We attached a Malta trip onto our Athens trip because Skye was presenting a paper at a conference there. We had almost two full days to check out the island before the conference started.
Malta is a small island just south of Italy. It's its own country and they even have their own language, Maltese. You may remember it from the book of Acts, the island where Paul was shipwrecked.
We arrived in Malta on a red eye flight and got to the hotel around 2:30am. The hotel sucked! It was in a beautiful location on the water front with an amazing view of Valletta, the capital, but it looked like something straight out of the 80s. Our bed was so old that it squeaked loudly and had a huge crater on one side. They did have a nice breakfast on the 7th floor with a fantastic view, so that was nice at least. There was also a crib in our room blocking the walk way and we were so tired and frustrated that we just hauled it out into the hallway.
We tried to wake up at a decent hour despite not going to sleep until 3am so we could make the most of our day. Before we ever left Athens we knew we'd be doing the city site seeing tour again because our Athens one offered a discount for the next one, and it just so happens there was one in Malta!
The entire island is only 122 square miles with Valletta as its capital and many small towns and villages including The Three Cities. The Three Cities are Vittoriosa, Senglea, and Cospicua. They are the three fortified citied in Malta. They were sieged in the the Great Siege of 1565 and after the siege, Valletta was built and made the capital in 1571.
The tour bus offered three different routes, green, blue and red. The green one went mainly to the different hotels on the island to get those people transported to the blue and red lines. We hopped on the green line just outside our hotel and made our way to the blue and red. Just like in Athens, we wanted to ride each through to get a good idea of the island and to choose the most important things to see. The tour also included a harbor cruise on a boat. The red and blue lines and the harbor cruise were each 90 minutes, so that would be basically our entire day. This worked well because we were still really tired from our red eye flight.
We got on the red line first which took us to the Valletta water front, the Vittoriosa water front, different temples, Marsaxlokk the fishing village, Valletta Castille which is the prime minister's office, a rock formation on the coast called the Blue Grotto, and more. It was beautiful! Malta is very interesting because it's extremely old so the architecture is very unique.
After riding through the red line we got back to the beginning and and jumped on the blue line. The blue line took us to the San Anton Gardens, some tourist traps with an aviation museum and Mdina glass from the little village of Mdina, Mdina gate, the Mosta church and Valletta again.
We made note of the things we wanted to return to the next day to explore on foot, the caught the green line to the harbor cruise.
We grabbed some ice cream and climbed aboard to the top level, of course. We were the first ones on the boat so we had to wait a while for it to fill up and then we were off. Once we left we had to turn back around to pick up a group of students who were late. That was annoying but we finally got back on track and were on our way. The tour guide told us about all the important sites and landmarks in the harbor including a watch tower built by a Frenchman with a carving of an eye and ear to represent being the eyes and ears for the city.
After the harbor cruise we got back on the green line for the hotel. There was a lot of confusion with the driver about where the hotel was so he told us to wait while he figured out the rest of the group. Skye decided to show him the address to the hotel, and good thing because it was right in front of us! We would have gone so far out of the way! We walked the 5 minutes back to the hotel and freshened up a bit before dinner.
There were tons of cute cafes along the water front so we decided to walk until we found something that looked good. We stopped at a cute Italian place because Malta has a lot of Sicilian influence. One of the Maltese specialties is marinated rabbit, and neither of us were feeling brave enough for that!
The place we stopped at had a nice sidewalk patio so we sat outside. Though we weren't up for the rabbit, Malta does have some local drinks we were excited to try. The local beer is Cisk (pronounced chisk). It's a lager and quite good. Skye got that and I got a Kinnie. Kinnie is a locally made soda that is bitter orange flavored. It's sweet at first but has a very bitter after taste. It was also very good, especially if you like bitter things. Skye got pizza with spicy salami and I got a calzone stuffed with ham and cheese. HAM!!!! Yum. I'm trying to make up for my lack of ham over the last year (with great success).
