Late October 2002:

A week's break in Malta was designed to revitalise ourselves for the forthcoming winter in London. We weren't going to do our usual and live and die by the guide book. The intention was to just have a nice easy week relaxing... yeh right. We ended up back in London twice as tired as when we left it! We naively thought that Malta would just be a bit of sun and surf, not the cultural mecca that it turned out to be. Malta is a country of three islands, all of which are quite small and easily sightseen within about 10 days, allowing for the odd chillout on or in the sea.

The invasion and occupation of various nationalities in Malta has made for a very fortified country. It seems as though every peninsula has a fort and there are several watchtowers dotting the cliffs throughout the countryside. The architecture and language of Malta has been heavily influenced by these occupations. The locally quarried limestone blocks used to build everything on the islands, makes the buildings look quite Italian, and the pretty balconies seen everywhere reiterates this, yet walking along a street you will see a mixture of influences, eg French shutters and doors, moorish patterned iron screens.

The Maltese language is a virtual cocktail. Although predominantly Arabic, French, Italian and Spanish are also part of the vocabulary. English is Malta's second language and as a majority of the visiting tourists are British, language was never a problem.

Our mode of transport was to be the old-fashioned colourful local buses. Mike had been dying to hop on one. He would be very disappointed when occasionally the bus number we wanted came with a new bus, not the old-fashioned sort. Whilst the older buses had loads of character - many complete with a copper clock shaped in the map of Australia! They were very much a kidney-jarring experience. I don't think the older models came with shock absorbers.

We decided to take a day tour of Mdina, the ancient capital of Malta. It's a small walled city on a hill-top almost centrally located on the island of Malta. The fortifications rising up from the hill make the city stand out in the landscape. Mdina was eventually discarded as the capital by the Maltese Knights, who as a seafaring force, felt that the capital should be closer to the sea and their ships.

Walking around the city, our guide filled us in on many aspects of the Mdina architecture, history and lifestyle. As traffic is extremely limited, the city is foot-traffic paradise which makes for a very quiet and serene experience (discounting the shouting guides and their sheep-like tourists clumping around) There are many convents within the city walls and all have heavy ironwork covering the windows. Our guide informed us that she wasn't sure whether that was to stop the nuns from getting out or to keep people (men?) from getting in. The highlight of Mdina was the panoramic views from its ramparts. In any direction you could see to the coastline.

On this particular day, Mike had a run in with one of the many horse and carriage operators roaming Rabat, (the suburban area of Mdina, located outside the walls). He decided that he was going to go up and pat one of the horses. Unfortunately it was more interested in eating (must have been me in a previous life) because as Mike started to pat it, it reached out and started to chomp rather vigorously on his shirt. He spent the rest of the day wandering around in a shirt with a couple of teeth-sized holes in it!

We spent a good day wandering around Valletta, the capital of Malta. This was definitely an unexpected highlight. Valletta, well and truly deserves its world heritage listing, for its harbours and various citadels alone. I think the harbours would parallel Sydney for the "aaahhh" factor. Valletta is out on a point of land, and is enclosed within large bastion walls rising up from the sea. The land entrance is via one bridge over a large moated (no water) space. To get to the bridge you have to brave a large roundabout which is for bus traffic only. I have never seen so many buses in such a small space. There was quite a lot of noise between people waiting and watching for buses and bus drivers blaring their horns at each other to get out of the way. The height of the land and the walls makes for narrow steep streets in Valletta and the many wooden balconies on the buildings encloses the streets even more. There are a couple of small parks overlooking the Grand Harbour, which provided fantastic views. We watched a large cruise ship manouevre its way through the entrance and cruise down the grand harbour to its docking point. We had thought we were extremely high up and that the walls on the forts in Valletta and its surrounding peninsulas dwarfed the landscape, but when the cruise ship came through, it dominated! Despite Mike's wimpering, we managed to do all of Valletta on foot, walking along the top of the entire outer fortifications of the city. This probably took about two hours what with all the 'oohin' and 'aahing' and photo taking and me occasionally stopping to try and pet some poor cat to death. For a Mediterranean island, the stray cats of Malta were the most healthy, fat, contented ones we had seen.

The Blue Grotto is promoted as a tourist must-see on the Malta mainland. We took our lives into our hands and decided to catch the bus down to it. A couple of shops, homes, restaurants and diving company shacks mark the spot from where you catch a colourful fishing boat (luzze) to take a half hour tour of the caves that form the Blue Grotto. The inlet in which the boats sit, come and go with the tourists is really pretty. The water while quite dark blue is crystal clear and while we waited for the next boat to come back for us, we could see bubbles on the water surface from the scuba divers swimming below the boats in the inlet.

A visit to Marsaxlokk (pronounced marsashlok) proved interesting. A very picturesque fishing village with a Sunday morning market being held on its dock. It was already noon, quite warm and several stalls had fish (with very little ice) stacked waiting to be bought. We figure the locals must have very strong stomachs and gave those stalls a wide berth. Behind the stalls in the bay, sat many luzze.

A rushed trip over to Gozo, an island of Malta's was needed. We had heard that the island offered some of the best beaches and natural scenery in Malta. I was determined to have a swim, no matter how cold the water. I hadn't carted togs on the trip for nothing. We used a local tour company which was very cheap and very basic - was more along the lines of a taxi service to the various sights with the occasional mumbled observation thrown in. This was ok though as would show us the highlights without the hassles of getting ourselves all over the island. I did get my swim in the lunch hour but couldn't manage to get Michael in. I guess my strangled shrieks when I first got in, put him off. While the water was cold, the bay in which I was swimming was stunning. High hills surrounded it and where the water lapped the shore, there was a row of restaurants perched so the punters could see and ogle the swimmers or otherwise pretend to be too cool to want to get wet.

In the Gozo photos there are a couple of shots of a natural rock bridge extending from the coastal cliffs out into the water. Called the Azure Window, it's quite spectacular and down on the rocky water's edge near it, there is a sink hole into which you can see several divers coming and going. Embedded in the rocks underfoot are many fossilised sand dollars. Mike and I had decided to get higher up on the cliffs for a better view of the bridge for photos. Some friendly locals decided they liked us (or were hoping for a feed, feel or pat) and consequently every time I sat down for Mike to take a photo they would promptly sit down around me to be included in the shot. I would get up and move to another spot and they would follow and sit down again. We gave up in the end and just took the photo with them in it. Wondering what type of creature would impose themselves on tourists like that? A couple of happy dogs.

At the beginning of the week, we had booked a day tour over to Sicily to see Mount Etna. Kindly, she started blowing her cool partway through the week, meaning that when we went on the trip (last day of holidays) we were going to get to see her erupting! Much of the day was spent travelling to get there. As we drove through the foothills of Mount Etna we were surprised by the amount of ash covering everything. The locals seemed totally unperturbed though. We spent several hours in the afternoon wandering through a hilltop walled town called Taormina. Very pretty, loads of touristy shops and chic designer shops as well. The main piazza of this town overlooked the coastline below to the left and on the right, the land rose to Mount Etna. We watched a beautiful sunset over the smoking mountain. There were also Canadair planes flying down into the bay, scooping up water and dropping it on the flanks of the mountain, to try and divert the lava flow. A fantastic way to end the holiday.

Highlight of the trip: The capital Valletta, its stunning harbours and forts.