Joe and I have been a little lax lately with posting blogs and pictures, and we are both sorry about that and annoyed that it has taken us so long to catch up. We went to Malta for our first anniversary, had Tommy and Sunni stay with us the next weekend, moved apartments the weekend after that, then went to Bergen, Norway and Cinque Terre, Italy. Now that all of that is done, Joe and I have finally had some time to relax and catch up on everything. Look for separate blogs on each of those events in the near future.
Today though, I want to get down my thoughts on Malta. Beli
eve it or not, the tiny island of Malta is its own separate, somewhat isolated country with a population of 400,000. Geographically, it is located smack dab in the middle of the Mediterranean, south of Sicily and east of Tunisia. It has historically been a very important seafaring location, and hence has been invaded variously by the Turks, Arabs, Romans, the British and Napoleon over the centuries. Its history goes back very far, in fact Il-Ggantija, the oldest known standing structure in the world, is located here and dates from 5500 BC. Think about this point for a minute – it is older than Stonehenge, the Acropolis, and the Pyramids! Of course when we visited it mostly looked like a big pile of rocks and rubble, but that is mostly due to poor excavation work.
All in all, we 
really enjoyed Malta. Everyone spoke English fluently (it is a national language along with Maltese) so it was really easy to get around. We stayed in a couple of different hotels (all on points!), one in the capital Valletta surrounded by 14th century walls, and the other in the resort town of St. Julian’s where all the nightlife and restaurants are. We were expecting a relaxing trip not unlike our honeymoon, but we were a little disappointed in that regard. There was so much to see and do that it took a lot of effort to let go and relax.
We were also slightly disappointed in the quality of the beaches. We had to take a bus or taxi for a 45 minute drive to the north side of the island (away from all the cities) just to get to a sandy stretch of beach. The rest of the coast was very rocky with lots of high cliffs. Don’t get me wrong though, the most amazing beach Joe and I have ever seen is on th
e Maltese island of Gozo. It has soft, red sand and is impeccably clean and not too crowded. The water is fresh, clean and an amazing dark blue, which complemented the color of the sand beautifully. This was our first trip on the Mediterranean, and the blueness of the water really surprised us.
While we were on Gozo we also had the chance to peek in on a very traditional part of village life in Malta. Every year each village has one or more ‘festas’ to celebrate their patron saint. The whole place is decked out in garlands and decorations, and the night of the festa everyone eats, drinks, goes to church, and sets off fireworks. We couldn’t stay for the fireworks part, but we did get to see the parade into the village square. We were the only foreigners there, and I feel like we got a piece of the real Malta which is a change from all the touristy things we do. Our time on Gozo was by far my favorite part of the trip.
It’s so hard to mention all the cool things we did! We took a trip to the Blue Lagoon, ate ridiculously good seafood and got lots to drink at our hotel pools. We saw the Azure Window, Fungus Rock, and had a picnic on the beach. We tried for several days to rent a boat, but alas, the sea was too rough and no boats were being rented during our stay. There is so much to see and do in Malta that I’m sure we didn’t even see half of what it has to offer.
One of my favourite parts was that it was about 80F and sunny every day, while in London it was about 55-60F, cloudy with some rain (just like it is now, come to think of it). I miss it already…
