at planning a busy day. I won’t tell you the plan in advance, but keep watching to see how many things we did in this one day. That was mostly Roberta’s planning.

 

Our day started early with the Segway tour. Roberta had arranged it for 0945 and we took a taxi there to save time. We met our host Sam in Nadur. We were the only ones in this tour because I don’t think many people like to get started this early when on holiday. We met very few other tourists in the next two hours. Sam was waiting for us when we arrived.

 

When you do something day in day out you become really good at it with practice. But only if you like doing what you do. Having been a teacher for many years, I know how easy it becomes to teach the same thing over and over again to different people. Sam was a good example of that. He had been teaching newbies to ride a Segway for a long time and he was so good at it that he took only fifteen minutes to teach both of us in turns. I had never ridden a Segway before but I knew I would like it and I was right. It was a hoot!

 

After teaching us the basics, Sam took us around the neighbourhood for a practice run then led us out for the actual Gozo tour. We rode on all different kind of roads, more on that later. Sam said hello to pretty much every driver, farmer and pedestrian on the way. He told us that Gozo is a small place and everybody knows everybody. I think it is to do with his personality and the people. He was a very friendly, sociable person. All through the tour he managed to keep three conversations going, one with me, one with Roberta and one with both of us. The people also were very friendly and we got smiles and “good morning” from the native people whenever we rode past them.

 

Every so often Sam stopped and gave us a tour of the local flora as well as the buildings around. He also gave us a good background of the Maltese culture. The first sight we saw which was photo-worthy was “Ramla Bay”. 

It was a beautiful beach way down from where we were and got a great view of it for the cameras. 

Then he took us to a cave called “Mixta cave” (pronounced Mishta cave) which looked down on Ramla Bay. 

It was great for photos. 

 I think it was on the way back from there that I had my first, and only, Segway accident.

It was totally my fault, of course. I had been loving riding the Segway and was getting so confident that on the smooth roads I could ride hands-free. I could not yet steer it with my body like Sam could but I would get there. No, I did not get overconfident, I got underconfident which caused the accident.

 Not sure if you know how a Segway works but basically it’s a very easy to ride transport because it balances itself. Now, to be fair, we were travelling some very challenging roads right after a ten-minute training, like rally level roads. So many of them had very steep up or down slopes, most were narrow and almost all had rocky hurdles to a varying degree. Still, the Segway was doing fine and it would have carried on doing fine if I hadn’t applied my own mind to it.

 

You drive the Segway, back and forward by leaning in that direction. It’s that simple. But the way the Segway was leaning to compensate for the steep down slope did not compute in my little brain. I thought I was about to topple over (I wasn’t) and instead of working on my balance I tried to get off the Segway. That also I managed without injury but then I turned the Segway towards the wall to avoid it running into the other two riders. There was no chance of that anyway. The final genius move I made was that I kept the Segway handle in my grip even after turning it towards the wall.

 

 

It should not be a surprise to anyone then that my left hand got squashed between the Segway handle and the wall. I don’t know what word to use here, squashed, crushed, squeezed, they all sound too drastic. It was not that bad. The worst that I suffered was that the skin on my middle knuckle split and you could see blood. That was the extent of it. My hand was working fine and continued working fine. Mere scratches. I just screamed like a little girl every time I washed my hands for the next two days because the soap would get into the cut and that hurt much worse than the original injury.

 

The biggest damage was to my confidence and pride because I thought I was doing great on the Segway. Anyway, I got back on my Segway and we carried on. Cancel the air ambulance. I forgot to mention that Sam was taking photos with his phone here and there when we were on level stretches of roads. He was good. Not only could he balance well enough to go low on his Segway, I could see that he was composing the shots well. They were nice shots when we got them.

 

Our final stop was a bakery where Sam had already placed an order for our “Cheese things.” We didn’t have time to eat them then so he put them in a front bag on one of the Segways.

 

By the time we rolled back (literally) into Nadur, Phyl was already waiting for us in her taxi. We said farewell to Sam, he handed us the cheese things and two bottles of water. We had to pay him in cash which we knew already. The whole two hour tour of Gozo on Segway cost us €70 total. It included everything from Segway use to water bottles. Considering we got a private tour, I think it was a great deal. It was a memorable tour and worth the money as well as getting up early.

 

But the mind-blowing part of Malta was just starting. Let’s save the next part for the next chapter as it is quite long.

