The last stop! We made it! I made it!

With my travel plans changing, I was able to get a refund from all of my hostel and Airbnb stays with one €50 euro exception. I’ll say goodbye to my non-refundable Ryanair flights, 3 in total, which probably make around $200. I was able to get my original flight home mostly refunded. So all in all, not a bad deal. As I said before, I’m definitely saving money by cutting ten days off my trip!

One of the travel tweaks also meant I got to spend four days in Malta instead of three. I marveled at the architectural design in the Zagreb Airport before hopping over, and I was delighted to see some more fun islands on my way out.

I also had some disappointing snacks that I’d bought in a hurry.

As we came into Malta, I was a bit confused. The landscape was so tan! All of it! Very, very little green, and very flat. I hadn’t done any research really, so I didn’t know what to expect.

I went straight to my Airbnb, which was in the center of the island. The place was so stinking cheap, and it had amazing reviews about the hospitality of its host, Francine. Apparently she cooks a mean breakfast.

My walk through the neighborhood from the bus stop continued to confirm my suspicions: everything was tan! Practically every building seemed to be made of limestone, and the sandy-colored dust seemed to just kind of sit on every other surface, too. It was quite windy, and I kept getting sand in my eyes, so I had to put my sunglasses on!

It was pretty, though, and very different-feeling from Croatia. I liked it instantly.

Upon arriving at my Airbnb, I was thrilled to see I had a private bathroom again. Huzzah!!!! I was so stinking tired of those hostels! Wearing flip flops in the shower, balancing my clean clothes and towel on the single provided hook, and then attempting to change into all of it before walking across the hall back to my bunk was getting really old.

Francine had left me snacks and tea, which I delighted in as I planned out my evening. Though I’d gone straight to the airport in the morning, it was already almost three in the afternoon when I arrived at my Airbnb. I dilly dallied for a while before deciding to partake in The Three Villages Walk, a route outlined in a pamphlet I got at the airport. Turns out I was staying smack inside one of those villages! How convenient!

The route sent me meandering through quiet sandy streets, and the gusty wind sent a chill up my legs despite the relative warmth. I loved the abundance of bougainvillea and weathered limestone.

The path had dozens of interest points: churches, buildings, etc., and each of these had an informational placard.

The whole point of this walk is that these are believed to be some of the first villages on the island. Though we’re mostly used to big cities and capitals being located on the water for trade, the first large settlements of Malta, and the historic capital, are all in the center of the island to avoid pirates and attacks. This particular house is believed to exist in the exact center of Malta.

At one point, I was standing aimlessly between some flowers and some cats who were meowing loudly at a door. A car stopped near me and I realized the driver was talking to me. “Do you need help with something?” he asked.

“Oh, no, thank you!” I responded, but felt I needed to provide more information. I added, “I was just listening to the cats!” Lol. He laughed and drove off.

This would not be the last beautiful red church I would enter! Nor the last I’d see in service! The Maltese practice Catholicism like no other!

After a couple hours, I was getting hungry and tired, and I had to pee, but no restaurants were open for dinner until seven! I settled for a tiny slice of packaged chocolate chip bread and sat on a bench to rest for a while near this fun house-turned-roundabout.

I found another beautiful red church on my way to dinner and had a major faux-pas. To activate my phone’s camera quickly, I can double-tap the power button. However, if I hold it for too long or click it too many times, I have learned that a safety alarm goes off!! Very loudly! And if I don’t deactivate it within five seconds, it will alert emergency services!

A great feature in general. Not a great feature in church. And not a great feature when I’m constantly clicking my phone button for pictures! It’s happened like three times now on this trip, and never before!

For dinner, I found a lovely Italian restaurant owned by a lady from Genoa, Italy. I walked in to find her and a new employee talking about life over wine and spritz, and I was immediately welcomed into the family.

Adele (pronounced Adella), the owner, was all, Elizabeth this, and Elizabeth that! It was pretty funny. She literally described every item on the menu to me and what kind of vibe each dish gave off.

I started with a prosecco and ordered a homemade tagliatelle with pork cheek and tomato sauce. It was a little pricey, but it was a goooood pasta, let me tell you. And just the perfect serving size.

For dessert, I had some panna cotta, which I’d been craving for about a week.

