Rabat and Mdina

Rabat is an inland town and Mdina is simply the walled city at the core which was the capital of Malta in antiquity. Again, a change of bus at Valletta terminal was required. The outward journey took an hour.

Visitors can indulge in a bit of horse and carriage nostalgia.

A beautiful maison near the rampart.

There was a grand panoramic view to the west of Malta from tbe rampart so I took a sequence. I hope the photo stitching works well when I do it back home.

This museum also doubled as a restaurant. The lasagnette octopus didn't work as well as hoped. Maybe the cook thought that the olives would provide flavour. Sometimes you just have to resort to stock or stock cubes.

Blue from the Segway tour had recounted an interesting news item. It seems that a man had breached his home detention conditions by going to Rabat to buy pastizzi. The outing cost him 250€ in fines. I got the name of the pastizzeria, Crystal Palace, and looked for it in Rabat centre. No luck. Finally with the help of a free WiFi AP, I did a search and got the map coordinates. It was in fact a stone's throw from the bus termimus. I bought a couple each of ricotta and piselli varieties and they were truly yummy.

Marsaxlokk

This village with a tongue twisting name is on the south coast. The guide warned that it would be difficult to get to on a Sunday as the Maltese have family seafood lunches there. But I was determined to have a go. The warning seemed to be true, every bus to Valletta terminal was packed. I resigned myself to crossing by ferry and spending a Sunday in Valletta, or perhaps the Three Cities. But once in Valletta I thought, why not see if I can get onto a Masaxlokk bus. In fact I scored an express service. Never give up prematurely.

There is a bric-a-brac market and all the restaurants by the harbour offer seafood menus. Lots of people were seated and eating.

The fishing boats are traditionally colourfully painted, to the delight of photographers.

I walked the length of the waterfront and finally settled on this restaurant near the church.

I asked for the aljotta and spaghetti mare. The aljotta was even better than the previous one; even though the portion was small, it was full of flavour. The spaghetti was also excellent.

Back in Valletta I explored the Upper Barrakka Gardens. These cannons are fired at certain times. The need for the timekeeping function is long gone but the ceremony has been preserved.

Spotting a queue at the Amorino geleteria, I decided to join. It was worth the wait, their gelati were very smooth.

And this is what I bought, caffè and nocciola. Very artfully scooped to look like a flower with petals.

Notte Bianca

Notte Bianca (sleepless night) was celebrating its 10th year. This is a Vallettan explosion of public entertainment, concerts, cultural events, art exhibitions and many other offerings at the end of summer. Lucky me, I am in town for Saturday night. Most of the events involve Maltese talent. It's staged primarily by the locals for the locals, not for bland international taste.

My plan was to arrive early, find a restaurant to have a nice meal (I had a trattoria already targetted), then emerge onto the street to mingle in the celebrations. Unfortunately the trattoria I had picked out wasn't open. But I stumbled upon the Legligin, a restaurant offering a degustation menu of Maltese and Mediterranean specialties. I thought they might be booked out but with a little negotiation I was seated and served. Here is the list of the little dishes I had:

Maltese bread and olive oil with salt and pepper

Mushroom soup

Coin of pork

Gozitan goat cheese

Preserved peppers

Two olives

Olive tapenade

Maltese sausage in tomato sauce

Baked sea bream

Barbecued prawns

Rocket with balsamic vinegar

Mussels in olive and fennel sauce

Grilled marinated quail breast with rocket and cantaloupe salad

Lasagne

Baked tuna pie

Spicy pork meatball

Bragioli

Baked pork in garlic sauce

And for dessert, 6 homemade truffles

Lucky they were small dishes, because I was stuffed by the end. It was a splurge, but a very reasonable one.

So I waddled out onto the street where this band was moving bodies.

Stilt artiste.

Trapeze artistes.

These plates are actually a cheat. They are plastic and are concave to spin effortlessly on the stick.

