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Today we went and did some exploring around Mellieha and Sliema. This involved an awful lot of walking and we should have had the iPod with us as we could have created a world record for steps taken in one day.
We started out by leaving our villa complex and walking through the Santa Maria estate down to Mellieha Bay itself. The road is quite steep and on the way we passed hundreds of villas, some of which are huge. There is certainly an awful lot of money tied up in real estate in this part of Malta.
Mellieha is situated at the northern end of the island and the bay is well protected by ridges on either side of the bay. As we got to the bottom of the hill, we noticed that there were clothes lines and shelters lining the rocky foreshore. We went down some steps to have a look and found that there are hundreds of boat sheds, some actually cut into the rock and others free standing, that some people appear to be living in. We found out later, that people can live there temporarily but some certainly look well lived in and permanent.
We followed the bay around, dodging around various buildings until we reached the main Mellieha Beach, the largest sandy beach on the island. I’m sure it’s smaller than when I lived here way back in the sixties. The bay is very shallow and you can walk out a long way before the water even comes over your knees so it is very safe for children and non swimmers. The water is as blue as can be and with boats it looks quite spectacular.
We passed a sign which said Mellieha 4km, and as we took the long way round must have done at least half as much again. We had lunch at a restaurant/snack bar at the far end of the beach before we caught a bus to Sliema. We had no intention of walking back up that hill either.
The bus we caught went around the coast road to Sliema, so we went through the bustling holiday towns of Bugibba, Qawra, Paceville and St Julians. We also passed Marineland and the water park.
We got off the bus at Sliema Terminus and had a walk around some of the shops. When we got off the
bus, I was amazed to see that a bar that we went to back in 1966 was still operating and had been seen 1922. Some things don’t change at all.
We did a little bit of a walk along Sliema Creek and then we started to head up Tower Road to the esplanade overlooking the Mediterranean Sea. Apart from the fact that some of the older buildings had been demolished and replaced with new ones, this esplanade area hasn’t changed for a hundred years. There is a wide promenade that people just walk along to see and be seen.
One great innovation is what has been done below the promenade. Where previously you had to clamber over the rocks to walk along the beach, they have concreted a path all the way and at Balluta Bay they have created the most wonderful garden area right on the beach. Sometimes progress is bad, in the case it is good. We stopped for a while and just admired the sea and the gardens whilst Gina had an iced coffee and I had an ice cream.
Time was moving on, and we then caught a bus back to Mellieha and
watched the sunset over the islands of Gozo and Comino from our villa.
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Em
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What an amazing pic Dad xox