Malta the debrief

 

Surprisingly this was my first trip to Malta, I had always associated it with  holidays by people of a certain age, well obviously as I have reached a certain age, it was time for me to go.

What a wonderful surprise, what a wonderful island. Brimming with history and amazing sites of historical importance. An island that has a fairly central Mediterranean position it has been under the rule of various nations, lastly the British, until it gained independence in 1964 and becoming a republic 10 years later.

It is only about 50miles from Sicily and 150 miles from Tunisia.

Now things that I noticed,

Eating out, on the 'main drags' along St Pauls to Bugibba, lots of restaurants show amazing menus with great pricing, however this is only for 2 or more people eating. So little old me had to wend my way through the back streets where I found amazing restaurants and cafes with great food and wine and even better, great value for money.

I also became quite partial to a 'pastizzi' and found myself having them for breakfast most days, I chose the curried pea variety ( like mildly curried mushy peas inside ). I intend to try to recreate these at home.

There are lots of 'shops' offering tours and boat trips, but you can get around the island on local buses which run regularly from the bus station behind the Double Tree Hotel in Bugibba  ( if that's where you stay). The hop on hop off buses, are also a great way around as you get a history/cultural lesson en route.

There are a lot of hotels in the area, lots of choice and locations across the island.

The weather was amazing, very hot during the day and not much cooler during the night. However there are lots of areas for sea swimming and hotels have great pools, I was rarely out of mine.

My hotel was The Topaz, I  went with Easyjet. Initially the hotel looked great, but over the days cracks started to show. Staff were rude and often tried to ignore people. Huge groups of language students were resident and after a morning in the classroom they took over the swimming pool, disregarding all 'Pool Rules' posters that were all around the pool area. There was usually a mass exodus of guest at this time as music blasting out, diving and screaming became the order of the afternoons

The area around this hotel was very run down with two hotels completely closed down and houses boarded up, there were however more supermarkets than you could shake a stick at, and they were open 24 hours a day. They were clean and had a varied range of food including a large frozen food section and meat and cheese counter in one.

If you have not been to Malta, I would say if you fancy it, go. It really has made me want to go back ( different hotel for sure) but the locals were very friendly which goes a long way.

If you fancy a sunny break get in touch.

lainey.robinson@notjusttravel.com