Day 7 - Malta

We love this hotel. Today we had the best breakfast on the whole trip thus far. The hotel has a free breakfast buffet. The buffet included hot food as well as the traditional European breakfast of pastries and sandwich meat. We were happy and full!

We decided to head to Valletta, the capital of Malta, this morning. We made it there all by ourselves using the bus system...no Maltese help at all. Valletta is the absolute opposite of Mdina. Valletta is the shopping center. Its entire area encompasses probably no more that the large malls at home including the parking lot as well. The difference is the hills in this city. There are some serious hills. Some of the streets are so steep that they require steps in lieu of sidewalks. We walked down Malta's busiest street. It is lined with banks, stores, mall type complexes and what we would call Cafes. Here it is only a cafe if they serve coffee. Otherwise it is a bar or a restaurant or pizzeria. Mostly they name what they sell in the type of restaurant. Anyway, we walked all the way to the end of Republic Street (that is a grossly American version of the spelling but the point is the same) finding Fort St. Elmo. Yes really, Elmo was a saint...at least according to the Maltese. Anyway, Ft. St. Elmo is still a working Army base and Police Academy. Because it is working, it is only open for tours on the weekend. When the Knights of Malta built Valletta, they built it with 3 sides facing the see, with the wall at the end to protect them from the many many attacks on their land. At the end of Republic street is also a World War Two Memorial Bell. This was the biggest bell that I have ever seen. My guess is that it is probably between 10-15 feet tall. The klinger in the bell was probably a foot wide. There are several signs just under the bell to not been standing there are noon time, because as the picture showed it might vibrate you to death. Ok, maybe just because the bell was loud, but the picture was funny. It said noon and showed the bell ringing and a man vibrating below the bell. It was funny. Anyway, we took some photos of both the bell as well as the effigy of the Knight lying on his death bed which is also a memorial to the ancient Knights. After that we headed toward Merchant Street, aptly named for its open air market. It was mostly clothing. Now, we have already had this discussion, but would you buy your underwear on the street? We say no! But lets take a poll...leave a comment and let us know. Just so you are aware these are individual undies with a thin cardboard package on the top. We walked most of the way of Merchant St. where we happened up St. John's Co-Cathedral. We don't understand why it is a co-cathedral. Anyway, our guide book was published in 2003 and stated that entry to the Cathedral itself was free but that you would pay 1lm (Maltese Lira) to enter. The prices have increased to 2.50 and you can no longer see the Cathedral for free. Since we just came from Italy seeing some of the most beautiful churches, we figured we could skip it. Also, it was about 38 degrees celcius here, the rough estimate puts it at about 106 degrees Fahrenheit. Needless to say, we were ready to head out of the city. We picked up some gifts on our way out and we were on our way back to the hotel.

We made it back to our hotel again with no Maltese help on the buses. We got back and immediately headed for the pool. After an hour or so we decided to face the music or the underwear...however you choose to look at it. We had planned for 7 days or so of clothing....today being day 7 we had to do laundry. We had scoped out the closest laundry mat and had already found where it was. Now we had to go and do it. The woman thought that we were very odd to want to stay and do our own laundry since the price was the same, but she dealt with us, as odd as she thought we were. After 2 hours of laundry and sweating our hineys off we were done. We headed back to the hotel...with Alison standing on the steps of a very FULL bus. After returning to the hotel, we hung up our clothes that could not be dried and hustled to the pool for the last hour it was open. We were hungry for dinner, but also sweating and in need of cooling off.

After our second pool visit of the day we got ready for dinner. Danielle had scoped out an Indian restaurant on the way back from the laundry mat, so we attempted to go there. Unfortunately their menu was old and they didn't open at 6:30 so we headed just a few doors down to another Indian restaurant. We ate dinner and spend a quiet evening in the room.....where Alison was able to finish The DaVinci Code. It was a very good book. We have decided that between the two of us we should be able to write 5 hotel reviews, several book reviews as well as many restaurant reviews before we are done with our trip. For now we sleep because tomorrow we will be attempting to reach Comino's blue lagoon (Comino is the third largest island of the Maltese Archipeligo and one of three inhabited islands here...Malta, Gozo and Comino.).

Ciao!