Malt(a)-Teaser

Sicily is a day sail away from Malta and just after Christmas we decided to go for an explore. In a flurry of activity we booked flights, made travel and accommodation bookings & prepared to set off in search of the elusive Maltese Falcon.

The Air BnB was beautiful and using the stairs helped me earn extra treat food! Malta is a really special mixture of cultures, Arabic, Turkish, Italian, British have all influenced the modern Malta we discovered.

The capital Valletta is clad in a honey coloured stone, which makes everything feel warm, even the winter fair & ice rink😀. We had a few days exploring and making sure our legs worked properly and met up with our friends Ken & Pam, who had wintered there.

We left the Air BnB and took a water taxi across to Birgu where Ken and Pam’s boat was moored to stay for a few days. I won’t compare it to Gianti, she gets very jealous! I will just say that they have a laundry room & a basement!!!!! They made us feel so welcome & at home, I really can’t say thank you enough to you both. Trev got stuck into some boat jobs with Ken, whilst Pam & I made sure that no gin was left untasted.

We took a tour of Malta to the blue lagoon, Gozo and the silent city of Mdina. Never to find this falcon everyone bangs on about. We had a fascinating tour of a WW2 bunker, I think it was mainly to see who could get lost in the maze of tunnels, but we all managed to come out, eventually.

Having spent a long time out of the U.K. our essential supplies of mince pies, Indian & Thai pastes were dwindling fast. If you’ve met me, you know if think about food, almost constantly. So just imagine how happy I was to be taken to the Mecca of all food shops … everything I had been dreaming of was available .. biscuits, Gin, even Oxtail soup!! I managed a very, very restrained, essentials only shop:

Aviation Gin (a present from the Captain), curry pastes, spices, fajita kits, fruit mice meat, Robinson’s Squash and maybe the odd Peanut Butter chunky Kit Kat ….. they are the best & I won’t have anyone say different.

Afte many, many, lunches, cake stops & possibly the best lasagne I’ve ever tasted (courtesy of Chef Ken) it was time to try & pack the bags to fit the weight restrictions (thank God you don’t have to state your personal weight). Back to the reality of Sicily and the manual toilets on Gianti.

We picked up a car at Catania airport, ready to brave the drive to Licata. Stopping only at a huge superstore on the way back to make sure we had (even more) essentials, milk, bread, fresh meat & veggies, a TV for the boat …

Trev has compiled a handy guide to driving in Sicily, you can read it here

A short video of some of our experiences in Malta is Click here

In the video we show a concert we stumbled on. It was in memory of a Maltese journalist who investigated financial irregularities & was murdered by a car bomb. You can find out more about this here