We have a winner!

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Well its official, of all the European Counties we have visited during this last 12 months, Malta is the hands down winner for our fave.
The people are the friendliest, the beaches are the bluest, the weather was the warmest and the food was the tastiest. Hows that for a good rap hey, well they deserve it.
First of all let me say that it was nothing at all like the picture I had in my head of what Malta would be like. In some parts like Sliema where we stayed, it reminded us of queenslands sunshine coast, it was so commercialised and geared towards tourism, and the development thats going on there is unbelievable. Then there´s the parts like Valetta that remain mostly untouched and are heritage listed so they cant be touched. There´s so much history there, infact we visited a temple that dates back older then the egyption pyramids!! Hows that for old.
Anyway, we spent most of the time walking up and down the beach, and did a day trip to the Blue Grotto and the temples on the other side of the island. We ran into a guy trying to sell us timeshare, and after convincing us that if we sat through just an hours talk then we could have a free harbour cruise and dinner for 2, we agreed. So, we lapped up the free meal on our last night and ate enough to feed us for a couple of weeks. Obviously we didnt buy into the timeshare, as it turns out, we had to be able to fly back to malta each year for the next 35 years.....something we couldnt quite commit to, thats a little far to come from Aus each year. The salesman had already figured out we were time wasters just after the freebies, but it paid off, hehehe.
We went to the movies for the first time since we left home, as it was in english and only cost $2 (malta Lira) a sweet bargain (compared to londons 15 pound tickets) and just generally enjoyed the laid back atmosphere.

We are now currently in spain, and boy do we have a story for you.....you´ll have to wait for the next blog for that one though, but its an absolute shocker, so it´ll be worth the wait.

Til then, take care xxx

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Photos

Did you think Malta would look like this??
This is Sliema where we stayed. Its very touristy, but very nice!

The great Explorer
Micky exploring the rock pools.

The great Poser
Me posing on the rocks. They do have sandy beaches too, just not where we stayed.

The famous buses!
Malta are famous for never updating their buses, they still run alright, they´re just really noisy, and you have to pull the string for them to stop hehe. But hey, they cost 20c to ride, so cant complain.

The streets of Sliema
The streets of Sliema. These wide foot paths go for miles, although not that far, considering it only takes 20 minutes to get anywhere on the island.

posers!
another one we took ourselves, this time on the camera timer, we only just figured out the camera had one.

Luzzu Boats
I think that´s what the maltese fishing boats are called. Some of them have eyes painted on them to protect the fisherman.

From that to this.......
This was taken from the ´free´harbour cruise. Looking back at Valetta. See what I mean about the mix of old and new?

Dont forget the palm trees.
You cant have an island without palm trees. Another pic taken from the cruise. Check out the storm clouds rolling in.

Valetta
Malta is a photographers heaven, there´s awesome views from everywhere.

And lots of steps....
Its not a flat island, there´s LOTS of steps!

Another pic from the FREE cruise
Looking back at Valetta from a different angle.

another nice spot for a pic
This was taken whilst walking around lost. Told you there´s good view everywhere.

Is this cruise guy reputable??
This is the little boat 8 of us climbed on for the tour into the blue grotto cave.

Heading into the cave
Ahhhh, dont sink now! the guy turned the boat motor off to answer his mobile then laughed as everybody on board packed their dacks thinking we´d broken down.

How blue is that water!!!
I guess thats why its called the BLUE grotto. The colours in there were amazing, it was so clear you could see the fish.

Maltas answer to stonehenge!
These temples are believed to have been built in 3500bc, older than the pyramids. We learnt from Stonehenge, that you dont bother paying the rip off price to get in, you walk around the fence and take photos for free...hahaha! (tight arse aussies)

The Fields of Malta
The land is so rocky I dont know if they could grow anything, and we didnt see any livestock. All the fences are made of stone