Ii Palazzin Hotel Qawra

We arrived this morning, everyone on the top deck to witness our entry into port. It was so windy up top that one almost fell over. I enjoyed playing Winged Victory while watching the coastline.
The harbor is fantastic, ancient fortified walls, forts, escarpments, limestone, cobblestones, towers, ships. The colors hurt the eye they are so brilliant. From the sea to the sky to the boats and wooden ...

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

... a grey cold day with showers didn’t help its cause. Maybe in twenty something years tourism will have lifted their game a bit, but couldn’t help but think perhaps years of public money siphoned off to the mob has probably ground these people down.

We are looking forward to the next part of our journey, Rome for five nights. We will leave the ship a few kilo’s heavier, but looking forward to a little more flexibility in our time table.

... duped by the online descriptions that make the walk into the city sound rough.

Our tour guide is a dowdy English woman who is wearing a flower print dress and speaks with a breathlessly nasal English accent. “Thish ish a shtashtue of Shaint Jamesh, and-a….” she speaks like this as we follow her along the cobblestone streets lined with stone buildings. Our first stop is the Upper Baracca Gardens, a ...

... grotto, looking at the clear, blue water below us. Although a little pricey for some people, I would say, it must be visited. Had I had more time, I would have hiked along the cliffs and enjoyed the view. I find the sea to have a calming effect and bring serenity. My next stop was the Hagar Kim temple complex. This is a short ride from the Blue Grotto. The first temple was closed for rennovations, but I could get ...

... on Easy Jet. A one hour bus ride today took about 2 hours as the traffic was terrible. I arrived at Gatwick and then looked for the Hotel shuttle area, as I had booked a hotel about 15 minutes from Gatwick in the village of Crawley. I arrived at the Arora International Hotel around 11:00 am, hoping for my room to be ready early. My room was available, I napped until 3:00 pm and readied for the day. With no map or information on Crawley, I ended up staying at the hotel for ...

... The next day was a day at sea. We spent it by eating breakfast then we found a couple lounge chairs on the 13th floor and tanned for a couple hours. Kyle didn't put his sunscreen on right so he cutely ended up with round finger print tan lines because his fingers are round at the tips. And he always ends up with a farmers tan. Malta we did a tour called Taste of Malta. It is literally an island that is made of desert. It was ...

This morning my Maltese family took me to the last two real places I was yet to see on the main island of Malta. The first was a series of limestone caves where literally thousands of remains of animals and remarkably Neanderthal man have been discovered from digs over the last century. There were remains from elephants, hippopotamuses and several foxes and the like, apparently they had migrated to Malta when there was still a land connection ...

Friday Stace and I headed out of town so to speak (although only about 10km!), to see The Blue Grotto and some megalithic temples. These are situated on the opposite coast to Valletta. I had heard that the water in the Blue Grotto is some of the 'bluest' I would ever see. I heard right. We hopped on a little boat tour around the stunning coastline of steep cliffs and huge caves. The Blue Grotto is an streth of coastline about 1km long containing some ...

... sitting by the door. At the next stop they started getting off when suddenly the old woman fell. When I looked again I realized the biker, red with rage, had pedaled furiously to catch up to our bus. He had now boarded our bus, crashing past the three women and grabbing the driver by his mouth. He yanked the driver off the bus and they started screaming and fighting on the sidewalk. A brave or perhaps foolhardy French guy jumped off the bus to help mediate. We just ...