Street theatre.

Happy diners.

A moody bar.

Dance company.

Bright street.

More open-air theatre.

I think this is the new parliament building.

Lovely lit windows.

Crowded intersection.

All too soon I had to leave before the ferries got infrequent. This is a restaurant down by the ferry landing. The Maltese sure know how to party. I got to see only a fraction of the offerings. I'll have to come back and really spend a sleepless night on the street.

Valletta

The hostel is quite comfy. I have a 4 share room but there is air-conditioning (essential for Malta summers), an onsuite bathroom, and my roommates are out most of the time. I self-cater breakfast with food from the supermarket up the road.

I crossed over to Valletta by ferry at 0930 to be punctual at the Segway tour start, which happened to be the Malta 5D Experience cinema. More about that later. I am the only one on the tour. My guide is Blue, an Irish girl born in Botswana but who now lives on Malta while her parents live in Portugal. She is pleased that I have experience with a Segway and that also means less training and more tour time for me.

She took me on a tour of Valletta's sights, the peninsula from head to toe, both inside and outside the city walls. This is St.Georges Square, the main one. Facing it is the Grandmaster's Palace containing the Palace Armory and Palace State Rooms. On the wall is a reproduction of a letter from King George VI dated 15 April 1942 awarding the George Cross to the island for withstanding the siege by Axis forces. Today the cross is woven into the flag.

Part of the harbour entrance can be seen here.

And the impressive fortifications.

I also quizzed Blue about the Maltese economy, the attraction for ex-pats, industry, employment and so forth. The impression I got is that the industrious Maltese are avidly seeking opportunities in the EU to advance the economy. The university rates highly in Europe, the Mater Dei hospital is state of the art, and many young people are involved in support work for the electronic gaming industry due to their facility with languages.

Part of the reason for Malta's competitiveness is the low labour cost base. I think it was the Norwegian on Gozo who quoted a figure of 70% of northern Europe. Partly due to the hidden labour market he added. I saw quite a few young middle Europeans working to gain a foothold in the English speaking job market.

Of course the Maltese must ensure that tradition is not needlessly sacrificed for modernity. A delicate balancing act.

And Malta still has a lot of the old, which appeals to ex-pats of a certain age. It's been a long time since I saw that HMV dog.

A free viewing of Malta 5D was thrown in with the tour. Besides the 3D movie, the chair moved according to cue (explosions, etc.) and a couple of times water spray was used. The film was an entertaining and selective recounting of parts of Maltese history, including the sieges by the Turks and the Axis. You get a inkling of the fortitude of the Maltese people.

For lunch I found a bar serving ftira sandwiches matched with Amacord craft beer. Mine was the Mora, dark because it was brewed with coffee. Nonetheless it was very potent at 9% alcohol. Not sure if the caffeine enhanced or counteracted the alcohol.

Valletta was holding Notte Bianca (sleepless night) that evening. I made plans to come back in the evening.

Coastal towns

Originally Sliema was a fishing village, as were many of the other towns up the coast. As urbanisation took hold, all these towns merged into one continuous urban conglomeration and the only indications that you are entering a different town are the road signs at the town limits.

The weather was still overcast so I decided to save Valletta for Saturday. Especially when I saw that there was a Malta Segway tour company. I called to reserve a place and I was expected 1030 the next day. For today I would explore the towns up the coast to compare them with Sliema. The next town up is St. Julian's. This has hotels, restaurants, night clubs, the whole tourist catastrophe. The shopping centre there was indistinguishable from one anywhere else in the world.

Most of the noisy tourist businesses are in an area which belies the name Paceville. Quite different in character from Sliema which has a quieter and more dignified ambiance. Most of the medium term rental placs that I found by search were in Sliema. But the number of high rises are increasing, causing anxiety amongst locals about the changing character of their town.

I wondered if this pizza joint's motto was a conscious send up of Ibiza DJ David Guetta's F*** me I'm famous! double entendre which I noted during my 2012 visit.

