Arriving in Malta midnight actually went about as smoothly as could be expected. We got in the queue for the taxi station, and before we'd got to the front had downloaded the local taxi-hailing app and arranged a ride with that. Our Couchsurfing host Sumantha had very kindly stayed up late to meet us and after a very brief greeting we all went to bed.
The next morning we met Sumantha's wife Keeran and their son, five-year old Sujan. Keeran had already prepared a great breakfast of idli (fluffy sort of English muffin like puffs of fermented rice and mung bean flour) with potato and cauliflower curry. Every morning and a couple of lunches and dinners for the next three days we enjoyed the amazing south-Indian food she cooked. An unexpected but very welcome addition to our stay in Malta!
Sumantha headed off to work, while Sarah and I made the 45 minute walk into Valletta, Malta's capital. But really Valletta was just the name for the old, central fortified section of the urban area that surrounds it all the way out well past where we were staying in the Santa Venera neighbourhood.
Pretty much everything in Malta is light brown. All of the houses, ancient walls and aqueduct, commerical buildings and churches (of which there are many) are constructed of local sandstone. The way you know you're getting near Valletta is that the churches get bigger and more ornate and the fortifications begin.
Valletta was built in 1565 by the Knights of St. John. They'd ruled over the islands for two centuries by then and had just defeated a major Ottoman invasion force in the Great Siege of Malta, and decided to once and for all secure their control on the island's harbour by constructing a new fortified capital across the harbour from their two existing fortified cities. In the Second World War, Valletta (by then under British control) repelled wave after wave of air (and occasionally naval) attacks from the Italians and Germans.
Today Malta has finally fallen to another group of invaders. Masses of tourists from the European mainland. It's got warm water, warm dry weather, decent beaches and is part of the Schengen zone, so this is entirely understandable. We spent our first day and much of our third day in Malta in Valletta surrounded by them. But so lovely was the capital, and so cool was its history that we were okay with sharing it.
In Valletta we visited the former palace of the Grandmaster of the Knights of Saint John, which today is the Maltese president's office and parliament and the museum of the knights’ armoury. The paintings in the state rooms ranged in age from 450 to 300 years. They were kind of charming in that they were attractive, but just simplistic enough to look a bit amateurish (despite the fact that they were commissioned by the very powerful leaders of what was effectively an independent state until they were booted out by Napoleon in the late 17th century).
The quantity and density of the arms and armour in the museum were amongst the best I've ever seen. I loved poring over the 15th century close helms and hauberks, the polearms and breasplates, the huge Bronze cannons, the muskets and powderhorns.
The relative modernity of the armoury and the fact that the fortifications had more in common with Napoleonic era Luxembourg than Norman England were a bit of a surprise. I'd always known the Knights of Saint John (the Knights Hospitaller) from the medieval crusades, so I'd kind of expected their island home to be of a similar era, but of course the whole point of their having ended up in Malta was that they were driven off the mainland long before.
Closer to the age I imagined was M'dina, Malta's old capital, which we visited on our second day there. We took the bus from out front of Sumantha's house. Once again we were joined by Chinese tour groups, German couples and sunburned British twenty-somethings. But as in Valletta on the previous day, it was surprisingly easy to leave them behind. Just stay outside the walls and away from the larger crypts in the adjacent town of Ribat and you'd be pretty much all on your own (the streets of all the Maltese towns and cities outside of the tourist areas were surprisingly empty, days and nights alike).
M'dina, with it's walls dating back to Muslim times from before the arrival of the Knights, and its expansive (if hazy) views out over all the island was pretty cool. But I think Ribat was possibly even more memorable. We had a fifty cent coffee at a friendly cafe bar first thing in the morning. We went to the tiny church of Saint Cathaldus (I've never heard of him either, but apparently he was from Ireland) and the 2000 year old crypts beneath. And perhaps most importantly, we got a big healthy dose of native Maltese food in the form of Pastizzi. These are little pastries made with a very flaky outside and filled with fresh cheese or spiced mashed peas (my favourite!) We joined the construction workers and taxi drivers finishing up for the day and sat eating them accompanied by tea and coffee within sight of the gates of Mdina.
Another great bit of Malta flavour was Kinnie, a Maltese soft drink brand (believe it or not, still locally owned and not a Coca Cola brand!) that was flavoured with bitter orange and herbs. I reckon that a Gin! and Kinnie would be a pretty decent Negroni alternative!
One small downside of our Malta visit were the costs of sightseeing. Pretty much every significant attraction in Malta had a €10 entry fee. And even the more minor ones that were entry by donation had someone standing right by the entrance saying “donations now, two Euro per person” before you entered (really, if you're going to do that, just call it a two Euro entry fee and be done with it). Though one of these, the Church and Monastery of St. Augustine was more than worth it (and I would probably have donated at least four Euros at the end if it hadn't been demanded at the start). The huge 18th century church was beautiful, but more significantly, the crypts, remains of the original 16th century church and, even cooler, the WW2 air raid shelter cut into the stone beneath the crypts were very evocative. And really fun, as you were free to just wander around and poke into whatever corners you felt like (I reckon that this is often a benefit of smaller, less popular tourist attractions).
And, of course, there were the inexpensive ferries as well. As in many other watery locales, the public transport crossing from Valletta to the earlier fortifications of Cottonnera was very cheap, very pleasant and gave amazing views of both.
Our last couple of evenings in Malta we had dinner at home with Sumantha and family, this time making contributions ourselves. The first night I reprised my baked cheesy eggplant from the night we finished the Camino, and on the second Sarah taught Keeran how to make pizza dough. We made three pizzas and devoured them all. With these dinners went Maltese wine. A surprisingly nice fresh rose that we brought along and a hefty 20% pomegranate wine that Sumantha had. It tasted just like the fruit, right down to the smell of the seeds and the slight bitterness of the membranes.
On our final evening we went down to Golden Bay beach with the whole family. It was a bit too windy for swimming, or even for hanging around on the sand really (though this didn't stop a few brave souls who seemed to be saying “I'm on my southern Europe holiday, and I'm doing the beach dammit!”) But the bay was pretty, and after a climb up the adjacent bluff the views of the next bay and cliffs over were even better.
Our flight out of Malta was at the utterly ridiculous hour of 02:35. For some reason (low cost landing slots probably) Air Malta seems to have a thing for flights in the middle of the night. Every single one of theirs on the board was between 23:10 and 06:30. But I forgive them, as the check-in crew were super friendly and gave Sarah and I each an exit row to ourselves on a flight when we would most definitely be wanting to sleep.
We arrived at the airport by bus around 21:45, and had a surprisingly pleasant wait. We hung around in the warm food court, sat up on the (really nice) observation deck and drank our airport beer and eventually got the paperwork done for the VAT refund on my new phone.
And before you knew it it was time for boarding. And before we even took off I was asleep.
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