After dinner we walked around and explored the area. We walked along the marina a bit then made our way into the neighborhood. It was so cute and quaint! Malta is famous for its gallarijas, or colorful balconies. They were so pretty! Apparently the balconies are a tradition and the government has set up a fund to help pay for people to restore their balconies. The neighborhood also had many beautiful doorways to people's homes. They were all so unique and clean looking. Malta makes special glass and ceramic and many of the doorways also had a really pretty glass nameplate on the wall. There was very little graffiti in this area, even on the garage type doors for shops, everything was so nice and clean.
We had a lovely day, saw the majority of the island, and we were very ready for a good night of rest.
We jumped on the blue line and our first stop was Paul's church in Mdina. Mdina is a tiny little medieval village in the center of the island still surrounded by walls. It's full of very cute narrow winding streets. It also has a beautiful view of Malta. The population of Mdina is around 300, but it's also considered to be part of Rabat, one of the other villages.
Our first stop was The Cathedral of the Conversion of St Paul. It was completely amazing! Israel has deprived us of these ornate and beautiful churches, so we were very impressed. It cost 3.50 euros per person for students, so we almost didn't go inside, we have always felt it is so ridiculous to charge for church entry. It did include entrance into the church museum as well, but we didn't want to use up our time with that. We walked around some before catching the bus to our next stop.
We got off in Mosta at St Marija Assunta Church. This church has the Mosta dome which is the 3rd largest unsupported dome in the world. In 1942 during a church service a bomb hit the dome of the church, went through and hit the floor without exploding or injuring a single person! A replica of the bomb is still on display. The church itself is amazing! The dome is so wide and open! We got kicked out after about 20 minutes because they were closing, so thankfully we made it just in time!
It was time to choose our last stop before heading back to the hotel. All morning we had been trying to figure out how we could make a stop at the Blue Grotto and make it back on time. It seemed impossible because it was across the entire island and the schedule to get there was so weird. We were at the Valletta stop when we just couldn't decide and just before the bus drove off we got out. I decided the Blue Grotto probably wasn't as cool as whatever was in Valletta. This seemed like a bad decision at first because there wasn't much around. All the times we had driven past it on the bus, it just seemed sort of boring. There was a really cool fountain but that's all we could see. However it was a major stop so we thought there had to be more to it. We finally wandered into the gate which didn't look like much of a gate because there was a lot of construction around. We came upon the Valletta Castille which is where the Prime Minister lives, then kept wandering. We came upon some of the cutest streets and neighborhoods I have ever seen! Each turn was picturesque with colorful gallarijas, cute shops and the Grand Harbor in the background. You couldn't see any of this from the bus! We were so glad we had gotten out! So this was Valletta! Hidden behind walls and tightly built buildings!
We made our way to the water front and came upon a really cool garden over looking the water. We hung out there a little while then made our way back through the neighborhoods. We got a little snack from a stand, we had heard Malta was famous for these little stuffed pies so we got one with ham, cheese and egg. It was delicious!
Then we stumbled upon this beautiful square with cool fountains and people everywhere. We needed to catch our bus back to the hotel soon but we wanted to find the church whose dome you can see from the water front view. The church was easy to find, but the door way was sort of hidden. We went into a protestant church thinking it may be part of the big dome, but it wasn't so we kept wandering, and finally found the door. Just as we stepped in a bunch of altar boys were kicking us out because they were closing. That was disappointing, but what we could see in those two seconds was beautiful!
We caught the bus and got back to the hotel to get ready for the conference. Everyone met in the lobby and they bused us to the Office of Tourism. This portion was only a meet and greet, so they greeted us with fancy drinks, brought out a huge variety of delicious and filling appetizers and everyone visited. The cool thing about the wait staff was that they were all students learning to be professional servers. They did a great job. We met a lot of nice people, then we all returned to the hotel before the big day of presentations.
