Two full days with people driving in the correct side of the road instead of the right side of the road, bliss! We have a day in Valletta, the capital of Malta, and tomorrow we nip over to the second island of Malta, Gozo. It’s not a flippant comment about the roads however, as we walk so much, remembering which is the correct side to walk into traffic is quite important.
Having an extended stay, we don’t sail until 23:59, allowed us an unprecedented 30 minute snooze-in, but before long we’re heading off on our planned route, from the city and around the bays on the other side than the famous walled entrance to the harbour.
We firstly stop off to see how they are setting up for a huge concert, a local opera singer, part of the Malta Capital of Culture event, before wandering around the botanical gardens, and then heading off towards the bay. We pass some beautiful houses with fabulous balconies, before dropping down to marina level. We find what must be the most decorated church ever, called St Joseph’s and then a street full of embassies.
There’s an island in the bay, called Manoel Island, with a connecting bridge so we decide to check that out, finding a large shipyard, a huge $80M yatch moored, and then doubling back to do the other side. Here there’s several weird disused buildings, possibly even a prison, and right in the middle the head office of some company we’ve never heard off, but it’s all very interesting. We have to back track again to get off the island and continue around the bay. Suddenly it’s getting very busy, it seems this is an area popular with tourists as there are many B&B and hotels, and the effervescent touts selling tours, that always follow.
Checking out the ferry times as we pass, we continue along to the end of the bay, and return in perfect time to catch a ferry back to Valetta, and then do a few repeat visits to places we want to see again, most notably the old opera house that Hitler had a go at, before heading back to sanctuary on deck five and cool off after 7.5 miles in the baking sun.
We pass several other ships, a clipper, a tiny excursion vessel and the old Noordam, now chartered to another company as Marella Celebration, its a busy port with a lot of comings and goings!
The afternoon takes an intriguing turn as take a dip on five, and end up chatting with Doug who’s family five generations ago came from Critch in Derbyshire, which is not so far from Sheffield and a place I’m familiar with. The afternoon rolled on fuelled by Ice Tea, of the New York variety, in rather large measures, and we talked over loads of issues from the farce of Brexit to Hunter Valley, where he lives, to cruise lines and much more. This is not relevant, per se, other than that as a consequence of those ice teas the evening was a bit blurred!
Dinner was at TK Grill, where the food was all rather good, Hubby had Cæsar prepared table-side, I had a salmon tartare, then we both had clam chowder followed by lobster Thermidor, served shellless, a fabulous dish. We were so very good we decided to forego puddings, how magnanimous?
Although there was a dance party going on around the pool on deck eight, and we should have joined in, we snuck past and choose to sit on our balcony, I even managed to watch us depart from Valetta after midnight!
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