Summer 05

This year we wanted sunshine in a safe environment, with people we could communicate with - and ended up going to Malta. We stayed at the New Dolmen Hotel in Buggibba to the North-East. It was a 4*-hotel, so we paid a little extra, but after seeing the alternatives we didn't go for, we were very happy that we had made that choice. I don't know what it is with people and the need to have loud evening entertainment at these places, but after Cuba, we weren't too surprised to find that this place had live music every night, outside our balcony. It was possible to sleep through it though, and usually they stopped before midnight anyway. View from our room.
One of the first days we went on a Jeep Safari to see Gozo, the northern island. Kristian took the part as driver, and managed quite well with a well-used car and left-hand driving. We visited one of Malta's only sand beaches, some salt pans that are used even today, then the guide and some locals had a big argument over a car that the locals had parked in front of the entrance to the parking that we were using. There was a no-parking-sign there, and the matter was pretty obvious, but it still took about 10 mins till they figured they had had enough arguing, although they still didn't agree, and we left. We visited the Blue Window (notice the man on top of it in the picture!) and weren't too impressed by the sight, the most fun part was all the offroad-driving (to quote our guide "this is jeep safari - not sleep safari!"), but I'm happy we had the good seats in the front and not the ones in the back.
On the way back, we stopped at the Popeye Village to take a look at the film set that was built at the end of 1979. Didn't go down there, seemed to be sorta like "Kardemomme By", a place mostly for children, but it looks cool though!
Busdrivers in Malta are very proud of their vehicles, and the buses are nice to look at even though the bus ride was bumpy and without AC.
We visited Sliema and St. Julians one day, and found the Norwegian restaurant by pure chance. We didn't feel too much for Norwegian meatballs for lunch though, and walked most of the coastline until we saw Valletta, and decided to come back for the capital some other day.
Valletta is the only capital in the world that is completely walled in, and it has a very nice medieval feeling. Narrow streets, market places, old buildings, fortresses, towers, and the thick, tall wall makes it a distinct, nice place to walk around. We tried to avoid the worst tourist traps, but did go and see the Malta Experience. I fell asleep while watching it, but Kristian said it was a nice way to get all of the Malta history in just 45 minutes. Only still images and no video though, not even from WWII, no wonder I fell asleep! ;P Just outside the famous St. Paul's Church, I noticed this flower shop. Too bad it was closed!
Another nice thing we did was join a boat cruise by Captain Morgan, even though I'm not very fond of scuba diving or snorkeling, or swimming for that matter, it was a nice day on the boat deck with a lot of other people, very nice food was served for lunch, and we visited the famous Blue Lagoon, which was a big disappointment as it was overflowing with tourists.
We also went on a so-called guided tour to see Marsaxlokk (fishing village) and the Blue Grotto. The Blue Grotto experience was a bit scary, as we went out in a small fishing boat in quite rough sea. (hard to see from the picture) and no life jackets. The caves themselves weren't that big, at least not the part we were able to go into with the boat, but I think the people who went swimming in this area crazy!
The fishing village was pretty empty, but we also arrived during siesta hours. We found this uhm. buggy while walking around the empty streets though.

The rest of the time we spent at the lido beach (concrete dock area) in the sun or in the water. Kristian helped removing old bottles from the sea bottom and I read a lot of books! We had lots of bad english food and lots of good beer and wine and nice food. (specially La Sibylle - the hotel gourmet restaurant was excellent - both service and food!) Again I think 10 days is perfect for a vacation - and 14 days is really too much in one small place like this for someone like me that gets tired after a couple of hours on the beach, since there wasn't that much more to do after you'd done the mandatory tourist traps, and on a tight schedule, you can do all of them on a guided tour or jeep safari in just 2 days.
People were very friendly and just that they spoke english everywhere made this a very pleasant stay all in all. Nice, but maybe a bit boring, but that's just me. ;)