 

 

Malta Trip #8 – Making the Best of it

 

The reason that that taxi ride was important was the driver. It was a lady called Phylomena who picked us up. Yes, yes, I know it’s usually spelt with an “i” but there was nothing usual or ordinary about this lady. For one thing, while other taxi drivers were willing or talk or not talk, she wanted to chat. Nothing wrong with that. She asked what we were doing in these parts and as soon as she heard about our aborted mission to visit Wied-il-Mielah, she said there is another route that leads to the window and gets you closer to the window but drivers don’t like that so they don’t go that way. We found out later why they don’t like that. She told us that she usually takes her clients that way so they can get some good views on the way as well.

 

We liked the sound of that. She told us she likes her clients to take home good memories and not just go from passenger to passenger like other drivers. Well, that did sound about right but our day next day was already planned quite tightly. Still, we took her number when she dropped us at the Citadel in Victoria and told her we would call her if we wanted to use her services.

 

It was about 1630 when we entered the Citadel just before closing time. Roberta said it’s her practice when visiting a city to find the highest spot and take a photo from there. We tried to find
the highest spot in the Citadel and found a few. We kept going up and down steps. For me the view was not of much interest because the light was already fading and it wasn’t good for photography. And to be brutally honest, the view of Urban Gozo dwellings didn’t do much for me.

 

After spending about an our in the Citadel we came out and started thinking about food. I also wanted to buy a couple of tshirts. I had deliberately packed fewer tshirts than I needed in Malta so that I would be forced to buy some there. This is something I want to make a practice. I bought a couple of tshirts in Paris and whenever I wear them there are good memories of Paris associated with which makes me feel good. I should have bought some in Copenhagen as well but we were there a short time and I forgot.

 

I think Victoria has only one long main road (not long by Delhi standards) and most of the shops and businesses are there. We agreed that we will decide what to do next based on what we came to first – fashion shop or restaurant. We didn’t find either. We found several shops and even a couple of malls but nothing for menswear.

Using Google Maps we looked for a restaurant then. As I have mentioned, Roberta and I generally agree on Italian. We found one called Hav Senso. Roberta’s problem is that she is picky in food. My problem is that I am vegetarian and picky. Not only do I not eat meat, I don’t eat mushrooms. I don’t know many Indians who do. There’s a reason for that. But it makes life difficult for me when eating out. In most places if there three vegetarian options in the menu, two of them would have mushrooms. This is different in Italian cuisine. There are many things that I can eat like pizza, pasta, bruschetta, ravioli, garlic bread etc.

 

 

In Hav Senso, I ordered Gnocchi de Patate which was ok, but maybe a little too salty for my taste. Still, it was good enough. After dinner, we took a taxi back to the apartment. A taxi could drop us all way through the gate and near the car park which was preferable after a long day of walking.

 

That night when I went to bed after putting my gadgets on charge and doing my writing thing, I was thinking that while Malta was pretty and all it had not blown my mind like the Scottish Highlands had blown my mind the first time I saw them. The second thing was that I had not had a nice, delicious meal in Malta yet. I didn’t know that both of these were going to change the next day.

Malta Trip #7 – The Bridge of Disharmony

 

 The English lady Barbara was a lovely person who was retired and had been living in Gozo for many years. She was going to Malta for a couple of weeks to live in a flat a friend of hers had offered her. While she was waiting for her bus, she stopped us and started chatting with us. We were only too happy to chat because....well, we usually are.

 

While she was telling us about public transport and which ferry to take back to Malta, she casually mentioned that there is a ferry that goes from Malta to Sicily (an Island of Italy). It takes 90 minutes to get there and if one wants, they can take a ferry back at night after spending the day in Sicily. I have never been to Italy and this sort of thing really appeals to me. Roberta could see the mad gleam in my eye and she immediately put a stop to it.

 

“Sunny! No! We don’t have time.” Those were her exact words.

 

And I responded “Roberta, this is my bridge this time!”

 

Ok, the bridge, that was from our Copenhag

en trip. That’s a long story in itself but in short, there is a bridge that goes from Copenhagen in Denmark to Malmo in Sweden. Half an hour by train and you are in a different country. Roberta told me about it and I went crazy for it. That created lots of debate between us but ultimately we took the train that goes over that bridge. Both of us enjoyed it but Roberta had to do a lot of “Beautiful Mind” type calculations to make that fit in our plans. The Copenhagen trip was only two days. Later, in the lockdown days we were both glad we had been to Sweden even if for a few hours before all travel got stopped.

