Malta getaway 🇲🇹

When I and my friend Klára decided to go on a vacation to Malta in late February, we made just a rough sketch of an itinerary and didn't really plan anything beforehand. We knew where we'll be staying and had some idea of places we want to see, but that's about it. We had no idea what to expect. In my mind, Malta was this tiny island where the Mediterranean and Arabic cultures mixed together and I knew it mainly for its online gambling boom over the last years, acting as a safe (and probably tax) haven for multiple European betting companies. My sister was joking that it was just a rock in the sea and that we should have gone somewhere else instead, but that would have been a huge mistake. Malta is amazing, we made the most of the 4 days we had there, and I think (and hope) I'll come back in the future. Every day was an adventure on its own, with 12+ hours of walking, traveling, and exploring (and then usually being in bed by 10 pm, absolutely exhausted).

When my delayed flight finally landed in Malta (don't worry, there's just one airport, no way they could fit more), I rushed to meet Klára in Valletta, the capital city (unlike airports, they really tried to fit multiple cities on the island, but more about that later). We knew that we would actually be spending the first night at Gozo, a smaller island north of the main one, so after some coffee and catching up we took the Gozo Fast Ferry, which goes from Valletta to Mgarr, a harbour village (they call it a town, but come on) on Gozo multiple times a day. The trip takes 45 minutes and is really smooth, cheap, and convenient. We took a bus to Victoria, the capital of Gozo, where we stayed in an Airbnb with a really nice host, Vittoria (which can't be a coincidence). She basically planned the next day for us, giving us local tips as well as a dinner place recommendation, which we hungrily followed. After enjoying ravioli with local cheese and fried rabbit, another local signature dish, we wandered through the main attraction in Victoria - the Cittadella. You can walk through the whole historic area even during the night, when everything is well-lit and pretty much empty (well, at least in February). After a short walk, we decided to call it a day and get ready for tomorrow, and since a random Maltese movie we wanted to watch was, surprisingly, only available in Maltese (and because Klára slept like 3 hours the night before), bedtime it was.

After breakfast (from our Airbnb host! (with her cat)), we started our busy Gozo day. We discovered the 7-day Explore Card for the Malta public transport offering the best value for money - the public transport on the island(s) is generally good, with lots of bus lines that take you almost anywhere you want to. But beware, on Gozo, they usually go only once every hour, so you have to plan accordingly. Google Maps was helpful with that without any issues. Now that I say that I remember that on the particular Friday we were on Gozo, they decided to do multiple construction work on various roads, which significantly complicated the transport, but I'm sure that was just an outlier. Combining the bus 311 with some walking (yeah, construction work, I told you), we got to our first destination - via St Lawrence to the Dwejra Bay. Great views with interesting "pools" of seawater. You probably wouldn't call it swimming, but I changed into shorts and went into one of them, so I think it counts. Next to the Dwejra Bay was a small Inland Sea lagoon which turned out to be full of typical colourful boats and it didn't take us too long to decide to pay €4 for a ride to the open sea through breathtaking caves. Only there we found out that this was the place of the famous Azure Window, a natural arch that played in Game of Thrones and multiple movies before collapsing and completely falling into the water in 2017.

Our next bus trip took us back to Victoria, the center of everything in Gozo, where we grabbed something to eat and had a great coffee in Victoria Central, a café and roastery with a friendly barista from whom I decided to also buy roasted beans for home. Recovered and caffeinated we timed everything perfectly and were soon sitting on bus 309 going north of the island. Then came the highlight of the day - a hidden canyon with a rocky beach at the bottom. There we chilled for a bit and I finally actually went for a swim in the (cold) sea! Continuing our hike along the coast we met a very random German running race. More importantly, though, Salt Pans (barbecue forbidden!), a fascinating place with hundreds of shallow pools used to extract salt from the seawater in the summer. After a bowl of aljotta, Maltese fish soup, in a very random but great beach kiosk nearby, bus 310 took us - you guessed it - back to Victoria. As usual, perfect timing and we immediately got on our final Gozo bus (301) back to Mgarr, and almost exactly 24 hours after we arrived, we were on a local ferry taking us back to Malta. This time it was just the "standard" ferry crossing the sea between the two islands in the shortest possible way, arriving at a northern Maltese town Cirkewwa. During the ride, you can see the third and final Maltese island Comino, but don't bother with that one, there is basically nothing. Or at least we hope so, because we didn't go there.

A quick ride on pretty much any bus from Cirkewwa took us to another famous location, the Red Tower, where we watched the sunset, and then came the final journey to Valletta across the whole island. That took an hour and a half, way too long, and, unfortunately, we didn't even didn't see anything outside because of the darkness. Mentally, we were both already in our next Airbnb bed. I spent the whole way reading about Maltese history and language and Klára was writing down her journal on which I now base this article. But did you know that Maltese is the only Semitic (think Arabic) language that uses the Latin script? To us, it was basically a mix of Arabic and Italian, with a lot of very weird location names - just look at the map.

