Malta and Gozo

I'm now in a hostel in Cork, Ireland that has free internet access so this is another quick lick and promise over breakfast before we go on to Kilarney by bus to pick up our self-guided walk on the Ring of Kerry. I'll get this started and then will edit with details of our ten days in Malta and Gozo.

Amazingly, Carole and I linked up with ease at Heathrow airport which continues to be chaotic. This time, however, I used my UK passport coming in and was rewarded with a fast moving queue and no hassle. Nevertheless, although the baggage handling system has improved to the extent that they let you know on the screen which carousel your bags are coming into, they still sent our bags to the wrong carousel so the whole planeload of people waited patiently for three quarters of an hour while this was sorted. So it was great to walk out of the arrivals door and find Carole waiting.

We found the bus station and the bus to Gloucester fairly easily and by 1.00pm had landed in Gloucester and located a taxi to go out to my brother's house. At that point, I was feeling smug that all our arrangements were working out smoothly! After a few hiccups, we even negotiated the electronic gates into Dave's driveway. When I had waved Dave's family goodbye as they drove off to the airport in Malta, we had arranged for him to leave a key under the herb pot we had planted when I was in Churcham last. We struggled with all our bags over the gravel driveway and located the herb pot but no key! Lots of fumbling and groping and digging out a torch from the bags, but nothing! And it was raining! We had to come up with plan B which consisted of shouting abuse at Dave's bedroom window and knocking on the huge studded front door of the old Victorian vicarage that my brother lives in. He eventually came down in barefeet and stumbled out to the herb pot to reveal the secret, secret location of the key.

So we spent the next day sorting out our gear ready for Ireland and making arrangements for the train trip from Gloucester to Fishguard and the ferry crossing to Rosslare that we planned for the Friday. We managed to fit in a trip to Gloucester cathedral where we picked up the start of evensong with a choir singing beautifully in the stunning space.

The crossing was excellent - very calm and at one point we had a Welsh male voice choir singing behind us in the bar and the men's decathlon finishing on the huge TV screen in front of us followed by the women's hockey match between China and Netherlands but I'll write about that in a later post.  Now I want to tell the story of our trip to Malta and Gozo.

Bugibba

The flight from Tripoli was fine despite my anxiety about Libyan airports picked up from my experience in Benghazi - I still need to update the blog with my trip through Libya.  I am discovering more and more links between Libya and Malta as I continue my travels.  Economic links emerged early on when I had to send funds for my Libyan trip through a Malta bank, and I also discovered from my Benghazi guide that many Libyan people who want to learn English will go to one of the several schools set up in Malta because it is closer and cheaper than other places.

My brother had emailed me to say that he and his extended family were going to meet me in Malta after all and he had booked me in to a cheap hotel in Bugibba for a few days before we all went to a farmhouse on Gozo for a week.  So it was easy for me to get a taxi from the airport straight to the hotel.  They have now set up a very simple process at Luqa airport where you go to a desk, ask for a taxi, pay your money and then are escorted by your driver to the cab.  I was also impressed by the state of the roads in Malta which have been upgraded since I was last there, a decade or so ago.  The taxi driver, however, complained about the down side of joining the European union which has resulted in over-regulation and a sense of loss of local control.

When I got to the hotel in Bugibba, St Paul's Bay, I was greeted by a young man who cheerfully carried my bags in.  There was complete confusion at the reception desk where it appeared that my booking was for the next day and my brother had never been heard of!  Through all this my smiling baggage carrier stood by and then helped me carry my bags up, at which point I learnt that he was from Libya and was planning to return that weekend to his sister's wedding.  I had discovered at the airport that no-one in Malta was going to exchange my Libyan money and I had quite a lot so I gave them all to him and he was delighted.  It transpired that he was a car driver and he offered to be my driver for free if I needed any transport.

The chaos I had experienced at the front desk was not limited to my own experience, nor was it limited to that area!  But once I had learnt to negotiate a chaotic system, I enjoyed my four days in Bugibba and booked in to return there for the two nights I needed after returning from Gozo and before my flight to UK.  I bumped into my brother and his family at the rooftop swimming pool the next morning and it appears they had checked in to the hotel shortly before I had arrived the previous day.  I discovered an internet cafe down the road, a small bakery for the great flakey cheesecakes they make in Malta and the short stroll down to the bay where there were several restaurants on the front.

I also arranged with the Real Estate company I had been in touch with from Australia, to go and look at some possible flats for me to rent in Sliema and Marsaxlokk.  Marianne came to pick me up at the hotel and took me first to the Marsaxlokk flat which was brand new and set one street back from the seafront in this small fishing village in the south-east quarter of Malta.  Then we went to the old flat in Qui-si-sana in Sliema which was in my price range because it was on the third floor with no lift.  I loved it from the huge creaking front door where the key wouldn't work to the high, high ceilings in the large rooms.  But sadly the woman who owned it was an old-fashioned haggler and started to make the process uncomfortable so in the end we settled on the Marsaxlokk flat where I'm sure the washing machine won't break down and it was beautifully quiet.

Whilst I was flat-hunting, my brother and co. went to Popeye's village.  They had a great time at this theme park based on the film set for the making of the movie but now with added water trampolines and inflatable toys floating in the little bay down from the rocky set.  They also picked up the jeep we were going to take with us for our week in Gozo

I'll continue later with the Gozo saga.

Sister Island

Malta is actually an archipelago of small islands and we passed one of them, Comino, as we went from Malta to Gozo on the car ferry.  As we passed the Blue Lagoon, crowded as usual with tourist boats, my brother and I reminisced about the time we set off to sail our small dinghy around Malta when we were in our teens.  We spent the first night in the Blue Lagoon playing chess under the sail we had stretched out as a tent because it was winter and getting cold.  The wind got up in the night and our dad got worried and came to find us the next morning in the motor boat that he had built himself so we never did get to sail around Malta.  It is an expedition that I might try and complete when I return for six months in September.

The jeep Dave had hired served us well on Gozo and soon had us through Vittoriosa, the main town and into Gharb, the village where our farmhouse was located.  We had arranged to meet the owner, Joe, in the main square to collect a key.  Most Maltese villages have a standard design of a central square with a large church and a street that goes through the village and divides around the church in a one-way system.  Joe arrived very soon after us and led us through the centre to find the house.  It was in one of the classic, narrow cross-streets with large front doors opening straight onto the street.  Newly built but in traditional Maltese sandstone and design with the enclosed courtyard at the back now harbouring the swimming pool.  We quickly sorted out the sleeping arrangements and were in the pool!

The house was big enough for everyone to be able to do their own thing and we settled into a routine for the week.  I would go to bed early and get up early to go walking along the country lanes to the stunning cliffs on the Northern side of the island.  My niece spent most of her time in the pool, and the other girls wanted to sunbathe whenever they had a chance which was all the time.  My brother accommodated all our diverse interests by suggesting group trips in the jeep to some of the beaches  or other attractions such as the craft village just outside Gharb or the big fiesta that was building up all week in Vittoriosa.

I'll finish later as everyone has just got home from school.