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| one of many churches |
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| we're back! |
Steps – 11,445
Malta is a very interesting place visually - it’s
interesting otherwise of course, but especially visually. It is basically a
rock in the middle of the sea that people decided to inhabit. This makes everywhere
you look beautiful.
Over the centuries, Malta has been invaded by pirates,
Ottoman Turks, Napoleon’s army. Its strategic location has made it disputed for
centuries. During WWII, it allowed Allies to block Axis supplies to North Africa,
but because of its location was also heavily bombed. There is still evidence of
this.
view from the balcony
We are docked in Valetta – the same port we boarded
the ship at 2 weeks ago. Valetta (pop. 5,233) is the capital of Malta (pop.
600,000) and is one town in a series of other small towns that blend into on another.
Our tour today started as many do, with a coach
tour. Although not technically panoramic tours, we always get to know a bit
about where we are en route to 
we sailed through that tiny opening
where we are going through the guide’s
descriptions. It was a packed tour again…about 30 today. We still get our own window
seats on the bus as they typically accommodate about 50, but it’s still a big
number to wangle.
After a 30 min coach ride, we were in Sliema town,
where we boarded a large sightseeing boat for an hour tour of Malta’s 2 natural
harbours. The water is the best way to see a view of the fortifications,
shipyards, mega and super yachts, fishing boats, caves, churches (apparently Malta
has over 365!) and Malta’s
rugged, rocky coast. The fortress walls bl
fortification
end seamlessly
into the rock, that it’s hard to tell where one ends and the other begins.
beer & boats
Then we were back on the bus for about another
half hour to get to Senglea town where we had about 45 min of free time. We
wandered a bit, looked at more boats and sat at a canal side café for a Cisk beer.
The ship is docked super close to Valetta town,
so after the tour we headed in for a wander and to find lunch. It is nice to
have been here recently, so we have an understanding of where and what there
is.
The ship of course is on the water, and the
town is fortified, so somehow we need to get waaaay up to the town from the
ship. Thankfully, there is an €1
more fortification
(round trip) elevator that’ll take you up the 58
meters. We were the only ship in town today and everything still seemed busy. I
wouldn’t want to deal with the elevator with 8 ships in town, which apparently
is what can happen in the summer months – no thank you. It is walkable, but not
all people could, I’m thankful we can.
I keep telling Chris we have to train for our
travels…especially Antarctica in January to keep up with the penguins! I haven’t
convinced him…yet. Way back when we rode camels, I thought this is a reason to
stay fit and strong…so I can continue to hoist myself onto a camel and hang on.
Valetta has a ton of places to choose from for
lunch – many were Maltese cuisine, but we were in the mood for a good ol’ European
pizza. The day was 
sail boats
nice enough, that we wanted a busy
church
square to eat outside. We
found a good spot with lots of people (and pigeon) watching. At one point a pigeon
actually plopped onto our table and helped itself to our pizza. It took a bit of
effort to get it to shoo.
war museum
Then at a neighbouring table at least 30
pigeons descended on the table to devour what was left of the food – with people
STILL THERE. The people who were
everywhere is fortification
sitting there kind of just watched one or 2
land, and before they could do anything the entire flock were there. I have never
seen anything like it. For about 5 minutes it was utter mayhem. Eventually the
Valetta by night
staff cleared the plates, but WOW. Valetta needs cats to come in and take care
of the pigeons, or to at least make them a bit skittish. These pigeons were the
The Birds!
kings of the fortress, that’s for sure.
Malta by night 
us and the ship 
even more fortification
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