Island in the Sun

Bugibba

The 2 most important moments in any holiday I have are the moments that I leave home for the last time and that moment when I first return home. The moment I leave is significant because as I make the final preparations for my journey, finish packing, do the washing etc.. I am wondering what kinds of things are in store for me. What if something goes wrong, what if a plan falls through, what if I forget something, what if something gets stolen, maybe I should learn the French/Italian word for ???? or what if I made an incorrect plan and I remind myself of all the backup backup backup plans, contingencies and systems in place that over time I have developed to deal with holidays. The moment I return is significant because I walk through the door after having lived in shoe boxed European hotel rooms and my backpack for 7 weeks and can’t believe how much space I have. I then see my home as I left it and am reminded by what I was doing just prior to leaving and what I was thinking and realize there was a point when I didn’t know what adventures were in store for me that has been long since forgotten. For this reason I have planted something so that as soon as I enter my living room I will laugh but I can’t say what it is because then I can read my blog and remember.

  

Lost somewhere!

As expected on the flight over I sat next to a blonde German girl, I suspect there is a clause in the seat allocation algorithm for airlines to ensure that this always happens. However I didn’t really get talking to her because I didn’t want my trip to start on such a high that the only way was down. She also had a boyfriend. I flew Emirates for the first time and it was 7 hours to Singapore, with a 2 hour layover during which time I found the best toilets at the Singapore airport (near the coffee bean and tea leaf) which are pretty much a deserted sanctuary of cleanliness and space and it was good to know that my spiritual gift of finding public toilets was working from the outset of my trip. From there it was another 7 hours to Dubai which I discovered was an absolutely huge airport that was jammed packed with people. I found somewhere to have a coffee and passed the time away before catching another flight that went to Larnaca in Cyprus and then Malta. It turned out the whole Larnaca thing was a bit of a debacle and that wasn’t because of a bumpy landing. Emirates flight attendants do some things really well and are really proactive always giving you something to eat or drink and they look and smell nice and advertise the fact they speak 20 different languages between them, including Swedish and make all announcements in Emirate and English. However their communication is very poor when it comes time to providing instructions upon landing. Nobody was quite sure when landing in Cyprus if we had to get off the plane if flying on to Malta or stay on. In the end as we made moves to get off we were told to stay onboard but this created complications because then the cleaners came on board, new passengers came on as some were leaving and it reminded me of flying in the early 80’s when this was exactly what happened during stopovers. They even sprayed that magical spray at the end which nobody is quite sure what it does. I suggested it was to kill Mosquitoes which got me a few laughs.

St Paul's Cathedral Mdina

During the flight over I made friends with the Maltese people around me. Maltese people love 3 things, eating, talking and complaining. They complain more then the Hawthorn football club does about its draw each year. So we were able to bond over how poorly Emirates managed some of these layovers on the trip over as a few of us had flown all the way from Melbourne and were never really sure if we should get off the plane or stay onboard. It turned out that the lady on sitting on my left found a connection with the lady on my right such is the size of the Maltese community. I got all sorts of tips on what to see and do in Malta and they all wished me well for my trip.

Valletta Sunrise

Malta was the perfect first stop on my trip. It is the San Diego of the Mediterranean. Its almost always warm sunny weather and there are only 55 days a year with rain (most of these are in winter). It attracts tourists from all over Europe escaping their colder weather, in particular the English, German, Italian, French and Spanish tourists. If they looked European and spoke another language then it was all Dutch to me. The deepwater port of Valletta is a breathtakingly beautiful UNESCO World Heritage listed area (my trip is full of such areas so get used to this) and I paid $10 extra for a room with a view and it was well worth it. Valletta is a planned city and relatively modern by European standards being only a few hundred years old. Its built on a grid system which is unusual for European cities, meaning it’s easy for westerners to get around without getting lost. Italians on the other hand always seem to be getting lost so no doubt they will get me back when I soon go there. When I did a holiday review of my last trip with myself (yes I had a meeting – a clipboard was present!) it was decided that I should always try and start my trip off in a warmer place where they speak English and where I can just roam around in the sun doing as much or as little as I please as I recover from jetlag. On my last trip I made the mistake of kicking off in Paris and it rained, I got a cold and it was just extra effort to deal with that as well as handle language issues.

