Cakes and Cliftops

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Geo: 35.87, 14.4

After yesterdays action packed, sun fueled, sightseeing day, we decided to embrace the typical Sunday spirit and have a rather relaxing day. With this in-mind we decided to venture to Medina and Rabat - Medina being the old capital of Malta and Rabat being the more recent suburb. According to Wikipedia, Medina has a population of just 300 whilst Rabat has 11,000 inhabitants. After first boarding a bus to the rather more lively Buggiba, we found ourselves running to get our connecting bus and not quite sure where we'd be getting off.

First stop was Medina. A small medieval walled town on top of a hill in the center of the Island. A bit like Lucca, Italy with the exception of sunshine rather than rain and houses in the place of shops. Medina was a maze of small, narrow streets flanked by two storey mustard coloured limestone houses. The city wall has been amazingly preserved, same goes for St Paul's Cathedral. There was also an absolute hidden gem in the form of Fontanella Cafe; a multi-layered cafe which had several outdoor terraces overlooking the Maltese countryside and out to the bay at Buggiba.

Next stop was the town of Rabat, a short 5 meter walk from the main gate of Medina. Rabat lacked the charm of Medina, being formed of more general apartments, shops and traffic. However, it had a certain traditional, everything is closed on a sunday, charm in its own right. We decided to take a wander through Rabat towards the Catacombs of St Paul and war shelters. The Catacombs were amazing, and very easy to get lost in for an hour or so. Softly lit, only slightly developed for tourist access and a much cooler temperature than above ground, we lost ourselves down these windey underground alleys. The war shelters were also interesting, although more developed and with a less authentic feel than the ones in Melleiha.

We then spent the next what felt like forever wandering around Rabat in search of food and water, not having appreciated that literally everything is closed on a Sunday. Finally, we gave up and parched waited forever (again, what felt like!) for the one an hour bus that would take us to Dingli where we hoped someone could point us in the direction of some beautiful views, and more importantly, that all elusive bottle of cold water. The bus took about 15 minutes to get to the town of Dingli. A small town which is only on the tourist trail due to it's cliffs being the highest point in Malta, at 600m above sea level. We got off the bus, asked someone the way to the cliffs, walked the 10 mins uphill, saw a cafe and finally quenched our first. The cliffs were indeed beautiful and many photos later we headed back to the bus stop for our first of 3 buses back to Melleiha.

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