luckykaa | Entries tagged with malta

So, we slept, not very well. I apparently slept better than

flickums who was kept up by inconsiderate guests and an inconsiderate boyfriend snoring in her ear.

Struggled out of bed at 6am. Checked out. Drove to airport. Dropped off car. A person came to check it was okay, and we gave him the key. Either he worked for Europcar or he's a con artist there to steal cars.

Checked in. Found out that we couldn't have seats next to each other. Was angry at myself about that. Should have done online check-in the night before.

So now we're back.

Feel I could have dne this holiday better. I made a bad choice with the hotel. Grotty. Rubbish breakfast. No parking at the hotel. Pool closes annoyingly early. Tripadvisor seems to have mixed reviews. Also the heat was difficult to deal with, and the country was quite scruffy in general.

Hiring a car was a good choicem and despite the crappiness of the Peugeot 107, it does the job, is extremely fuel efficient, and fits into small parking spaces. Would have been a problem if there were more than 2 of us since there's no boot space (My MG has a bigger boot even with an engine taking up most of the space in the back), and really no leg room for rear passengers. Beaches were really nice.

Would have liked to have had more time to see Valetta and some of the Roman sites. Also more time swimming in the sea.

Not sure if St. Juilans was a good place or not. On one hand it's a bit too much of a party district, on the other hand, it was nice to go to the Hookah bar on my birthday and there are a lot of useful shops.

Still, I enjoyed doing the tourist stuff. And swimming in Ramla Bay. And the food was good. I like walled cities and ancient archaological sites. Gozo is a lovely place. Especially that bay. The ferry ride was fun. It was nice to get away from England for a bit. I liked the Game of Thrones tour. Prices were pretty reasonable most of the time.

It was a nice holiday. On the whole I enjoyed it. Just think it could have been better. I think I was spoiled by Dubrovnik.

Have arrived back in Britain, and done the epic drive to Manchester, so I have a few minutes to update.

Final day of holiday. We went to the Game Of Thrones tour. We were told to look for a silver van with "Peppin" written on it. We saw a van matching that description and it went right past us. Turns out a lot of vans match that description.But the right silver van with Peppin arrived, and we started the tour. First of all the minibus bounced around the island's bumpy roads to pick everyone else up. Then we were taken to the first site. Our guide Malcolm seems to have done all sorts of odd jobs on various films, doing minor bits of acting, horse riding, set direction, stunts, looking after the cast and so on. Much like in Dubrovnik, he had screengrabs from the show so we could compare. Also talked a bit about how the makeup is done and how they covered up things that needed to be covered up.

Seems most of Kings Landing was San Anton palace and gardens. Was probably a lot less hassle than Dubrovnik, since it isn't a busy tourist site, and all the useful locations are pretty much in the same place. Next stop, we went to Mdina again. Our guide pointed out some of the historical locations. I foundit interesting. Poor

flickums wasn't dealing well with the heat. And one of the locations was completely outside of the shade. Turns out that the reason for all the scots is that there's a Scotland Malta match on.

Next stop was down an even more bouncy road to where the Dothraki scenes were shot. Turns out that the desert plans were actually CGI'd in place of the sea. Also turns out that the scene with thousands of Dothraki was shot by that old trick of sending horses round in a loop, so as soon as they're off camera, they gallop back to the back of the line and circle round.

Tour ended at a point overlooking Popeye Village - the actual set from the Robin Williams movie.

Returned to the hotel and jumped in the pool. Flickums was a lot happier after shedding heat, and this time we weren't thrown out early. No idea what the deal was the previous night. Went into town and saw even more Scottish footy fans. Had food, cocktails, and an ice cream from the make your own ice cream place. I made a point of adding a Maltese Malteser. Since they were priced by weight, that Malteser pushed the price to €5.03, but fortunately we were lett off the odd 3 cents.

Returned to hotel and went to bed because we needed to get up early for the flight.

flickums bought me dinner. Cake didn't have a candle in it though.

Wandered through the party district, and Flickums coerced me into trying a hookah. Something I've never tried before. We went for vanilla flavour, and had a Tequila Sunrise to go with it. Thus making that song stick in my head.

Flickums was wearing her long skirt, bodice and shawl, and looked every bit the madame of an opium den. The sort of high class establishment our adventurers go to for their leads.

The party district is not really my sort of area but a great place for people watching. Quite a few Scottish people. Not sure why.

Finished the evening drinking Pina Coladas, but it wasn't raining so that song doesn't really fit here. So Eagles still stuck in my head.

Current Mood: drunk
Current Music: The Eagles - Tequila Sunrise

40th birthday celebration started with flickums waking me up and letting me open presents. I now have all of Futurama to rewatch, Mysterious Cities Of Gold season 2 to watch and 2 new extra geeky t-shirts.

Set off back to Mdina to see the catacombs, the WW2 shelters and St Paul's grotto. Perhaps we should have paid extra for the audio tour since there wasn't much context. But it seems St Paul preached from here after being shipwrecked on Malta. Catacombs are a maze of passages which may have been also been used as bomb shelters. Will have to look into the details.

Flickums bought me a White Chocolate Magnum.

Also visited Valetta. This is the serious tourist centre of the island. Loads of tourist tat shops, restaurants, ice cream shops. Flickums bought me a yoghurt ice cream. There's also the regular selection of regular high street stores. Found a cafe advertising local craft beers and enjoyed a Blue Lagoon brewed in Gozo.