I was sort of on the fence about whether or not I would join the group on the bus the next morning. I wanted to see Skye present, but he wasn't up until 1pm. At the same time, the main reason the conference hired a bus for us was because the public buses were quite unreliable. So I decided to go to the conference where I could work on my blog and have all the free coffee I wanted. Before I dove into my blogging I decided to wander and search for a way to go see the Blue Grotto. We were on the opposite side of the island from our hotel, but it was an area full of hotels. There was a public beach, a mall, tons of restaurants, cafes and tourist shops, but nothing historical, old or natural. There wasn't really much to look at around there, but I stopped in every single place I could find that might take me to the Blue Grotto. They were all lumped in with other sites and would have been just the wrong amount of time causing me to miss Skye's presentation, so I decided to skip the Grotto.
I made it back about 5 minutes into the first of four presenters in Skye's panel. This man's presentation was really good! It was intriguing, easy to understand, and very well done. Skye was third. The woman who went second spoke for a while after her time was up, even after the time keeper made several attempts to cut her off. Her presentation was not nearly as good as the first guys. Then Skye finally got to go! His was really good as well. I know you all think I'm bias, but he really does have a gift for this academia stuff. His presentation was much more disciplined than everyone else's. If I'm not mistaken, he is the only one who technically studies history, so his format was a little different. He stayed right on time, made all his points and was clear and concise. That's my husband!
When his panel finished I went out walking around again and stumbled up the hard rock cafe!!! Thank goodness! If we had tried to find it on our own, it would have been terrible! This worked out perfectly! I went in, got Skye a pin and walked back to the Office of Tourism. The waiter and waitress students served us a delicious lunch of different types of pasta with a fancy chocolate mousse dessert. I sat through (and by sat I mean hid in the back and worked on my blog) a few more presentations until it was time to leave. They took (and by they, I mean I took, with one of the leader's fancy cameras!) group pictures and the man who runs the Office of Tourism told us some interesting facts about Malta. For example, there are more tourists per year than residents of Malta! The population of Malta is 420,000, and every year there are 1.4 million tourists. 600,000 of those tourists are from cruise ships.
After that the bus took us back to the hotel. It was around 5pm and we were supposed to catch our airport taxi back to the airport at 10pm. I wanted to go back to Valletta for dinner because it was so beautiful there! Valletta would be a 20 minute bus ride on the public buses, and as I said before they were unreliable. If any of you know Skye at all, you know this idea made him absolutely crazy and on edge. He wanted to stick around the area for dinner, but a few of our friends from the conference wanted to join us, so it was four against one! Poor Skye! I felt that 5 hours was more than enough time, and he felt we couldn't risk the unreliable buses. All of our new friends were European (the most laid back relaxed people ever) so they all reassured him timing would be fine. I felt bad almost giving Skye heart palpitations, but it's not very likely we would ever have the opportunity to be in Valletta again!
Apparently Valletta isn't the place for nightlife because once we got there many things were closing down. We finally found a restaurant outside in the middle of everything, it was great! The food was decently priced and tasted fine. It was a lovely, relaxing, and perfect end to our time in Malta. And no, it was not relaxing for Skye! haha. I'm such a bad wife sometimes!
We caught a bus immediately and got back to the hotel with an hour to spare. But for some reason, Skye was still on edge. We said our goodbyes to our friends, though one guy was so sweet and invited us to the balcony in his hotel room so we wouldn't have to wait downstairs. We took in the views for a few minutes then went to wait for the taxi. Skye was still so anxious, so at 9:30 he went to ask the receptionist to call the service to confirm. She refused saying she knows this company and they may be late, but they always come. So she just didn't call. I also had a terrible encounter with her on the phone, and had seen her having terrible encounters with other guests. Why she is in the hotel business, I'll never know. 10pm came around, and our taxi was no where in site. Keeping in mind what this awful receptionist said, we waited. 10 after 10 came along, no taxi in site. 10:15, same thing. Luckily our friend came down and let us use his cell phone to call (our Israeli phones wouldn't work at all in Malta). We called the taxi company with our confirmation sheet in hand with the date and time clearly printed on it. They had no record of us. None whatsoever. How we had a printed confirmation but were not in their system is beyond me. I guess Skye was anxious all this time for a reason! They said they'd send someone right away. Meanwhile we're getting increasingly flustered and stressed as we were supposed to be there at 10:30. Part of the reason this was all so stressful is that when we planned these trips all squished together, we left little room for error. We had to get back to Tel Aviv to get back to Jerusalem to get our stuff, to then get back to Tel Aviv to catch our flight back to the USA. We were also pretty exhausted so that didn't help the situation.
