So, last minute thing, we decided to escape to Malta for a long weekend. A country that we'd never been to before but so many people we know have and report good things about that we felt compelled to pay the place a visit. Arriving fairly late after a three hour flight, we headed through a quiet airport and out into the warm evening, then a quick 20 minute taxi to our hotel for a much anticipated couple of nights in Valletta, the capital of the small island state.
We awoke the next day to blue skies and a rather nice 26 degree warmth and headed into the city (our hotel was just outside the medieval city walls) Valletta is an ancient place, situated on an elevated peninsula, it's grid of narrow streets is completely contained within rather impressive ramparts constructed by the Knights of St. John in the 1500s (to protect against Ottoman invasions) It's made almost entirely from a light coloured local limestone, rather like Portland Stone, it looked a gorgeous honey colour under the intense Mediterranean sun.
Crossing over the "Valletta Ditch" and through the newly crafted city gate (2014) we entered the city proper and walked down the main commercial street (Republic St.) It was busy, very busy, like Oxford Street on a Saturday afternoon, progress was slow. As we strolled along we passed many of the "sights" of the city, the bombed out Opera House, St. Johns Cathedral, St. Georges square among others and a couple of things became clear, a) Malta (or Valletta at least) is a very "churchy" place, every other building seemed to have a religious connection, b) it's a very diverse place with lots of cultural influences and c) it has a distinct "Benidorm" vibe, anyway more on this later. We didn't stroll for too long as we had a lunch appointment with some friends who happened to be visiting at the same time as us and so returned to our hotel and hopped into an Uber which I booked to take us to a place called Mdina, the original capital of the island (until 1530), around 25 minutes later we arrived (it's only a small island!)
Mdina (old city) is also surrounded by a huge wall and ditch (those medieval Maltesers were a paranoid bunch!) and is situated on a small hill surrounded by walled fields containing a variety of crops, olives, grapes and fruit trees etc. I snapped a pano of the view from up on the ramparts (see above) it was a lovely spot! Mdina was also a very "churchy" place, clearly the Catholic church had quite a grip on this place at one point, the local (soft) limestone does lend itself to some fabulous Baroque stonework, here's (below) the cathedral in Mdina shining in the sun..
After a nice Mediterranean lunch of seafood and pasta we headed back to Valletta and our hotel to freshen up before heading back into the city for some evening refreshments and a further look around the place. Of course I'd previously researched some of the local craft beer options, there were a couple of small breweries on the island and there were also a couple of craft beer bars in town, we headed to one and settled in for a couple of beers before dinner. I was amazed to find that the bar we went to had a fridge full of cans and bottles from all over Europe, including my all time favourite Cornish brewer Verdant, I snapped up one of their pale ales to kick things off with, they even had the correct glassware (see below)!
After a couple of drinks and some light food options we retired to our hotel bar which was one of those grand dimly lit affairs with lot's of different whiskeys and gins to choose from, we didn't stay long and were soon tucked up in bed ready for our next day of exploration, we had a food tour booked and were looking forward to that, more in part II
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