San Antonio Guesthouse Xlendi

... We sat out on our balcony which looked upon the walls of the city and the quay. Bustling horse and carriages trotted smartly back and forth. The road going up the hill is steep, but these horses are strong and fit, pulling with little effort. They really fly.
We boarded our bus with no security issues( like aforementioned places) and started our tour. I know nothing of Malta, other than ...

I've just popped over to Malta for a day & a bit (as you do!) to say a quick hello / goodbye to my parents (and bring them lots of goodies over for the last time in a while).

The weather is a little warmer than the UK, but not as warm as it's going to be in a week's time (ha ha ha).

Anyway, I'll keep this blog short so ciao for now!

Anita x

... boiling anger and she left her parents in no uncertain terms concerning her feelings of abandonment. Managed to bribe the children to walk the 40 minutes back to the ship by offering them half the bus fare it would have cost us. Olivia spent hers on chocolate and well you don’t even need to guess what the boys did with theirs.

Palma de Mallorca

This is the administrative centre of the Balearic Islands and was warm and ...

... oasis of greenery that looks over a view to the island’s waterfront. She tells us we have a fifteen minute break, but when the time is up I don’t see her return. Mom is the only one of us who hears her say that we are to meet at “San Francisco” a narrow street that runs up a steep hill like those in San Francisco.

We follow her into the St. James Co-Cathedral and she hands out personal amplifiers to ...

... very low key. Here we kicked back on the seafront with a hot chocolate each - basking in the morning sun like lizards, listening to the waves like a lullaby lapping the shoreline beside us. From there we drove up the west coast and down to Dwerja Bay where we find the most striking scenery we've seen since we've been here - interesting rock formations, waves pounding against the cliffs. The landscape comes easy on the eye, honeycomb cliffs, contrasting with deep blue ...

... where the Virgin Mary is to have appeared to Bernadette, and a church was subsequently constructed on this site in Gozo.  When we first arrived the church was locked, and a worker, who was doing restoration work (what else?), informed us that it would not be open till 5:00.  Sigh. (Bethlehem was opening at 4:30, and we had to be on the 6:00 ferry back.)  Just as we were preparing to leave, a old man (priest ?  caretaker ?) materialized asking if we would like to see the ...

... the entire city, as i did), more small market places, more accidental bus routes that end me up in some random part of the city(Rabat, in the northwestern hills, with beautiful 18century buildings built into the side of the city with churches every block) and some really fun clubs/nightlife(a club on the twenty second floor of the hilton building which overlooks nearly the entire island and gives you amazing views as you dance the night away). But i must say that even ...

The next destination on my rush to see as much of Malta as I possibly could when I wasn't working was the fortified citadel of Mdina. The Phoenicians were the first to build a protective wall around the settlement on a crag overlooking almost the entire island, calling it 'Malet' around 1000 BC. Later the Romans occupied it, followed by the Arabs, and then the Maltese nobility used is as a retreat when The Knights of the order of St John made the Grand Harbour ...

... the resemblence and there was a few very camoflaged plate fish that pootled about trying to look inconspicuous. I took a great video of one of them so will try uploading that too. Still, the easiest pics are of the other divers as we just don't move that fast. To return we had to navigate the jellyfish minefield again but by now the dive masters ...

... Our final (and bonus) dive is at the Azure Window. It's raining again. And now it's windy, too. The guys sit in the truck while I snap misty pictures of the Window and Fungi Rock. Suited up, we walk across the lumpy bumpy rocks to the Blue Hole with my much complaining about sore feet. In the water, I have major trouble with pressure in my ears and am worried that I'll have to abort. I cling to the rock face, staring at urchins and starfish, ready to cry when I ...