We were still waiting for our taxi, when finally, Skye saw a taxi a few yards down and ran to it as fast as he could. I wasn't sure why, but I followed (they should have come directly to us). The driver had gotten out and was inside the hotel where Skye caught him. This wasn't our driver at all! But he said we could get in. This guy was new and the only reason he stopped at that hotel was to ask for directions because he was lost trying to drop someone off at their hotel. Oh boy! We dropped the girl off, who by the way was German, saw Skye, and immediately spoke German to him as if it was his native tongue. Thank goodness for her, that was such a compliment to him that it calmed his nerves a lot! We got to the airport with no problems, despite the driver smoking directly beneath the no smoking sign in the taxi, and though we were at the back of the line, made it with enough time.
We were really excited when we saw a direct flight to Tel Aviv leaving in about 30 minutes. I had searched far and wide for direct flights to/from Malta and Tel Aviv but they were all crazy expensive. Our flight was back to Athens where we would arrive at 3am, sleep on airport chairs, then catch a 10am flight back to Tel Aviv. This direct flight was a charter flight I guess so it didn't show up in my searches. In my cutest, most patient, nicest voice possible I asked the Air Malta staff if there was any room on that flight to Tel Aviv. I explained our situation and to my surprise, the ladies were very nice and understanding and began searching stuff on their computers. She called down and asked about getting us on that flight. It was so close. WE ALMOST GOT ON IT! But the man in charge had just left to go home, and he was the only one who could legally authorize the switch. That moment of hope was almost worse than outright being told no. But, I was thankful that they had tried their hardest, and I was glad I at least checked into it. So off to Athens we went.
Airport chairs are lacking in sleep-able comfort. It was also freezing and crazy bright. But somehow we survived and made it back to Tel Aviv and to Jerusalem right on time and our plan was not shaken at all.
It was a long but absolutely fantastic trip! It was the perfect trip to round out our time abroad.
Malta is a small island just south of Italy. It's its own country and they even have their own language, Maltese. You may remember it from the book of Acts, the island where Paul was shipwrecked.
We arrived in Malta on a red eye flight and got to the hotel around 2:30am. The hotel sucked! It was in a beautiful location on the water front with an amazing view of Valletta, the capital, but it looked like something straight out of the 80s. Our bed was so old that it squeaked loudly and had a huge crater on one side. They did have a nice breakfast on the 7th floor with a fantastic view, so that was nice at least. There was also a crib in our room blocking the walk way and we were so tired and frustrated that we just hauled it out into the hallway.
We tried to wake up at a decent hour despite not going to sleep until 3am so we could make the most of our day. Before we ever left Athens we knew we'd be doing the city site seeing tour again because our Athens one offered a discount for the next one, and it just so happens there was one in Malta!
The entire island is only 122 square miles with Valletta as its capital and many small towns and villages including The Three Cities. The Three Cities are Vittoriosa, Senglea, and Cospicua. They are the three fortified citied in Malta. They were sieged in the the Great Siege of 1565 and after the siege, Valletta was built and made the capital in 1571.
DAY 1
The tour bus offered three different routes, green, blue and red. The green one went mainly to the different hotels on the island to get those people transported to the blue and red lines. We hopped on the green line just outside our hotel and made our way to the blue and red. Just like in Athens, we wanted to ride each through to get a good idea of the island and to choose the most important things to see. The tour also included a harbor cruise on a boat. The red and blue lines and the harbor cruise were each 90 minutes, so that would be basically our entire day. This worked well because we were still really tired from our red eye flight.