Fireworks Festival - 2 long hours!

The thing to remember about Malta is that it’s just a little bit different. There are no road rules here, you should drive on the left but it doesn’t matter if you don’t, traffic lights are optional, there is no drink driving limit, its ok to double or triple park, you don’t have to indicate or wear a seat beat and you don’t have to give way to pedestrians. So it’s basically just like being in Melbourne except there everyone drives illegally and gets away with it. I certainly didn’t have any problems with the madness and just exercised more caution when walking around. However it’s more than that. The people have an oddball sense of humour as well. Tourism is a big thing here but people aren’t all that tourist friendly, don’t expect customer service with a smile or for people to go that extra mile with providing information – you have to be direct and blunt with people. So for me this all worked out perfectly. I got the people and humor straight away so when leaving the hotel on my first day to enter the perfect sunshine the hotel manager stops me and says, “You can’t leave without your umbrella.” and I stop and say, “Really - its going to rain today?” and he just laughs at me and then I get it and join in. It may have something to do with the fact that I have a small amount of Maltese heritage in me cos my Nana was Maltese. She talked all the time, complained a lot and cooked the most awful salty food like ox-tongue stew. I wouldn’t eat that as an adult and certainly didn’t as a kid. In coming here I understand her a bit better now. She always took us to the worst, ugliest beaches in South Australia, filled with seaweed but the Maltese word for beach literally means “seaweed entry point” because here that’s what most beaches are. She just didn’t know any better. And of course I understand now why she settled in Adelaide. They say Adelaide has a Mediterranean climate and feeling the heat here for the first time I really did think, “It’s just like a warmish day in Adelaide.” Except here there is often a sea breeze.

Vitorrosia Harbour

Valletta, the capital of Malta was heavily bombed during World War II as Malta was a very strategic port for the British. Indeed we were forced to watch a documentary about this when we were kids and saw how the Maltese survived with the help of the Daleks. I think Doctor Who was on after it so my memories are fused or it was a doctor who rip-off like Inspector Space time, which was set in Malta. Malta is a fusion of all sorts of influences – British, Roman, Spanish, Italian and French. The country has been around for a long time and was very looked after during Roman times, then the Spanish took over for a while and there was a long period where the Knights of St John were here. These knights came out of the crusades and were an order of military monks assigned with protecting the island from invaders, mainly the evil Turks who failed several times to capture the island. Napoleon managed to gain control of the island for a short while but he looted the churches treasures to finance his wars so the Maltese called the British for help who then stayed for another 150 years. Hence English is an official language along with Italian and of course Maltese. It surprised me but there was more Italian spoken here then I expected and there is certainly a lot Italian signage around. The TV commercials are weird as they try and do everything in 3 languages – mass marketing! English is spoken by everyone to varying degrees but the locals all speak Maltese to each other and certainly seem better at it then English. The service industry is not something you should expect much of. There is none of this friendly, “Hi, I’m Jane and I’ll be your waiter this evening spiel.” or questions like, “Is there anything else I can help you with?” It’s more like “you want to eat?” or “need menu?” when you sit down at a café and don’t ever expect a smile. That said, I never had any problems and as I kept frequenting the same places the staff got friendlier with me and would greet me. The coffee here was quite good, better then the UK coffee but not on par with Australia. It was cheap though, 1.50 Euro was the going rate but in some places cappuccinos were more expensive than lattes and vice versa. I couldn’t figure out why.

War Rooms - They kept score for the whole war!

