Day 6 - Malta

Yea we are in a nice hotel! This morning we woke up excited to leave our current lodging facility. We were ready and packed 30 minutes before our car was going to pick us up. We headed down to the lobby since we figured it could take us this long to check out, it didn't only 10 minutes. Joey, our original driver that took us from the airport to the first hotel, was driving us this morning to our new hotel, The Waterfront. As we pulled up right in front was the Turkish Kabob restaurant. I guess it was a good landmark after all.
Wow what a 180 this place is. We checked in at 10 AM (normal check in is at 2 PM), the staff told us our room would not be ready for another 45 minutes so we asked if we could use the pool. We grabbed our towels and anxiously headed off to the pool. The pool is fun, it isn't that large and about 7 feet deep but it had little whirlpool areas you could sit in. You just pushed a button and voila you had jets of water spraying at you. We were only at the pool about 25 minutes when the luggage guy told us our room was ready. Danielle headed down to the front desk to get our bags and drop off our pack backs only to learn that the man was already at our room with the luggage.An interesting feature of this hotel is the key card. Similar to the key cards in America they let you into your room. However, in this hotel, they also turn on all of the electricity. So if you can't figure out where the light switch is for that light, make sure you put the key card into the slot. It also serves as a place for your to put your key, you won't forget the key or to turn out the lights! The rooms are clean, we have a shower curtain, still no face cloth though. Apparently face clothes are an American thing. We lounged by the pool most of the day with only a break to get lunch and ask about setting up a tour. We decided that at 4 we would venture out onto Malta. With some direction from the front desk and our handy bus map we decided to head to Mosta to the dome and Mdina.

Buses in Malta are interesting, the stops do not give an indication where you are. You just have to learn the areas by sight. We stood at a bus stop for 30 minutes before realizing we were at the wrong stop. Once on bus #65 we asked the driver to tell us when we were at Mosta Dome. On our ride we passed some American chains: Pizza Hut, KFC, Ben & Jerry's, McDonald's and Burger King. The bus driver started shouting "Mosta Church, Mosta Church" we figured that had to be our stop. We got off the bus and walked to a very large dome, according to our tour book it is the third largest in Europe as of 2003. (Number 1 and 2 are the Pantheon and St. Peter's Basilica both in Rome and visited by us recently.) There was a baptism going on in the church so we peaked in looking for a large hole in the church. We then walked over to the bus stop to continue our journey to Mdina. While at the bus stop we talked to a woman about the bomb at the church as we were expecting to see a large hole. The church was bombed during WWII on April 9th 1942 at 4:30 PM. There were 300 parishioners in the church when a bomb hit the ceiling of the church and came falling down to the church floor. Surprisingly the bomb did not go off and no one was hurt. It was a miracle. Today the hole in the ceiling has been repaired and there is a replica of the bomb inside the church. The original bomb was rolled out of the church onto the street.

Mdina, the silent city, was amazing. It is a small city with four large walls and only 3 entrances in to the city. The whole city is about 0.8 miles long. We walked from to the far end of the city to Basition Square. Just before we were about to see a beautiful view an old man said hello to us. Being the "talk to strangers" Americans we are we said hello back. He then asked us to sit with him and look at his book. Alison sat down and Danielle stayed standing. His book was interesting he told us he was a soldier and pointed to a magazine clipping in his book that he told us was him. He pointed to another clipping and told us that was his daughter. He had many stories and asked us to sign his book. So we followed the other pages in the book and drew the flag from the country we were from, and then wrote a short note. He had flags from all over the world drawn by people - he supplied the crayons. He was cute and creepy at the same time. We continued to our magnificent view and took several pictures of the northern part of the island (check out the almost 180 panoramic.) We then walked around the little city looking for a restaurant to eat at. There were only 3, 1 was closed for another 30 minutes, one had no Danielle food, so that left just one that we could eat at. The food was ok, not our best meal on the island or best service. Since it is festa season (more on this in a moment), we tried a traditional dessert called a pastizzi. It is basically a ricotta filled pastry. We then asked the wait staff if Mdina celebrated their festa last night, and she said no tonight at 8. We decided to stay in the city to experience a festa. Festas are town events held over three days to celebrate the patron saint of that town. When we went into the restaurant there was only a handful of people on the street, when we went back out on the street after eating it was packed. Tonight was the celebration of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel. The "parade" was interesting, it was lead by the clergy of the church, including the cardinal, followed by a brass band and then the children's choir. Finally the reason for this whole celebration the statue of Our Lady of Mt Carmel. 8 volunteers from the church were carrying a large statute of the saint, They were taking her to the Cathedral in Mdina and then back to her church. About every 10 feet the men would take a break. This was accomplished by one of the men walking beside the statue knocking on the platform. Then 4 men who were walking beside her would put up braces for the platform to rest on. To begin movement again someone would knock on the platform and the 8 men would pick her up. It was interesting but slow. We watched as the statue passed us and took many pictures and then headed to the bus to get back to our hotel.

While on the bus we realized that one of the two people in front of us was from the States. We began asking them questions. The other person was from Brussels, Belgium. Both live on Malta and have for several years. The girl from the states is 1/2 American and 1/2 Maltese, but does not speak any Maltese. The other person is a guy who has lived here for 5 years and teaches English in one of the many English schools on the island. Actually that is what they both do for work, teach English to people of other countries, mainly European. Anyway, we had a nice conversation. We asked many questions about Malta and they asked us some about American. It was fun to compare and see both similarities and differences. We made it to Valletta, the capital of Malta and headed toward another bus in order to get back to the hotel. The man we had been talking to was also going to that bus so we followed him. It turns out so was the girl. Anyway, we continued our conversation for a while until the bus was so full that it was no longer an option. We passed through several other towns that are also having their Festas. The churches in these towns are lit up like Christmas trees and can be seen from miles around. It was beautiful to drive through them and see them all lit up. It turns out one is quite close to the hotel. Luckily, Danielle has eagle eyes and spied exactly where we needed to get off and rang the bell just in time for us to get off at the perfect spot. We walked back to our hotel and looked off of the balcony to see if there were any fireworks to be seen tonight. Unfortunately, not tonight so we retreated to our room to veg out and get some sleep! Ciao!


Malta fun facts - on the diagonal Malta is approximately 42 miles long, East to West the country is 22.6 miles wide.