Then after I paid, Adele offered me a sipping glass of limoncello! How nice! “Elizabeth (pronounced ee-LITZ-a-bet), if you need anything, anything, you know.” She said this as she handed me her business card. Very sweet. We even chatted quite a bit about Malta, Italy, my travels, Covid, etc. A very nice end to an evening!

On my first morning in Malta, I was shown that, indeed, Francine made a huge breakfast.

How am I supposed to eat all of this?! That’s a fried egg, a hot dog(?), baked beans, fried zucchini, ham, fresh peas (I don’t think I’ve ever had fresh peas before!), fresh orange juice, strawberries, toast with about a dozen spreads, a dozen cereals, and a small plate of sweets. Crazy!

Needless to say, I did not quite finish the hot dog or beans, and I abstained from the cereal, but I did a good job on everything else! I was very full.

Francine herself had woken and eaten at five in the morning, but she plopped herself down in an armchair near the dining table and chatted with me the whole time I ate. She was so sweet. Really like a mama bear. Born and raised Maltese, with a son and daughter who both still live and work close by, and two granddaughters. One of those granddaughters wanted a pet, so a little blue parrot lived in a cage in the living room. I’d thought I’d heard bird sounds the night before!

When I made my way outside for the day, I found evidence of what Francine called “sandy rain.” Apparently wind sweeps up sand from the Sahara Desert, mixes with the clouds in the atmosphere, and dumps it all on Malta. I’ve never heard of such a thing! But everything was stained orange! All of the cars looked like they’d just done some SERIOUS off-roading, and all of the benches were coated in dried orange droplets. How strange!

My first stop for the day was Mdina, the historic capital of Malta. I was set up for a walking tour of this walled city and its neighbor Rabat, which literally means “suburb.”

Apparently this gate was one of the entrances to King’s Landing. Game of Thrones is following me!

The walls and buildings of this city were narrow, high, and close. Helps make the city harder to invade. It sure was a maze, though!

Our guide, Micah, told us all about how poor Malta had been under so many different rules throughout time. It had also been abandoned for lack of water at one point and then taken up by new Arab settlers. Then eventually some English knights took over and converted everyone to Christianity. Then the French and Spanish had a visit. All of this led to quite a mixed culture! Maltese has words from all of these cultures, and they even pray to Allah in Catholic church, which I think is very cool.

One of the most interesting things she told us was that the Maltese used to pay a lot of money to the church in an attempt to speed their way through purgatory in the after life. When people didn’t have enough money to pay in their lifetime, they would instead sign contracts with the church such that anyone who bought their house or lived in it thereafter would pay an annual fee to the church in that person’s stead. Our guide lives in one of these houses, under a contract hundreds of years old! The fee is twenty-two euros per year for the house. However, it has since been split into eight apartments, one of which Micah owns, and each of the eight apartments must pay the entire annual fee! So strange!

We walked along the city walls and got some nice views of the surrounding fields.

We made a stop for a classic Maltese snack – pastizzi, from one of the most famous shops. There was a little old man moving tray after tray of these goodies in and out of the oven! Flavor choices were ricotta, peas, chicken, and mushrooms. I went with ricotta. Yum!

I was getting pretty tired by this point. I thought it would be a 1.5 – 2 hour tour, but our break was nearly two hours in! I was straight up exhausted and hardly even listening by the end of it. The heat didn’t help!

At the recommendation of the guide, I decided to visit the St. Paul catacombs. Regrets! I don’t like catacombs! But she talked it up so much. Idk. I mostly don’t love that this place that was once a graveyard is now… Empty of bodies. Anything that disrupts the dead and puts it on display (especially mummies!) really rubs me the wrong way.

The only cool part (besides the cool underground air) were these stone “tables” that family members came to feast upon to honor the dead and send them off to the afterlife. Seems strange but wholesome.

There were also some tomb covers that dictated what kind of life the person lived. So this one belonged to a doctor or a surgeon! Neat!

When I surfaced, I wandered toward some churches and found a museum that actually had a much better lit, less creepy set of catacombs ruins that had been converted into WWII shelters. There was also art. I enjoyed this space much better. And when I thought back, I realized the guide told us the museum wasn’t worth it! Her recommendations were all wrong for me, haha.

I was really craving something cold and fruity, so I got this manufactured gelato thing. It was like pebbles of frozen smoothie that was ground back into a smoothie by a machine. Strange, and way overpriced, but it really hit the spot. It was called a Fruitiamo.