We got on the red line first which took us to the Valletta water front, the Vittoriosa water front, different temples, Marsaxlokk the fishing village, Valletta Castille which is the prime minister's office, a rock formation on the coast called the Blue Grotto, and more. It was beautiful! Malta is very interesting because it's extremely old so the architecture is very unique.
After riding through the red line we got back to the beginning and and jumped on the blue line. The blue line took us to the San Anton Gardens, some tourist traps with an aviation museum and Mdina glass from the little village of Mdina, Mdina gate, the Mosta church and Valletta again.
We made note of the things we wanted to return to the next day to explore on foot, the caught the green line to the harbor cruise.
We grabbed some ice cream and climbed aboard to the top level, of course. We were the first ones on the boat so we had to wait a while for it to fill up and then we were off. Once we left we had to turn back around to pick up a group of students who were late. That was annoying but we finally got back on track and were on our way. The tour guide told us about all the important sites and landmarks in the harbor including a watch tower built by a Frenchman with a carving of an eye and ear to represent being the eyes and ears for the city.
After the harbor cruise we got back on the green line for the hotel. There was a lot of confusion with the driver about where the hotel was so he told us to wait while he figured out the rest of the group. Skye decided to show him the address to the hotel, and good thing because it was right in front of us! We would have gone so far out of the way! We walked the 5 minutes back to the hotel and freshened up a bit before dinner.
There were tons of cute cafes along the water front so we decided to walk until we found something that looked good. We stopped at a cute Italian place because Malta has a lot of Sicilian influence. One of the Maltese specialties is marinated rabbit, and neither of us were feeling brave enough for that!
The place we stopped at had a nice sidewalk patio so we sat outside. Though we weren't up for the rabbit, Malta does have some local drinks we were excited to try. The local beer is Cisk (pronounced chisk). It's a lager and quite good. Skye got that and I got a Kinnie. Kinnie is a locally made soda that is bitter orange flavored. It's sweet at first but has a very bitter after taste. It was also very good, especially if you like bitter things. Skye got pizza with spicy salami and I got a calzone stuffed with ham and cheese. HAM!!!! Yum. I'm trying to make up for my lack of ham over the last year (with great success).
After dinner we walked around and explored the area. We walked along the marina a bit then made our way into the neighborhood. It was so cute and quaint! Malta is famous for its gallarijas, or colorful balconies. They were so pretty! Apparently the balconies are a tradition and the government has set up a fund to help pay for people to restore their balconies. The neighborhood also had many beautiful doorways to people's homes. They were all so unique and clean looking. Malta makes special glass and ceramic and many of the doorways also had a really pretty glass nameplate on the wall. There was very little graffiti in this area, even on the garage type doors for shops, everything was so nice and clean.
We had a lovely day, saw the majority of the island, and we were very ready for a good night of rest.
DAY 2
The next day we caught the earliest possible tour bus because we were meeting the conference group in the hotel lobby at 5:30pm, and needed to shower and change beforehand.We jumped on the blue line and our first stop was Paul's church in Mdina. Mdina is a tiny little medieval village in the center of the island still surrounded by walls. It's full of very cute narrow winding streets. It also has a beautiful view of Malta. The population of Mdina is around 300, but it's also considered to be part of Rabat, one of the other villages.
Our first stop was The Cathedral of the Conversion of St Paul. It was completely amazing! Israel has deprived us of these ornate and beautiful churches, so we were very impressed. It cost 3.50 euros per person for students, so we almost didn't go inside, we have always felt it is so ridiculous to charge for church entry. It did include entrance into the church museum as well, but we didn't want to use up our time with that. We walked around some before catching the bus to our next stop.
We got off in Mosta at St Marija Assunta Church. This church has the Mosta dome which is the 3rd largest unsupported dome in the world. In 1942 during a church service a bomb hit the dome of the church, went through and hit the floor without exploding or injuring a single person! A replica of the bomb is still on display. The church itself is amazing! The dome is so wide and open! We got kicked out after about 20 minutes because they were closing, so thankfully we made it just in time!
