Jim & Happy : Malta – our last day

Today is our last day in Malta. We started off with a morning coffee at Tony’s then headed off on the local bus to Mdina, one hour away.

Mdina is the old capital, a walled city set on a hill in the middle of the island. It is known as the Silent City and it was quiet within the walls. Whilst in Mdina we watched the Malta Experience, a half hour film on the history of Malta. The film was very interesting and I realized while watching the film that we had learnt quite a bit over the last few days on our travels around the place. Malta is predominately Roman Catholic and with 365 churches there is one church to visit for every day of the year, not that we did. I admit we only visited one church and one chapel.

We had lunch at a café with a spectacular view over the countryside, looking out to sea, over to Valletta (the new capital) and St Julian’s – where we are staying.

Here we are back in the apartment having a restful afternoon. We were planning a swim in the bay but the sky is now overcast and the wind has come up and the swell is bashing against the rocks.

Before I sign off I forgot to tell you about our boat trip yesterday. It was good fun. It was a comfortable and beautiful sailing boat (with a motor), slightly overcrowded but lots of passengers disembarked at Gozo a Maltese island before our stop at Comino Island also known as Blue Lagoon. The water was a beautiful blue colour and crystal clear. It is heavy with salt so easy to float in. Good for heavy boned people as Laurel would say. We had a nice afternoon swimming and sitting on the rocks people watching.

While at Blue Lagoon we took a speedboat ride to visit three caves close by. In one cave we were looking through the water at divers, it was surreal. The snorkeling wasn’t worth it but apparently the diving is good. The speedboat owner was Tony. He was very funny, if not a bit corny but we were all laughing at his jokes. He told us he was 65 years old and proud of it. He said he started boats trips to the Blue Lagoon 40 years ago; he was the only operator then, now there are many. We paid him 15 Euros ($22) each along with 4 Irish people, 2 French and 4 Dutch people and got a lift back to St Julian's in his speedboat instead of going back on the sailing boat for our return trip. It was worth it for the entertainment value.