For another snack before leaving Mdina and Rabat, I grabbed a couple more local treats – imqarets. Most of the sweets here are Arabic – lots of dates, nuts, etc. I got one with dates and one with Nutella!

Then I hopped on a bus to get to the modern capital city – Valetta.

I was supposed to do a second walking tour here, but I made the big old choice to cancel last minute. I just couldn’t imagine walking around listening to someone talk for another two hours! A lot of the history would likely overlap, too.

But mainly, my feet needed a break.

The tour was supposed to meet at this place where they fire a ceremonial cannon every day at 4pm. This was my view, haha:

When the cannons went off and the crowds cleared, I got a better angle.

I decided to just hang out here on a bench in the shade and eat my imqarets while reading for a while. A tiny, tiny lady bug landed on my palm at one point! Hard to tell in the shadow, but it really was a tiny lady bug!

I also saw a young couple kiss in front of me. Like a very quick peck. But it reminded me of my boyfriend and I was instantly crying big crocodile tears. Hahaha. I just let the tears pool in the rim of my sunglasses so I wouldn’t get weird looks for crying in a public place. Wouldn’t be the first time!

Once I recovered and gained some energy, I patted myself on the back for my genius decision to skip the tour, and then I took a leisurely walk through the city and along its walls. Lots of stairs in this city!

I found some pretty gardens further down and watched the waves crashing against the bridges and walls. Some of the waves were pretty fierce!

I continued wandering, going into the depths of the city, walking among the busy shops and outdoor restaurants. I even found my once-favorite store, Flying Tiger Copenhagen! I bought some stickers.

I was really hoping to find some yummy food at the “food market” on the map, but it was mostly food from around the world, and I wanted something more local. I got a bottle of fresh orange juice, though!

Now, here’s where I went wrong. I went past so many restaurants that probably would have been really tasty, but they were all either a little too pricey or the music was way too loud and pumpin’. For some reason, this cheap restaurant I’d passed before was calling to me. I suspected the food might not actually be very good, but again, I went without reason.

The second I walked in, I knew for sure it was going to be a bad restaurant, hahahaha. Just the feel of it. Also, there was a dude on a keyboard singing with a backing soundtrack, and the volume was way too loud. I was quickly seated directly in front of him, lol.

This guy’s song choices were cracking me up. He sang a few country songs (with a country accent), some Elvis songs (like an Elvis impersonator), and some classics. When he sang “Amazed” by Lonestar, I was originally dying of laughter inside. But then he sang one particularly romantic line that reminded me of Sean, and I was on the verge of tears again. What a mess!! Hahaha.

My dinner was a “spaghetti rabbit sauce,” but there was no rabbit to be seen and lots of peas. It was one of the most unimpressive and uninteresting plates of spaghetti I have ever eaten, hahahaha. Not bad, certainly. But very much like low-tier cafeteria food.

The real shocker came when an older Maltese man started talking to me from the table behind me! The first thing he asked, twice, was, “You need another?” while pointing in my general direction. I finally understood that he was trying to buy me another glass of wine. At this point, I was maybe 20% into my current glass, so no, I did not need another.

Then he offered coke, sprite, etc. I declined again and tried to pointedly return to my book and my food with my back to him.

But he kept on going!

“You like Maltese dinner?”

“Are you taking holiday?”

“Are you having a boyfriend?”

Oh, boy, you should have heard his disappointed, “.. Oh ..” after I said yes to that one!!!

“Why did he leave you alone?!”

And then, the real kicker: “You like fishing?” I hmm’d and hawed, to which he asked, “Do you want to have a drink with me after? Nothing serious. See my boat, is maybe 50 by six. Is in Marsaloxx. You know it?”

This seventy year old man literally wanted me to drive twenty minutes with him to the other side of the island to his fishing boat at 9:30 at night to have a drink with him!!!! Like, what?! Has this worked for him before?! Did he really think I was going to say yes to that? Or to more than that?!!!

Let me tell you one thing for sure: even if I was very single and he was forty years younger, I would have still said no.

I worried at that point about whether he might try following me when I left, but luckily he left about five minutes later with a brief, “Enjoy your evening.” What a crazy encounter.

I managed to finish that entire plate of spaghetti and the whole glass of wine, and then I enjoyed the lights on my way back to my Airbnb.

I think I’ll split my Malta visit into two posts so I don’t tire you out with my chatting and my pictures! So stay tuned for part two!

Ciao,

-Lizzy-wa