On day 3, we decided to actually drive the rental car that we were paying good money for, and found a fortified city in the middle of the island called Mdina. The city was founded in the 8th century and was Malta's capital up through Medieval times. It's on the tentative list of UNESCO heritage sites and for good reason...we absolutely loved it!
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| "Be happy, it drives people crazy" |
We had lunch at a cozy little restaurant on a quiet side street and then ventured out of the city gates to St. Paul's Catacombs...a huge underground cemetery from ancient Roman times. There were hundreds of them!
From there, we made our way towards the west coast and stopped to explore the 5000 year old Megalithic Hagar Qim and Mnajdra archeological sites. The drive was so scary and afterwards, Brian swore off driving the rest of the trip. The roads were just really narrow with lots of blind spots and driving a manual on the right side of the car was more than his nerves could handle. Anyway, at the archeological sites, there was a 4D movie to check out, lots of artifacts to look through, and then a hike to the ruins themselves.
On our way back to Valletta, Brian had read about some caves in cliffs overlooking the sea, and so we decided to try to find them. There was a little parking lot in an industrial part of the island (they actually make a lot of fireworks on Malta), so we parked, found a hole in the chain link fence, and made our way down to a stairs and walkway to the caves.
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| The entrance to the cave system |
We explored for a bit before driving back to town and then opted for dinner at the food court right by our hotel. There was just a huge market with about 10 different shops with different kinds of food from all over the world. We got Doner kebab and beers and watched the soccer game on the big screens before calling it a night.
Day 4 was hot and sunny, so we decided to take the Ferry to Gozo for the day.
We started off with just walking around, but it was just so hot that we decided to take an air conditioned shuttle around the island. You buy a day pass and it just drives in loops, stopping at various locations and you just hop on and off as you please. Knowing that we'd need negative Covid tests for our flight on the following day back to Spain, we saw signs pointing to a clinic just up the road and hopped off to get them taken care of. Two hours later, we were still walking aimlessly, not able to find the clinic for anything. We did, however, get to see areas that we wouldn't have been able to see otherwise, and explore a part of the island that few tourists get to see. We finally made our way back to the little village nearby, and hopped on the shuttle to the next stop.
After a full day of exploration on Gozo, we took the ferry back to Malta and out to dinner. We'd hoped to have our final dinner at the little restaurant on the steps but it was closed, so we went back to the food court by our motel, this time for Poke bowls and a soccer game.
The next morning, we flew back to Barcelona. It was dumping rain again, and we were on foot. We found a cool little side street with lots of punk shops and tattoo parlors and record stores and a little Filipino Ramen shop where we ate for lunch as it poured outside. From there, we found a clinic for our Covid tests.
We decided to head to the Picasso Museum, which included a few busses and a couple of stops on the Subway. On the way down the marble steps to the Subway, Brian slipped and landed on his left wrist, and broke it. Just then, our plans changed and we ended up trying to find the nearest hospital. A few hours later, he was in a cast and we were in an Uber making our way to the airport motel that I'd booked. We at KFC in bed and called it a night early before flying out early the next morning.
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| Soft-serve and espresso is my new favorite thing in the world, courtesy of the Barcelona Airport McDonalds. |
It was such a great trip and a nice departure to stay in one place for so long...I feel like we really got a great experience in Malta and enjoyed every minute. Since then, we haven't left the country, but we've got a delayed (thanks to me having Covid) birthday trip to Mexico in 2 weeks, so I'll see you then!