Tuesday 15th May

Up a little earlier this morning and all ready waiting for the coach to pick us up at 9 a.m. However, the driver was a little late in arriving so when we got to the ferry terminal at Cirkewwa, we were ushered quickly on board and just made it before it sailed!!

Here is a copy of the HOHO bus route for Gozo courtesy of the Malta Sightseeing brochure:

Now, remember when I spoke before about our honeymoon and the fact that our first choice had been for a hotel in Malta?  Well, we spotted the hotel - Paradise Bay I think it's called.  We're now quite glad that we hadn't been able to book this hotel as there's absolutely nothing around it at all, apart from a newish looking hotel quite a distance from it.  Even after 32 years, there's nothing here apart from the hotel.  I really don't think we'd have enjoyed being so isolated even if it was our honeymoon!!

Here's a photo of the hotel taken from the ferry:

When we disembarked from the ferry the HOHO buses were waiting and we climbed on board, with the first stop we wanted to make being the Ggantija Temples, which is another prehistoric site.

After this visit, it was back  the HOHO bus and on to Victoria (Rabat) where we had lunch.  This is when we realised that we would not have time to walk to the Citadel to see that, walk back to the bus stops then go to Dwejra Bay to see the Azure Window, so it may actually have been best if we had chosen the earlier pick-up!!  However, we had a nice lunch and jumped back on the bus to our next destination, which was really quite spectacular.

After a relatively short visit here, it was time to board the bus again so that we'd be back in time to catch the 17.15 ferry back to Cirkewwa where our connecting coach would be waiting for us.  We had a coffee at the ferry terminal before boarding the ferry but, to our surprise when we got off again, it was an open-top bus that was waiting to take us back to Valletta, and not an ordinary coach.

On reaching Valletta we were very windswept indeed - our fault as we did have the choice of sitting inside and not on the top deck!!  After a welcome coffee and a shower at the hotel it was back out into town for dinner after a long day of travelling about.  However, it was very enjoyable and there were no real regrets apart from the fact that we didn't get to see the Citadel.  Perhaps that will just have to wait for a return journey back to Malta and Gozo in the future, but maybe before another 32 years have passed by!!

Friday 11th May

This morning after breakfast and climbing the 88 steps to the road, we waked along to the ferry to take us over to Sliema.  We thought that by the time the holiday ended that we'd be used to the stairs and that we'd be fitter in the process - I'll tell you now, that we were wrong!!

After our short ferry trip we went to the sales booth where we bought our tickets and waited for the 11 a.m. vintage tour bus, which was to take in the Three Cities.  The bus was already there, and it was very quickly filled with other tourists and we drove off on time.

 Note that this was fully air-conditioned - the windows were open!!  Being vintage, the ride was a little bumpy, but great fun and were toured round the Three Cities.  We stopped off at one point where there was a good view to take photos:

From the viewpoint

There were some fascinating little streets running from the square we stopped in:

Long narrow streets

Football decorations everywhere

Lots of wonderful balconies

The tour was great and we thoroughly enjoyed it.  When we ended up back in Sliema, we decided just to go ahead and do the Three Harbours tour as well seeing as the weather was lovely and the water was calm.  We needed to grab a quick bite of lunch so we popped into one of the nearest places - Burger King!!  Well, any port in a storm as they say, and it actually wasn't too bad!!

From the harbour tour, we spotted a viewpoint in Valletta that we hadn't discovered so made up our minds to find it once the tour had finished. 

After disembarking the boat when the tour ended, we caught the ferry back over to Valletta and headed to where we reckoned the viewpoint was that we had seen from both the vintage car tour and the harbour tour.  It turned out that this was the Upper Barrakka Gardens and The Saluting Battery (unfortunately the Saluting Battery was closed for refurbishment). The gardens and the views from this area were simply stunning!  There is also a cafe here which sells pastries, sandwiches, soft drinks and beer, so we made this a frequent refreshment stop during the rest of our time in Valletta!!

