Dave Hippler

I didn't study up on Malta. I figured we'd just wing it. We've been looking forward to visiting Sicily and mainland Italy more. But wow, what a pleasant surprise.

I'm a history buff, and there's SO much that's happened here. It's the key to the Mediterranean and has been for thousands of years. And that's why so many cultures have invaded and eventually lost power.

Phoenicians, Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, Ottomans, Normans, Spanish, the Knights of St. John, French, English...... They've all laid claim to Malta. The Knights of St. John were crusaders who were kicked out of Jerusalem, Cyprus, Rhodes, and were then given Malta as a base by the Spanish crown. They lasted a few hundred years until Napoleon came. And I have to admit I chose to visit Malta partially because we had a Maltese dog for years and wanted to visit his homeland. We also brought his cremated ashes. So yes, we're that type of people.

What all that history translates to is a great mix of cultures and language and food. The Maltese language is actually a combination of Arabic and Italian all blended together. English is the other official language and that makes everything pretty easy for us. But there's also so many foreign immigrants that live here that are working in the service industry. Our Polish ride share driver from the airport was pretty much complaining about too many immigrants. "Five years ago, no South Asians. Now? 200,000!"

It's late February but the weather is great. I don't mind daytime temperatures in the 60s at all. And while it's off season, there's still a fair amount of tourists here. But surprisingly, Malta is easy on the wallet. Food, wine and coffee is cheaper than what we were paying in Argentina just a couple months ago. And Deanne found a large two-bedroom, two-bathroom apartment a block from the beach for only $63 a night. Off-season travel rocks!

Most of the older buildings are made of limestone and they are stunning. The main Cathedral for the Knights of St. John is called of course St. John's Cathedral. It doesn't look like much from the outside, but the inside is an amazing baroque masterpiece. The head of the order was called The grandmaster and his palace is now a large state museum. It has the largest collection of medieval weapons and armor I've ever seen.

Our friend Louie arrived from New York 2 days after we arrived to travel with us for a little while. His partner Derek will join us in a few days. So we had a couple days to see some sights alone including Fort San Angelo, the main fort of the Knights of St John. Malta has plentiful deep harbors and that's one of the reasons so many empires wanted to control Malta.

It's much faster to take a short ferry instead of a bus or taxi for many sights. For the same cost as a bus, you can zip across a harbor to be at Valletta from Sliema, Fort San Angelo, or one of the "Three Cities" which are 3 peninsulas that jut out into the harbor. We just love walking around the narrow streets here.

Fortunately for us it's Carnival time and it's a big deal here. Many of the historical buildings and the Carnival parades are in Valletta. We're staying in Sliema, just a 10-15 minute cab drive away. We knew there was a parade in Valletta last night so we just hung out there after a delicious lunch and had a few drinks and watched the carnival revelers setup. It's a fairly low-key and family affair which is nice.

Deanne and Louie had separately found a Michelin starred restaurant nearby that they wanted to try and on a whim we stopped in for dinner and were able to be seated within 15 minutes. That was after watching many of the floats go by. We thought we were done with Carnival by then and had a leisurely meal. It was amazing and again, very easy on the wallet. When we were done we started walking back to an area where we could take a cab and realized the Carnival parade was still going on and we caught up to it. What a great day. By 10:20 pm the parade was over, the cleanup crews were going strong, there was no vomit and no violence either. This ain't no Bourbon Street.

The next day we took a rideshare to the center of the island. The original capital was called Mdina and it's a walled city surrounded by a moat. It was another sunny day to walk through history. Mdina is situated right next to Rabat, which has its own charms. We found a pastry shop and had to pass on the Cannolis as two of the three of us are gluten free. We opted for a coconut chocolate nougat candy. One bite in we were like "oh my God it's a homemade Mounds bar!" But so much better. They were one Euro each. We literally have sticker shock (the good kind) and we're hoping no one tells them that they're under selling everything here.

The next day there was some debauchery at more Carnival parades. And in our last full day we took a boat cruise to the second main island of Malta called Gozo. The six days and nights here went very quickly and it's been a blast. I can't help but recommend Malta as a vacation spot. We just happened to be here for Carnival, a huge bonus. Tomorrow morning we're taking a very early ferry to Sicily where we start the next leg of our trip.

More photos and videos are here.
https://photos.app.goo.gl/gCHBfjMgccNgTBvt6

Carnival photos are here.

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