Malta is a very easy country to get around because of an intricate bus system that works across the island.  As the country is tiny, it’s also densely populated. Nearly half a million people crammed into a space smaller than the Isle of Wight.  Despite this there is so much to see and even though I was tired and jetlagged I made myself do it all in order to assimilate and recover from my journey. The capital Valletta is a historic town filled with all sorts of old buildings, forts, Churches, museums and cafes. Its also quite hilly but despite this is a great place to just stroll around for hours as there is always something to stumble on. Not far from here is the touristy Silema. It stands opposite Valletta on its own bay and is basically a series of high rise buildings and tourist villas built right on the beach. It is the place to go for shopping. Not far from there is St Julien, also very touristy it is set right on the bay and is filled mainly with hotels and nightlife. Doing a tour of the north I found that over the last few decades many of Malta’s bays that were once deserted have become tourist meccas and they pretty much all look the same. One such place, Bugibba is a replica of the UK so British tourists can come on a holiday and feel at home. The South on the other hand gets missed by tourists, possibly because people become consumed with the tourist Mecca’s but avoid this at your peril. Its easily more beautiful than the north and has not yet been corrupted by money and tourism. My favorite town was a small fishing village called Marsaxlokk. Maltese is a Semitic language meaning it has some similarities with Arabic. This charming little town is set on a beautiful bay without any high rise buildings. Cafes spill out from the road running alongside the bay onto the waterfront. There is also a market and a beautiful little town square featuring a wonderful church. For some reason this town was plagued by French tourists and I felt I was in the south of France. I also saw the temples of Mnajdra and Hagar Qim but I felt they were an overpriced tourist trap and not very interesting unless you are an archeologist.

Mdina

The place everyone sees when they come to Malta is Mdina, nicknamed the silent city. Located in the centre of the island it was once the capital and is a magnicifienty preserved ancient walled city. It was deliberately built with false alleyways so if it was ever invaded it was easy to kill people walking past. It features the magnificent St Paul’s Cathedral named after the apostle who was once shipwrecked in Malta, the story of which can be found in the book of Acts. This is quite a big thing for the Maltese people because he is credited with bringing Christianity to the island as he stayed here for several months and helped bring many people to faith. He didn’t actually land in Malta, but on a small island off the coast called St Paul’s Island. They called it that after he landed there. Consequently this country is very Catholic. Every town has a church and it also has a yearly festival. Festival fatigue is not something this country can experience. Apparently every town forms committee’s to run these festivals and they spend the whole year planning an event that runs perfectly. Obviously clipboards abound here. I am serious when I say that in Malta I did actually see a lot more people holding clipboards than anywhere else I’ve been. It also turned out that on my first night here I got to witness one of these festivals. I had the bright idea of going to bed early to recover from my flight but then at the same time these massive boats moved into the middle of the harbor and started playing ENYA really loud. Then started the fireworks festival! Now we’re not talking 5 minutes of fireworks here, there was 2 hours of non stop fireworks all played to Italian Classical music and finishing with ENYA. It was truly fantastic but I just wanted to sleep. Against the odds the Maltese also showed its possible to have a fireworks display set to music without playing Phil Collins “in the air tonight”. It turns out the Maltese are world leaders in fireworks development. Every town has a festival that features fireworks. They have won international fireworks competitions and are very adept at making the difficult fireworks – the blue ones.

War Rooms - Map of Sicily

My favorite place was easily the War Rooms. This place was only recently excavated and has been open a few years despite its importance in Malta’s history. The War Rooms is kind of an underground bunker that was used as a control room in Malta and the allies’ efforts in the Mediterranean in World War II. When Italy entered the war it declared war on Malta and attacked it the following day from its bases in Sicily which is only 60 miles away. Malta was a strategic base for the British as it was halfway between Britain and Egypt and it was part of a supply chain for the allies’ North African effort. The axis powers aimed to destroy Malta simply by bombing it into surrender because it would run out of food. As Malta wasn’t able to produce any food and it relied upon convoy ships from Britain. These arrived every 3 months and if a convoy didn’t turn up then Malta knew it had 3 months left of food and prayed a convoy would turn up. The rooms were made without any heavy machinery and old style with use of pick axe. Initially the rooms were used to defend Malta who were able to get camouflaged radar stations operational unknown to the Germans and they communicated from there to points around the island.

War Rooms - Montgomery's Office - Note the clipboard!

