Blogs from Malta, Europe - page 13

Today's our last day in Malta. Our ever reliable relative, friend and tour guide Louis picks us up and we head towards Valletta. As ever, parking's not easy. We pull into a spot with a sign saying it‘s reserved for the head of the department responsible for the collection of parking fines. I hope he doesn't work on Saturdays. We go into the iconic Phoenicia Hotel which Louis tells us has been here since before World War II. It‘s a classical old style luxury establishment from a bye-gone era, with a magnificent garden, and a great position right next to the bastion. Louis says that his niece Annette used to work here as a waitress, and once served Charlton Heston. Apparently she had no idea who he was. I‘m suddenly feeling very old. Next stop is ... read more

We‘ve been on the go for a few days in a row now, so we decide that today will be for sleeping in, domestics and hanging around the hotel. We've run out of clean clothes. We don't particularly want to pay the hotel's exorbitant laundry prices, so we decide to wash them ourselves. We order laundry detergent from reception, and it turns up as a liquid in a tiny plastic cup draped in Glad Wrap. I start to wash clothes in the bath. Issy soon tells me I'm doing it wrong, and gives me a lesson in how to do it properly. I hadn't realised it could be so complicated. We try to hang the clothes on the inflatable hangers that Issy brought with us, but they‘re too heavy; the plugs keeps popping out, and the ... read more

Louis picks us up from the hotel again. We're learning; this time we don't wait outside on the road, so buses and taxis don't stop for us and we don't manage to make any drivers angry. We drive along the main road along the north coast. We pass a roundabout which is still being constructed. It looks a bit odd; the only road going in and out of it is the one we're on. Louis explains that while they were constructing the main road they found some ancient archaeological ruins right in the middle of where it was supposed to go. The solution was to build a roundabout, so that the the ruins will now be under the roundabout rather than the road. If that wasn't going to be costly enough, it was right at the ... read more

We wait in the street outside the hotel for Louis and his wife Lily to pick us up. We're a bit slow to realise that we're standing on a bus stop. It should have been a giveaway that the buses kept stopping and the drivers looked a bit angry when we waved them on. Our first stop is Louis and Lily's caravan where they spend most of the summer. It's parked on what looks to us like prime waterfront land, and they tell us they expect that the government will soon stop them using it so that the site can be developed. Lily talks to their caravan neighbour who she tells us has twice won the lottery. We wonder why she's still living in a caravan, but apparently both times the prizes were rabbits. Of course ... read more

As I hit my last week of travels, I can't help but to tear up at nearly every thought of each experience that I've had with the people I've met along the way and the ones that I've had on my own. Over the last nine months, I've embarked on so many journey's both big and small, with so many wonderful people. I couldn't have had such amazing experience without you all. I have said it so many times, but the people out here are incredible. So welcoming, so full of life and so willing to help at any turn. So here is to the longest run on sentence reminiscing on the things that I have embarked upon with you, the experiences that we have shared, the thank you's that I owe and the love that ... read more