The Festival

The streets are packed. We see singers and fire jugglers. We pop into the University and see their student designed car. A young man holds a group spellbound playing his harp in a tiny church. The National Archeological Centre is open. A group is passionately declaiming Maltese poetry. A band amuses us with Irish folk songs. Buildings and roads are lit up and all the churches are open. Even Parliament is open if you are prepared to jump through their security hoops. People spill out of every restaurant and bar. Big bands are playing and kids are loving dancing on a stage where their magnified image is displayed on a screen as dancing lightbulb people. And there was so much more.

Eventually we stop for a drink and a bit of people watching, before heading back to the ferry.

The queue is enormous but a chartered ferry is just docking. Or trying to. After a while they manage to get the 20 or so passengers off but deem it too dangerous to try to board the several hundred people waiting. The boat is going up and down, and backwards and forwards and plainly it is unsafe. We don't think there's a chance of us making it onto the next regular ferry, assuming it can even dock, so decide to go for the buses.

It's a long walk round Valetta to the bus station but we make it, and the fun begins. We don't make it onto the first bus to St Giljan but another arrives quickly. Now the crush really starts. The conductor only opens one door but everyone is determined that they are getting on. The problem was people paying cash which held up the queue so boarding was painfully slow, whilst the back of the crowd pushed forwards pushing those by the doors into the side of the bus with nowhere else to go. I'm shoved into someone and beginning to lose my footing before I get to the door and can board, a quick tap of my card and I'm in. And I get us the last two seats! Moments later John is next to me and it all becomes civilised again. The roads were clear so we were back home by 1am.

So, I enjoyed the festival but I think I'll give those a buses a miss another time!Read more