It was time to choose our last stop before heading back to the hotel. All morning we had been trying to figure out how we could make a stop at the Blue Grotto and make it back on time. It seemed impossible because it was across the entire island and the schedule to get there was so weird. We were at the Valletta stop when we just couldn't decide and just before the bus drove off we got out. I decided the Blue Grotto probably wasn't as cool as whatever was in Valletta. This seemed like a bad decision at first because there wasn't much around. All the times we had driven past it on the bus, it just seemed sort of boring. There was a really cool fountain but that's all we could see. However it was a major stop so we thought there had to be more to it. We finally wandered into the gate which didn't look like much of a gate because there was a lot of construction around. We came upon the Valletta Castille which is where the Prime Minister lives, then kept wandering. We came upon some of the cutest streets and neighborhoods I have ever seen! Each turn was picturesque with colorful gallarijas, cute shops and the Grand Harbor in the background. You couldn't see any of this from the bus! We were so glad we had gotten out! So this was Valletta! Hidden behind walls and tightly built buildings!
We made our way to the water front and came upon a really cool garden over looking the water. We hung out there a little while then made our way back through the neighborhoods. We got a little snack from a stand, we had heard Malta was famous for these little stuffed pies so we got one with ham, cheese and egg. It was delicious!
Then we stumbled upon this beautiful square with cool fountains and people everywhere. We needed to catch our bus back to the hotel soon but we wanted to find the church whose dome you can see from the water front view. The church was easy to find, but the door way was sort of hidden. We went into a protestant church thinking it may be part of the big dome, but it wasn't so we kept wandering, and finally found the door. Just as we stepped in a bunch of altar boys were kicking us out because they were closing. That was disappointing, but what we could see in those two seconds was beautiful!
We caught the bus and got back to the hotel to get ready for the conference. Everyone met in the lobby and they bused us to the Office of Tourism. This portion was only a meet and greet, so they greeted us with fancy drinks, brought out a huge variety of delicious and filling appetizers and everyone visited. The cool thing about the wait staff was that they were all students learning to be professional servers. They did a great job. We met a lot of nice people, then we all returned to the hotel before the big day of presentations.
DAY 3
I was sort of on the fence about whether or not I would join the group on the bus the next morning. I wanted to see Skye present, but he wasn't up until 1pm. At the same time, the main reason the conference hired a bus for us was because the public buses were quite unreliable. So I decided to go to the conference where I could work on my blog and have all the free coffee I wanted. Before I dove into my blogging I decided to wander and search for a way to go see the Blue Grotto. We were on the opposite side of the island from our hotel, but it was an area full of hotels. There was a public beach, a mall, tons of restaurants, cafes and tourist shops, but nothing historical, old or natural. There wasn't really much to look at around there, but I stopped in every single place I could find that might take me to the Blue Grotto. They were all lumped in with other sites and would have been just the wrong amount of time causing me to miss Skye's presentation, so I decided to skip the Grotto.
I made it back about 5 minutes into the first of four presenters in Skye's panel. This man's presentation was really good! It was intriguing, easy to understand, and very well done. Skye was third. The woman who went second spoke for a while after her time was up, even after the time keeper made several attempts to cut her off. Her presentation was not nearly as good as the first guys. Then Skye finally got to go! His was really good as well. I know you all think I'm bias, but he really does have a gift for this academia stuff. His presentation was much more disciplined than everyone else's. If I'm not mistaken, he is the only one who technically studies history, so his format was a little different. He stayed right on time, made all his points and was clear and concise. That's my husband!
When his panel finished I went out walking around again and stumbled up the hard rock cafe!!! Thank goodness! If we had tried to find it on our own, it would have been terrible! This worked out perfectly! I went in, got Skye a pin and walked back to the Office of Tourism. The waiter and waitress students served us a delicious lunch of different types of pasta with a fancy chocolate mousse dessert. I sat through (and by sat I mean hid in the back and worked on my blog) a few more presentations until it was time to leave. They took (and by they, I mean I took, with one of the leader's fancy cameras!) group pictures and the man who runs the Office of Tourism told us some interesting facts about Malta. For example, there are more tourists per year than residents of Malta! The population of Malta is 420,000, and every year there are 1.4 million tourists. 600,000 of those tourists are from cruise ships.
