The Palace Sliema

I've just popped over to Malta for a day &amp; 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).<br><br>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).<br><br>Anyway, I'll keep this blog short so ciao for now!<br><br>Anita x

... and was going to be towed. Had difficulty trying to communicate that we were sailing on a cruise - so when we return to Italy we may be maxed out in fines on the visa card and have to beg our way home!!!<br><br>We were certainly glad we did the cruises in the order we did, The Costa Pacific is only four months old, thus is new and gleaming. It has glass lifts in the in middle which ascend 12 stories all the way up to the retractable glass roof ...

... duped by the online descriptions that make the walk into the city sound rough.<br><br> Our tour guide is a dowdy English woman who is wearing a flower print dress and speaks with a breathlessly nasal English accent. &#8220;Thish ish a shtashtue of Shaint Jamesh, and-a&#8230;.&#8221; 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 ...

... of Valletta. The buses are interesting. All of them are painted bright yellow and red. Some of them are really old - I would estimate from the 50s. The bus we rode from Valletta and back didn't have a door, just an open hole! Not that the bus was missing the door - it seemed to be normal! Valletta is a gorgeous city. There's a HUGE harbor which is the 3rd largest natural harbor in the world. Sydney harbor is a man-made harbor. I didn't think Valletta's harbor was so ...

... when Michael was interviewed after the game. "He is one of us!" Yes, I am no longer a token Aussie, I am a token wog. I have finally found myself. :) The day ended having dinner with my Maltese family and home cooked rabbit was on the menu! :) We spent some time after the meal just talking about my extended family and events that had occurred in the past, weddings, births, deaths etc. We pored over a few photo albums some dating back to the ...

... Maltese delicacy and she would make it for me from time to time. So I was keen to try one at the source, it was good, but I think mum's are better! :) By mid afternoon I was getting pretty tired so I strolled down to the water front and caught the ferry back to Sliema. I have sourced a local bar not far from where I am staying. It over looks the water just north of Sliema. The owner is a football freak so the walls and ceiling are covered in ...

... no one would care as I was only staying for a fortnight, and hence I didn't have one. However, late on the previous day my boss received word of an inspection, and since the school had been targetted in the past, they needed everything to be perfect. Having me there, without a permit, would not have looked good, and hence, after just a day on the job, I found myself without a job! It wasn't all bad though. To make up for the school's stuff up I was ...

... very tiny streets so much so that the inhabitants have to park outside the walls and walk into their houses. We then walked through the Howard Gardens which is one of the biggest public gardens in Malta and form a natural border between Rabat and Mdina. The gardens were less than impressive as they really do find it hard to grow anything here because there is no soil just clay and limestone. We then had a fun time walking around the streets of Rabat which consists of rich ...

... two horrendous sieges and now looks forward to a bright future. It seems to have been a part of every empire going, some more beneficial to the island than others. Of course the main shaping power of the history we see is the famous Knights of Malta, who didn't really want Malta in the first place when the Spanish king offered it to them, even though they were a fleet of refugees avoiding the Turks. Reluctantly they took it and after narrowly surviving a Turkish invasion ...