 

But this was different. We really didn’t have enough time even to see Malta properly and Sicily would be a big complication but come on, imagine one ferry, a ninety minute ride, and you are in a different country! I grew up in the central city of Delhi which is completely landlocked and even if you travel for four hours you would still be in India. Europe just drives me crazy that way.

 

Even after we left Barbara, we talked about it a little bit. I didn’t tell Roberta this because I like pulling her leg but I dropped that idea very quickly after I did some research on it and found that while the trip is all that Barbara indicated, in the current climate Sicily had more formalities and processes for Covid-19 precautions. I didn’t want to go through that hassle and I also knew we were short on time.

 

That afternoon, we went back to the Mgarr harbour and took a Hop-On-Hop-Off tour bus for Gozo sightseeing. Because it was only for the afternoon, the nice lady selling the tickets only charged us €10 each. She did want it in cash though. There was an ATM there so cash was no problem. I saw a lot of free ATMs in Malta that didn’t charge us for withdrawals and I was using my Monzo card so I didn’t have to worry about currency conversation rates or non-sterling transaction charges. Monzo is fantastic if you travel.

 

If I am completely honest, the HOHO bus was a bit of a snoozefest. Later we agreed that it was kind of a slow way to go sightseeing. I don’t have any data for a comparison that was just a feeling. One big problem is that although you can see a lot from the open deck of the bus, you can’t actually take any good pictures. I have tried that before in Glasgow and it didn’t really work. Here are a couple of examples of photos taken from the moving bus in Gozo, you can decide for yourself if they are any good.

 

We drove through Victoria and passed the remnants of a big, historical viaduct. Then we left the bus at Dwejra (pronounced: dwayraa). This was the site of the old Azure Window. I didn’t know about the Azure Window until Roberta told me before the trip. It was on her list of things to see and when I read about it, I was fascinated as well.

The Azure Window was a natural rock formation that looked like a window (hence the name) which was a unique natural feature. I am using past tense because unfortunately the window collapsed in 2017 in a storm. Now it’s a site for people to take photos of the hillside that remains while braver souls go scuba diving there to look at the ruins of the window in the water. Nevertheless, it was a nice spot, very pretty.

 

After we were done taking the photos we had to wait for the next HOHO bus to pick us up. In the meantime, we had ice creams, well, I had a milkshake. It was ok. The HOHO bus in Gozo has two routes - purple and blue. The funny thing is where they meet, in Victoria, nothing changes. You stay on the same bus and it starts driving on the Blue route. Yep. It must make sense to somebody somewhere.

 We stopped at a big church, Ta’Pinu, just for 10 minutes to take photos. Then back to Victoria. 

Victoria is the capital of Gozo, a small city. I can’t say whether it’s great or not great because, well, it’s just a city. It has the famous Citadella (or Citadel, if you wanna be English about it.) Roberta wanted to get there but she was not ready for the bus to become Blue route and carry on before we could get off. We left that behind and stayed with the bus as far as Marsalforn (pronounced: Marsaal-forn) which is a seafront. I don’t want to be disparaging about it but it was just a seafront. There were some kids learning to dive there so it was more for doing than looking. Actually, I changed my mind the next day but we will get to that.

 

From Marsalforn, we took a Bolt taxi to Wied-il-Mielah (I am leaving out accents in my laziness) which is another natural window like the Azure Window except that it’s still standing. Well, we tried to get there. Remember I told you there’s always work going on everywhere in Malta? That’s what happened to us here. Our taxi could not take us to the window because the road was blocked. The taxi driver dumped us there saying it was just a ten minutes walk from there.

 

We didn’t have any choice except to get out but neither of us is the doe-eyed innocent bumpkin that we used to be. Roberta checked on Google Maps and it was showing 23 minutes to walk down. We started walking down and it was all downhill. But before going much further we asked the road workers how far down was the window. Have I mentioned that the Maltese people were really easy to talk to? You could ask directions from anybody, you could chat with anybody, you could ask stupid questions, they were always friendly and responsive. One of the best things that I liked about Malta was the people.

 

One of the road workers told us that it was straight down on that road about 15 minutes walk. His colleague said it was more like 30 minutes. We raised this point with the first guy.

 

“Yess...fifteen minutes, thirty minutes, like that.” He said.