Eventually Malta created systems to defend itself despite being bombed 6 times a day, for about 2 years and being outnumber 20-1 in the air. As the war continued Malta became of  extreme importance because it could be used to attack the supply lines from Italy to North Africa so all the big guns came to Malta to plan the first invasion of World War II, that of Sicily. Patton, Montgomery and Eisenhower all turned up and worked in the war rooms. You may know all this but what we were told during the tour was that it was all just one big debacle. It turned out Patton and Montgomery hated each other and couldn’t work together and agree to each others plans. So Eisenhower turned up and decided the British would land in one part of Sicily and the Americans another part but this plan backfired because then the generals got competitive and it became about whose army would win first. So the generals landed and did their own thing and forgot to support each other but it turned out the Italians were so incompetent it didn’t really matter in the end and the allies won quite quickly and used the feedback from the invasion to plan D Day. There is a sitcom in the making here. There were so many interesting things to see here but my favorite was looking into each commander’s office and seeing clipboards in each of them making it the true, unsung hero of World War II.  

Valletta - Grand Harbour

There were only 2 things about Malta I didn’t like but these are only relevant to me. The first was that it was very difficult being in Valletta the city, without thinking of one of Australia’s worst 1980s cricketers Mike Valetta. Mike Valetta was one of Australia’s most useless cricketers and he wasn’t even Maltese born. He struggled to make runs against New Zealand and Sri Lanka yet they picked him against the West Indies where Malcolm Marshall had him for breakfast. His career highlights include a mistimed 21 against Sri Lanka, a fine 11 against the West Indies and one of the more humorous incidents in cricket against New Zealand when he top edged a ball onto his head which then deflected to point where he was out caught. He walked off the field shaking his head, not because he disagreed with the decision but because his head hurt. He spent the rest of his days playing for the ACT as a kind of father figure mentoring a young Brad Haddin. The other thing revolved around one of the bastions here, Fort St Elmo which sits at one end of Valletta. Every time I saw it I kept on thinking if that ever catches fire we would have St Elmo’s fire and so the song kept playing in my head.

Valletta - Grand Harbour Evening - Cruiseship leaving

Many people thought I was crazy to go to Europe for 7 weeks and maybe I am. I’ll probably get homesick after 5 weeks. The trick is to not stress about all the things that are coming up but to take it one day at a time putting faith in the well laid plans I made many months ago. Its actually quite a relaxing holiday by my standards, 19 cities in 49 days, meaning I have a stay point average of 2.58 days in each place, compared with my last trip whereby it was 2.47.  The thing I like about such holidays is that it enables me to get into a holiday routine. All the systems, rituals and traditions I have in place when I go away come back to me and this calms me as well as creating links between holidays. For instance I always have a flat white at Melbourne airport before departing because on my first overseas trip I was with my parents and I wanted a latte but Dad didn’t have enough money so he got us all flat whites because they were 50 cents cheaper! I pack the same things, in the same way and have the same systems for dispersing risk by splitting money and cards across my person and luggage. On this trip I have bought a new back-pack. Its purple, so you can’t miss it and obviously female. I’ve called her Annie. As my holiday progresses I tend to find I become emotionally attached to my backpack. I smile when I see it at the end of the day or on the luggage carousel, I cringe when I see her fall out of a luggage rack or if she is wronged in any way. By about week 5 of my holiday I start having Eddie McGuire withdrawal symptoms. I haven’t heard his voice for so long that I wonder what’s going on in the world of football and realize its possible to survive in the world without hearing an opinion from the Collingwood football club.

Kinnie is a local soft drink that outsells coke

And so that ends my first travelogue. Malta was everything I wanted – R&R, English, some food I could eat and easy to get around. Food wise I’m still conducting experiments, the main thing I’ve learnt so far is that my fish intolerance carries across continents but everything else is early days. One of the main reasons I come to Europe is because they make all main meals fresh at restaurants meaning they can take onions out. In Australia most places pre cook their sauces with onions and it drives me crazy cos we’re being charged $20 for reheated food. The hotel was perfect for me, more like a backpackers then hotel but the room was everything I needed. I highly recommend www.tripadvisor.com to anyone planning a holiday. I’ve planned my last 2/3 holidays with this and there have been no complaints with the advice received. My next challenge is Sicily.