I was actually after a beach, St. Georges Bay. When I saw it, my reaction as an Aussie was, you call that a beach? Contrary to what you might imagine, Malta is not in general a golden beach destination. The best is said to be at Mellieħa, up north.

Past Paceville, the coast did get more peaceful.This is an area of resort hotels and quiet residences with small gardens.

So having reached the end of the urbanised area, I waked back along the Sliema waterfront. It has a long lungomare which residents take advantage of for strolls and a rocky beach for suntans.

In the afternoon, after a siesta, I decided to cover the towns between Sliema and Valletta, which are Gżira, Xbiex, Msida, Pietà and Floriana, by walking along the waterfront. These are working class neighbourhoods with little of interest for the tourist, unless you are after a particular church or historic building. Even the water isn't as attractive as it looks, there is a lot of flotsam in it.

Floriana has residential buildings but also lots of administrative buildings. It's the first town leaving the bus station at the Valletta city gates.

This is the fountain at the bus station. I declined to enter Valletta, leaving that for the morrow.

When I first checked in, reception gave me a map and said of Buġibba and St. Paul's Bay, don't go there. Not because it is dangerous, but because it is tacky. It's an area of mass tourism resorts. Well, with a warning like that, how could I resist disobeying? I figured I could take a pleasant evening ride on a bus using my 7-day pass, find dinner and come back.

It actually doesn't look too bad in the evening light.

Following the principle don't choose a restaurant on the main drag, I scoured the town for an establishment on a quiet street. Finally I found one serving Maltese specialties. I decided to try the bragioli. Basically it's thinly sliced beef stuffed with veal mince, olives, herbs and cooked in a tomato sauce. I found it a bit too rich for my taste, and the sauce too tart. I usually don't have much luck with beef dishes anyway. But now I know what Maltese bragioli is.

Victoria to Sliema, an interlude

And so it was time to move on to the main island of Malta. Since I had all day to reach Sliema, I could have made a small excursion in the morning. But I couldn't think of anywhere I hadn't been. And just as well, as the bus left the station for the ferry terminal, it started pouring and continued throughout the crossing.

The bus meandered along the coastal road and took over an hour to reach Sliema. I regretted not printing out a map of the locality; I had no idea where the hostel was with respect to the landmarks. All that I remembered was it's near the Valletta crossing ferry terminals. But luck hadn't deserted me, I happened upon a locality map on a signboard. Let's see, my booking says San Piju V and there is a road named St. Pius V. I called that a match, Maltese to English. And so it was.

I lunched, had a coffee with cake, got rained on returning to the hostel and had a nap that put velvet between my vertebrae while it poured. Some days you should just surrender to fate.

Supermarkets on Malta are well stocked. Many brands come from Italy due to proximity, but UK goods are also common due to the ex-pat factor. Fresh produce costs more as it's imported.

In the evening I explored the northern part of Sliema town. As Sliema sits on a somewhat fat peninsula, I kept re-encountering buildings and streets I had already passed and returning to the coast whenever I took a new path, because most routes radiate from the ridge. It took a bit of practice to find the cross-peninsula roads.

Big city shock. No more cozy little establishments serving local specialties. They were all flashy loud eateries offering virtually identical choices of burgers, pizza and other international fast food. There were also a lot of Italian restaurants. Problem was the good eateries were expensive and the cheap ones were ordinary. I was half tempted by New York Best pizzeria, but the loud muzak and 12 inch size put me off.

In the end I settled for a restaurant with a set menu containing Maltese fish soup, the aljotta I was seeking and a main of grilled swordfish steak. The latter was undistinguished but the soup was delicious. The lemon juice and mint were a nice touch, I must remember that. And just in time too, a downpour started after I entered the restaurant, only letting up when I had finished my meal. My guardian angel was working overtime. It thundered during the small hours too so I slept soundly.