 

What? There’s a huge different between 15 and 30. We talked about it. Roberta raised the point that going down was all downhill but a 30 minute walk uphill to come back? We had been doing a lot of walking, climbing etc. all day today so that was not a good prospect. My objection was that the light was already fading. In 30 minutes it would fade even more. I had seen the photos of the window, it needed good light for photography. You will see what I mean. But given our tour plan, if we didn’t go to see the window today, we wouldn’t be able to fit it in our itinerary again because we were leaving Gozo the next day at noon.

 

Have you heard the expression “He who fights and runs away, lives to fight another day.”?

 

Retreating gracefully, we walked back to the road closure and called a taxi. And that taxi changed the course of history! Ok, I am exaggerating so you would read the next post but honestly, that taxi ride did have a big impact on our Gozo trip the next day.

 

Malta trip #6 – Day 2: The Gift of Sunrise

 

I slept well but also woke up easily at 0530 by the alarm. The sunrise was scheduled for about 0715 but you always need to be there a little before to capture the colours in the sky. I peeked out of the balcony but everywhere was dark so I waited and used that new keyboard to do some more writing. Not wanting to miss the boat like I had done in Bangkok (that story some other time) I gathered my equipment and got ready to go about 0630 while it was still a little dark. Here is the beauty of this apartment, I didn’t have to go anywhere out to greet the sunrise. I simply walked out of the apartment, went down to the pool area and just there beyond the pool was the big Mediterranean sea promising all kinds of golden hour glory. The weather was nice but I had put on a jacket because, you know, morning hour.

 

Roberta joined me there shortly. Before leaving I had said good morning to her through her bedroom door and she had said she would come down later. We loved that sunrise! For one thing, there was the ocean, then there were ferries adding another beautiful subject and motion if you wanted to capture a video. There was an island, my guess is the Comino island, and well, it was just amazing in every way. Down below we could even see waves crashing on rocks. I used my Panasonic GH5 mirrorless camera for the photos and my smartphone Samsung Note 20 Ultra for the videos because the phone has a better form factor and more advanced optical image stabilisation for videos.

 

 

You can see some examples of the photos we took and I am showing remarkable self-restraint not to upload the hundreds of photos I took because they are all gorgeous. It was easy photography because everywhere you pointed, there was beauty. If you could nail the exposure in your camera, you could take a great photo. That’s why the first and last hours of the day are called golden hour because the soft light makes everything look pretty. It would not be unfair to say that both of us revelled in that like kids in a candy store.

 

After we were finally done with the sunrise, we took our time getting ready and then went to a grocery store. It wasn’t far. It was near the extra bus stop where we had got off the bus last night. We easily walked there. And this time I was really like a kid in a candy store because their aisle of sugary treats was epic! I was so excited I took a picture. That picture shows only half of what was there on offer.

 

For the next one hour while Roberta went about carefully selecting what she wanted to get for herself and her family, I went about grabbing stuff off the shelves, then putting it back because it would be too much then grabbing something else...and so on. I think I spent about €30 there in that one visit, most of it was chocolates. But at the end of it, I feel that I had been smart because the two bags I had walked out with were not heavy. I could have easily carried them back to our apartment whic
h I ultimately did.

 

But first we stopped for coffee. The coffee shop was in a weird corner away from the main market, in front of this great building. Don’t ask me what it is, but it looked like a church. In Malta there are cranes everywhere because there is always work going on everywhere. One weird thing about coffee, or about me, is that I love Latte Macchiato which is a layered coffee – espresso, milk, foam – served in a tall, tapered glass. Don’t buy it in Costa, it’s not the same. You can’t anyway because you can only get it in Europe not in the UK. No, this doesn’t have anything to do with Brexit.

 

However, this coffeehouse did have it and they did it right. We sat on the patio, enjoyed the view and discussed our plans while we sipped the great coffee. This morning’s original plan was to go on a Segway tour of Gozo which I was very interested in because I have never ridden a Segway but it had been cancelled because the roads were closed. Roberta called the host and arranged it for the next day. That made me happy. It takes very little to make me happy. And there was lots of it in Malta.

 

When we were walking back from there to go back to our apartment, we were stopped by a woman at a bus stop. She was a chatty Cathy, actually her name was Barbara and she told us many interesting things about the islands. But then she said something that introduced a discordant note between I and Roberta. This is long, I better save it for the next chapter.