After that the bus took us back to the hotel. It was around 5pm and we were supposed to catch our airport taxi back to the airport at 10pm. I wanted to go back to Valletta for dinner because it was so beautiful there! Valletta would be a 20 minute bus ride on the public buses, and as I said before they were unreliable. If any of you know Skye at all, you know this idea made him absolutely crazy and on edge. He wanted to stick around the area for dinner, but a few of our friends from the conference wanted to join us, so it was four against one! Poor Skye! I felt that 5 hours was more than enough time, and he felt we couldn't risk the unreliable buses. All of our new friends were European (the most laid back relaxed people ever) so they all reassured him timing would be fine. I felt bad almost giving Skye heart palpitations, but it's not very likely we would ever have the opportunity to be in Valletta again!
Apparently Valletta isn't the place for nightlife because once we got there many things were closing down. We finally found a restaurant outside in the middle of everything, it was great! The food was decently priced and tasted fine. It was a lovely, relaxing, and perfect end to our time in Malta. And no, it was not relaxing for Skye! haha. I'm such a bad wife sometimes!
We caught a bus immediately and got back to the hotel with an hour to spare. But for some reason, Skye was still on edge. We said our goodbyes to our friends, though one guy was so sweet and invited us to the balcony in his hotel room so we wouldn't have to wait downstairs. We took in the views for a few minutes then went to wait for the taxi. Skye was still so anxious, so at 9:30 he went to ask the receptionist to call the service to confirm. She refused saying she knows this company and they may be late, but they always come. So she just didn't call. I also had a terrible encounter with her on the phone, and had seen her having terrible encounters with other guests. Why she is in the hotel business, I'll never know. 10pm came around, and our taxi was no where in site. Keeping in mind what this awful receptionist said, we waited. 10 after 10 came along, no taxi in site. 10:15, same thing. Luckily our friend came down and let us use his cell phone to call (our Israeli phones wouldn't work at all in Malta). We called the taxi company with our confirmation sheet in hand with the date and time clearly printed on it. They had no record of us. None whatsoever. How we had a printed confirmation but were not in their system is beyond me. I guess Skye was anxious all this time for a reason! They said they'd send someone right away. Meanwhile we're getting increasingly flustered and stressed as we were supposed to be there at 10:30. Part of the reason this was all so stressful is that when we planned these trips all squished together, we left little room for error. We had to get back to Tel Aviv to get back to Jerusalem to get our stuff, to then get back to Tel Aviv to catch our flight back to the USA. We were also pretty exhausted so that didn't help the situation.
We were still waiting for our taxi, when finally, Skye saw a taxi a few yards down and ran to it as fast as he could. I wasn't sure why, but I followed (they should have come directly to us). The driver had gotten out and was inside the hotel where Skye caught him. This wasn't our driver at all! But he said we could get in. This guy was new and the only reason he stopped at that hotel was to ask for directions because he was lost trying to drop someone off at their hotel. Oh boy! We dropped the girl off, who by the way was German, saw Skye, and immediately spoke German to him as if it was his native tongue. Thank goodness for her, that was such a compliment to him that it calmed his nerves a lot! We got to the airport with no problems, despite the driver smoking directly beneath the no smoking sign in the taxi, and though we were at the back of the line, made it with enough time.