Heat was getting to us so we headed back to the car. Flickums bought me a caramel Magnum on the way.

Returned to the hotel to chill in the pool. Turfed out at just after 6 though. Was told it closed at 7.

Still, not to worry. Flickums is taking me to dinner.

Update: Flickums took me to dinner. I had pork chops. They were yummy!

Tasty tasty food at a restaurant that seemed to close at 7pm. Didn't want to go straight back to the hotel, so went for a wander. We meet a nice horsey and his owner persuaded us that we should go on a horse drawn tour. Quite good fun, and both horse and owner were friendly. Learned about a few things we missed.

There was enough time to do a bit more exploring, so we tried to find a secluded bay mentioned by the guidebook. After bouncing down lots of increasingly narrow roads, Holly the evil SatNav decided to take me through an obviously closed road. Decided to rage quit at that point.

Now at the hotel bar drinking local beers, and bemoaning the fact that I only have a few more hours of being in my 30's.

In other news; The discovery of the rear doors on the car was quite a revelation.

Had a morning chilling in the pool and hot tub before heading out to sightsee.

Visiting Another walled city. This one on the mainland. Mdina - Pronounced Em-dina or possibly Mmm-dina rather than Madina.

Started with a tour on one of those little trains. flickums was disappointed it wasn't a real train. We were bounced along Malta's dishevelled roads as a recorded voice pointed out the things to look at. Gave a nice overview of what we want to look at later. Also showed that the city itself was just behind us.

It's a nice city to explore. Lots of narrow streets and passageways, apparently to thwart knights and archers.

Had a look at St Paul's cathedral. Were about to pay for tickets to get in (Flick was, I'm less willing to pay just for a church) but apparently entry was free two minutes later so we waited.

Thought we should see something else before everything closes so bought tickets for the audio - visual tours. We bought the triple ticket, in part because I was a bit confused about what we were buying.

First shiw was in another buikding, so we started off with an escort mission where we followed someone to the first venue. The show was a series of static displays about knights. Each segment has an audio description. Then the tour abruptly ended.

Second escort mission took us to a display of life in Malta in historic times. No audio stuff here. Just signs explaining stuff. Seemed to end before it really started.

Finally it was "The Mdina Experience - audio visual spectacular", or "Movie"... still, it was an interesting documentary, and well worth the money to sit down in an air conditioned room

Found a lovely place for foods. They had wifi I had delicious steak, Flickums had a burger and we ended with chocolate mousse.

Gozo is a lovely little island just next to Malta. Much less densely populated, and full of exciting places to visit. We drove there, found the ferry, and just missed the boat. Still, they run every 45 minutes so not a massive wait. Got a bit lost getting back to the car and got shouted at by ferry crew.

Started to follow the driving tour reminded by Lonely Planet. Got lost. Found Xewkija, with its massive church visible from most of the island. Got a bit lost trying to find somewhat to park.but eventually found what we were looking for. Sure is big. There's a lift up to the top, for views of the island. Got back on the road tour, and went to Nadur. Everywhere was surprisingly shut.

Flicking through the guidebook, I saw mention of the Ggantija Temples. Seemed just the place to summon an Eldritch horror. If we could find the damn place. Signs pointed in the general direction, and then stopped. But we did find the place. Nice visitor centre with air con, and the temple itself, is showing its age a little, 5000 years does that to a place. Still, certainly possible to see how it was laid out, and signs explain what we're looking at.

I think by this point we'd abandoned the tour. Decided to head straight to the beach. Ramla Bay is one of the best beaches I've been on. Golden sand, warm water. Not horribly crowded.

Realised we hadn't seen the walled city in Victoria. Also needed to eat. As luck would have it, there is a restaurant in the walled city. So we found somewhere to park, and climbed up the hill to the city. There was a lot of climbing, on account of fortresses generally being designed to keep people out, rather than initially as tourist attractions. Still, we climbed up, and then up the steps to the restaurant. And finally arrived. Where we were directed up another flight of stairs, and a narrow winding staircase to the terrace. There was a lot of climbing. Very small selection, but a couple of Maltese items. I had rabbit. flickums had goat.

Covered, we struggled back to the car, got lost trying to escape Victoria, but made it to the Getty terminal despite Holly's frequent attempts to send us the wrong way down 1 way roads. Meet a cute doggy on the ferry.

So that was a pretty complete day. Have done all the things I felt I had to do on this holiday already.

We have arrived in Malta.

Hired a car. Helpful man showed us how to get the seat down because a Peugeot 106 has less boot space than Thunderbird. Couldn't work out how to slide seats forward to access back seats.
Holly the evil SatNav took us to the hotel. We found Malta's only free parking space, and checked in. Then went on a food hunt. Found a place with a nice selection of food and cocktails, after taking a slightly odd route into the restaurant part of town. Took a more direct route back.

First impressions; St. Julians seems to have a lot of strip clubs. Hotel room is a bit grotty, but the bed is nice and big. We seem to be next to Little Scotland.

Went up to the pool. It was shut. Opening times are a bit short. Not the best hotel. Nice weather though, and it is a bustling part of town even aside from strip clubs.

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Flying home
Death and Boobies tour.
Birthday part 2
Birthday #40
Mdina - after m' dinner
Mdina.
Malta day 2 Summoning Goza on Gozo.
Malta. Day 1. Flickums braves another scare-o-plane

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