Day 3 started with a yummy breakfast in a nearby café and soon we were back on a bus to Mdinna, the historic capital. Apparently, cars are not allowed inside the historic fortified city, but it really did not look like that. Anyway, a nice fortress with a lot of tourist stores and a natural history museum inside (we recommend that if you enjoy funny-looking models of animals). Other than that, lots of historic narrow streets, views of the whole island and a nice cathedral with a museum. Right next to Mdinna is Rabat, a bigger town where we just managed to buy post stamps 2 minutes before the closing hours of the post office and then enjoyed a late lunch (pizza and lasagne, a classic) in a random restaurant. After a coffee in a very cute café with amazing rooftop seating, we took the bus to Dingli Cliffs. Again, great views, but way too windy. Also, there wasn't really anything to do except enjoy the views, so we did that until a bus came which took us back to Mdina where we transferred to another one back to our Malta base, Valetta. We wanted to stop at San Anton Gardens with a presidential palace on the way, but they were already closed, so someone please go there and let us know what we missed.

Back in Valletta, we walked through the whole (it's not that big) city center, where we stopped for another much-needed coffee at Lot 61 before going to the very end of the city to a coastal St. Elmo building (unfortunately already closed as well). From there we continued along the coast through a very cool fishing harbour all the way to the Valletta Waterfront, the main restaurant and bar place with nice views. We chose Browns Kitchen for dinner, Klára had fresh fish, I ordered a local burger, and as usual some Maltese wine. Delicious dinner to mark the end of another exhausting day. With Klára going back to the Airbnb to rest, I went for a night walk through the city, meeting a large number of suspiciously young locals embracing the Maltese nightlife.

Another day, another breakfast at La caffetteria Siciliana to wake us up and another perfectly timed bus, this time south to Marsaxlokk, a small and traditional fishing village. A friendly tip - the buses do not take any more people than the official capacity. We were lucky and got on among the last ones, but it was very sad to watch people standing at the bus stops and the driver just going by, knowing that the next bus is probably in one hour. But back to Marsaxlokk, where a pleasant surprise awaited us - a Sunday fish market! Apparently, as Klára noted in her journal, this bay contains 70% of all the fish population of Malta, so they are also being exported from this very village to the rest of the island. The harbour was full of luzzijiet (a plural of luzzu), beautiful colourful fishing boats, usually with a pair of eyes painted on the bow, a survival of the Phoenicians. We wandered through the lively market, bought some local spices and sweet canolli, and then followed the coast to Birżebbuġa, where I admired the busy Freeport, the main cargo harbour on the island.

All the roads may lead to Rome, but all the buses from Birżebbuġa go to Valletta. Back in the busy city we continued to Sliema, one of the many towns which surround Valletta and every normal country would just have them as parts of the capital. Sliema seems to be the main resort town, with more expensive hotels and promenades, so we had a very touristy late pizza lunch and then a more local espresso at Coffee Circus, another one of the many specialty coffee places we ticked off during our trip. With the much-needed caffeine now powering our exhausted bodies, we jumped on a bus back to Valletta and then (surprise) another one to what is called Three Cities. Three small towns next to each other and right across from the Valletta Waterfront we were dining at last night. We decided to skip the first one, Senglea, and instead focused on Birgu where we enjoyed the rich marina and were debating and researching the absurd costs of the yachts. One day...

A nice-looking medieval Fort St. Angelo was unfortunately already closed by the time we stopped judging rich people, so we hopped on another bus to city number 3. The journey took us through the SmartCity, a bold, aspiring but rather failed concept of a Dubai-like technology park that was supposed to be finished by 2021 but you know how these things are, even in Malta. We got off at Kalkara, what I thought to be the third city but now during my research, I actually found out that it's in fact not. Anyway, it is a village under a lot of development but it looks promising. Unfortunately, it was very dead on late Sunday afternoon, so we randomly attended a church service while waiting for a bus back to Valletta. And once again I proved to myself that religion is a mistake.

The last evening was just packing, dinner, and solid exhaustion on both fronts. The alarm clock set to 5:15 am to catch the first bus going to the airport and back to reality it was. Just in time for the start of my last semester (maybe ever, but definitely in Vienna). Our short Malta getaway was amazing, full of little adventures and exploration of the tiny but interesting country. Late February offseason treated us very nicely, with average temperatures around 20 degrees. Grazzi, Malta, nerġa' niġi lura.

started writing on 23 Mar 2023
written on 25 Mar 2023