There are also lots of cats here - as I am a lover of cats, this was fantastic as far as I was concerned!! They seemed to be well cared for and I was gobsmacked to see a chap (one of the workers here presumably) jingling his keys, and all the cats were running after him.  It was like something from the Pied Piper!!  It was obviously feeding time!!  I think I spent more time taking photos of the cats rather than the stunning views!!  I'm intending to post a separate item regarding cats, so won't post photos of them here at the moment.  There are also lots of pigeons here, and it was so strange to see them living alongside the cats, which probably shows that the cats are well looked after.  The cats also hang about the cafe, but don't beg for food.  They will however, accept any scraps or tit bits that you care to give them.  They will also occasionally chase the pigeons, but it looks like they treat it as more of a game rather than a serious attempt to catch one.  Here are some photos taken in this area:

These canons look like they're lined up to bombard this cruise liner!

Wonderful views

Majestic archways

On leaving the gardens, we quickly realised that something was happening in the streets.  We'd seen flags and other decorations appearing all that week to do with Valletta FC and we were told that they had won the league cup (or some sort of cup!!).  There were to be some celebrations and stages and food stand were being set up.  Valletta is normally very quite at night - it's busy during the day especially when there are cruise ships berthed, but evenings appear to be very quiet indeed and we struggled at times to find restaurants that were open at night.  We never ever starved though, and we were never served a bad meal anywhere.  To get back to football - the celebrations went on over the weekend and I intend to post a separate item on that too, along with some photos. 

After dinner and a walk back to the hotel it was cocktail time then a last drink on the balcony before bed.

Pina Colada

Wednesday 9th May

As it was dark when we got to the hotel, we had no idea what things looked like at all!!  However, on getting up bright and early for breakfast and going into the dining room, the views looking over to Sliema were simply stunning.  The sky was blue, the sun was shining and the water was sparkling like millions of diamonds!!

Breakfast was great with just loads to choose from and eggs cooked to order.  We couldn't wait to get out to explore.  However, although we knew there were stairs to climb to get us from the hotel up to the roadside, we hadn't banked on there being 88 of them!!  Yes, I kid you not - 88 steps to climb up and, of course, 88 to get back down again!!  And, once up to the roadside, you had a hill to walk up to get to the bus station - or you could walk downhill towards where the ferry and water taxis were that take you over to Sliema.  In any case, we walked our socks off!!  Prior to travelling we knew that you could buy a weekly bus ticket for 12EU each, so we duly done that.

88 steps up ......

...... and 88 back down again!!

On our wanders, we took the ferry over to Sliema and that's where we met the sales touts for trips etc.  However, I must say that they were very polite and would take no for an answer.  However, we decided to take one of them up on a 'special offer' - two hop-on-hop-off bus tours (north route and south route) (HOHO for short), a harbour cruise and a vintage bus tour for 23EU each person.  On looking at the brochures and the prices of each tour separately, it did seem like a good deal, so we booked (Prices advertised were15EU per person for both HOHO tours, 15EU per person for the harbour tour and 15EU per person for the vintage bus tour).  The chap put it all on an 'open ticket' so we weren't restricted to certain days, and we went on our way quite happy with our purchase.  We purchased an ice cream cone at this point, but that was a bit of a rip-off at around 6EU each!!

Expensive, but nice

We found that there are not too many restaurants open in Valletta for dinner at night, and we ended up at a place called Margo's where we had an excellent pizza and lasagne.  The lasagne served for one as a main meal could have almost been shared between the four of us!!

Sorry, I had started eating my pizza before I thought about taking a photo!!  You can see the lasagne in the background.

After a leisurely walk back to the hotel and down the 88 steps, we finished off with a cocktail in the hotel bar then adjourned to our rooms where we had a nightcap on the balcony with our duty free and soft drinks that we bought from a stall up near the bus station.

It's our wedding anniversary the next day and we had booked the Hypogeum  for the afternoon, so that was something to really look forward to seeing.