We were really excited when we saw a direct flight to Tel Aviv leaving in about 30 minutes. I had searched far and wide for direct flights to/from Malta and Tel Aviv but they were all crazy expensive. Our flight was back to Athens where we would arrive at 3am, sleep on airport chairs, then catch a 10am flight back to Tel Aviv. This direct flight was a charter flight I guess so it didn't show up in my searches. In my cutest, most patient, nicest voice possible I asked the Air Malta staff if there was any room on that flight to Tel Aviv. I explained our situation and to my surprise, the ladies were very nice and understanding and began searching stuff on their computers. She called down and asked about getting us on that flight. It was so close. WE ALMOST GOT ON IT! But the man in charge had just left to go home, and he was the only one who could legally authorize the switch. That moment of hope was almost worse than outright being told no. But, I was thankful that they had tried their hardest, and I was glad I at least checked into it. So off to Athens we went.
Airport chairs are lacking in sleep-able comfort. It was also freezing and crazy bright. But somehow we survived and made it back to Tel Aviv and to Jerusalem right on time and our plan was not shaken at all.
It was a long but absolutely fantastic trip! It was the perfect trip to round out our time abroad.
Day 1 Pictures, views of the island
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| View from the 7th floor breakfast balcony |
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| View of Valletta from the 7th floor balcony |
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| Another view from the 7th floor |
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| Views from the bus tour |
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| Marina, views from the bus |
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| Views from the bus |
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| Malta cities, view from the bus |
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| Mosta church, from the bus |
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| I thought these little boats were so pretty! |
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| Views from the bus |
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| Malta's edge, you can see one of the small islands in the distance |
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| Malta's edge ear the Blue Grotto |
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| Malta's edge |
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| Statue near the entrance to Valletta |
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| Church, views from the bus |
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| Malta church |
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| Mdina from the bus |
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| Entrance to Mdina |
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| View from the bus, near Mdina |
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| Harbor cruise time! |
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| Valletta from the harbor |
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| Onward says Skye |
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| Another view of Valletta from the harbor |
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| Old arches |
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| Lighthouse |
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| Lighthouse |
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| Lighthouse close up |
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| Eyes and ears of the city tower |
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| Malta Harbor and city |
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| Malta harbor |
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| Cisk and Kinnie! Yum! |
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| Beautiful gallarijas (colorful balconies) |
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| Cool doorways |
Day 2 Pictures, architecture around the island
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| More gallarijas |
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| Mdina |
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| Mdina entrance |
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| Narrow streets and walkways in Mdina |
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| More pretty gallarijas in Mdina |
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| The Cathedral of the Conversion of St Paul, in Mdina |
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| Cathedral doorway |
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| Inside |
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| Floor inside |
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| More floor |
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| Beautiful ceilings inside |
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| Full view inside |
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| Best angle I could get of the painting of Paul's shipwreck above the altar |
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| More cool Mdina narrow street ways |
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| Mdina streets |
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| View of Malta from Mdina |
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| Just outside Mdina walls |
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| Worst sandal tan ever. Wedding in a week, people don't look at a bridesmaid's feet, do they? |
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| Last view of Mdina |
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| St Marija Assunta church in Mosta |
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| Statue outside the church |
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| The Mosta Dome |
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| Inside the church |
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| Replica of the bomb that came through the dome. |
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| Valletta Castille, where the Prime Minister lives |
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| Valletta streets |
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| I love Valletta! I think these treets are so amazing! That's the sea off in the distance! |
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| More awesome Valletta streets |
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| View from the edge of Valletta |
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| Gallarijas in Valletta |
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| Garden in Valletta on the edge |
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| I LOVE these two toned flowers in the Valletta garden |
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| Skye on the edge in Valletta |
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| Oh so that's what we look like when we're in our tour bus! |
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| Sea from Valletta's edge |
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| Random catholic statues on buildings in Valletta |
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| One of the many churches in Valletta |
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| View of Malta from Valletta |
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| More cool little boats at dusk |
Day 3 Pictures, conference and dinner in Valletta
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| Skye Doney, my favorite historian, on Pilgrimage. |
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| Dinner in Valletta |
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| Valletta at dusk |
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| Our new conference friends, representing Germany, France and England! |
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| Valletta at dusk |
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| Fountain outside the Valletta walls |
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| Malta at night from our friend's balcony |
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| Goodbye Malta, goodbye, Europe! I hope to see you again one day! |
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