Malta for a couple of days: what to expect not sure but we will soon find out. We chose to stay at the Soreda Hotel in Qawra; not a bad hotel except the first room we were given was next to a building site so on our first morning we were rudely interrupted at six in the morning as building began. A swift phone call to the reception and a room change later problem solved, although: why put guests in rooms next to a building site when you have empty rooms elsewhere in the hotel doesn't make sense. We decided to head off to St. Julian’s. Now, that's more like it: a nice town with picturesque houses dotted around the small but pleasant harbor. We wandered around for a while, had a cup of coffee and decided to go to the open air swimming pool next to the harbor. When we arrived there was only a couple of other people, locals it seemed, just there to do a few lengths for the exercise. The houses around the bay had a certain fading glamour about them, like a theme was building here, but we would give it time. The colour of the water in the harbour with pretty little boats bobbing around on it was worth the visit but I felt something was still missing? We had dinner in another hotel on our way back which wasn't bad but nothing to write home about. The next morning we headed for Valletta, the capital of Malta, by boat. Valletta had an almost cosmopolitan feel to it. Plenty of shops, a nice harbour, quaint streets, but then it started to rain. That put a dampener on things for a while, but after about 40 minutes the sun popped out again so we visited the Grand Masters’ Palace which was worth it, an impressive collection. After about an hour or so we walked around the wet streets to the view of the harbour from quite high up, in fact, I was surprised how high up we were but what a nice view. We had dinner that evening in a restaurant in a row of about four different restaurants. It was warm enough for the time of year to sit outside. We had Italian food, not my favourite but nice enough as it turned out. There are not many places I've travelled to that I don't find some sort of connection with but this was one of them. I even found it hard to write this piece because of it but I had to get it out of the way. Sorry, Malta I'm sure you’re loved?
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Categories
All
GaryBorn in Chiswick West London, grew up in Royal Berkshire, currently living in Amsterdam, the Netherlands Archives
March 2016
|