Malta

I don't think we are never not exploring, but in all honestly, we have slowed down a little being pregnant; just because it really is harder to do anything...and everything.  Luckily, we were in for some good slow paced rest and relaxation spending a week in Malta. Take a look and check out how we planned our trip to Malta, you just may be inspired to go visit yourself.

First off, I had never heard of Malta before moving to Europe.  If you watch Game of Thrones, you may be familiar with Malta without even realizing that the beautiful beaches being filmed are in Malta.  Malta is packed with so many beautiful sights, and is very laid-back and easy. There are boat trips, beautiful towns, friendly people, and amazing swimming spots all over the country, and all close together.

 Here is how our itinerary went...

-DAY 1-

Malta is a small island, so you can get across it within an hour... Since we were going at our own pace, and were staying for a week, we decided to rent a car so we could get around the entire island. We thought it would be no problem driving, and it wasn't, it just took some getting used to.  Malta was an English colony so the drivers seat is on the WRONG side, and you drive on the WRONG side of the road.  Luckily Jordan did the driving because it was stick-shift, and I don't think my coordination with my left hand could control a stick.  Speed limits are slowwww, 40-60 km around the island, but no one drives that limit, and the need for speed is real!  Here we are, excited for our new ride:

For the first few days of our trip we stayed in Bormla, at the Three Cities Apartment.  We had a wonderful host, who checked up on us to make sure our trip was going well, and he made us feel very at home.

On day one we explored the harbor town of Valetta.   It wasn't far from where we were staying, and we opted to take a little ferry across the beautiful harbor.

 Some nice boats...We hope to make this a stop one day during our retirement as we sail around

I love the sun!

Once we arrived in Valletta it was time for a history lesson: after its bombing in World War II much of its population left, and the city sat unused for years, fading into disrepair.  Nowadays that's changing and it is quite beautiful and impressive.  The city is surrounded by very tall walls up to 47 meters and overlooks the Grand Harbor. 

 We walked around the Lower Barrakka Gardens to admire the sea views-lots of pretty geraniums!

One of our first stops was for some breakfast at Caffe Cordina, where we tried a local favorite: the pastizzi. A pastizzi is a crisp flaky pastry that is almond shaped and filled with ricotta cheese. Not too flavorful, and a bit dry, but for .90 euro cents it was satisfying. Jordan also enjoyed a qassat filled with some sort of Meaty looking stuff...

We went into the National Library of Malta, which to my surprise was very interesting.  The architecture is beautiful, and it still functions as a modern library, with researchers reading through old books working on projects of their own.  When we went inside we were amazed at all the historical manuscripts, documents, and books dating back to the time of the Knights of St. John. It is a great representation of just how important the role of education had, and still has, in Malta. Unfortunately no photos were allowed inside, sorry!

We went a hop-skip-and a jump over to St. John's cathedral which was splendid. It is an integral part of Maltese culture and history.  The inside is like a jewel box-sparkling gold with deep blues and vibrant reds. 

SO much gold

But I love the ceiling!  It can really make your neck hurt looking up...

We did the audioguided tour and learned how the Church and State have grown alongside each other; everywhere you look there is a little piece of history. 

Selfie time!

The best part of the church was the Caravaggio's, both The Beheading of St. John the Baptist and St. Jerome Writing. 

Pictures of the works were not allowed, and hey were very aggressive towards those who were trying to sneak photos. The Maltese revere Carravagio because he chose it as a place of refuge when he was accused of murder in Rome.  It was here that he joined the Knights of St. John, but it was only a matter of time before he was in trouble again and eventually defrocked.  We walked around the city after, exploring and enjoying the day!

 I really liked this door:

The old opera house...being restored

Lofty limestone houses with windows jutting out just to see what you are doing below. 

Hungry yet?? We were ready for some lunch when we landed upon Nenu the Artisan Baker for some good food.

We started with some homemade bread and some good spreads:

The reason why you must eat at Nenu's is to taste the typical authentic Maltese food, we shared the rabbit ravioli to start: it was SO good.

A Ftira is like a flatbread pizza, and it was full of flavor! We ordered the Ta' Nenu which came with black olives, grated peppered maltese goat's cheese, onions, maltese sausages, capers and thyme.  It was delicious, and easily split between two! To drink we tried the national soda  called Kinnie which has a very unique flavor with a bitter aftertaste. 

We needed to walk off lunch, so around the harbor we went:

Love these streets

We are ready to jump in!

 Getting the last view of the harbor before boarding the boat

 Bye bye Valletta! Thanks for a great adventure on day 1! So much to look forward to this trip!

-DAY 2-

Day two was full of fun, and we busy from the minute we hit the road. Driving through the Maltese countryside, a white city appears in the distance, and that was where we were off to: the golden-stone, Arabic walled city of Mdina.  Mdina is the oldest city in Malta and was fortified in 1000 BC when the Phoenicians built a protective wall and established it as a settlement.  In 1091 the Normans made Mdina the capital of Malta and it became known as the "noble city", it was the favored residence of the Maltese aristocracy and seat of the governing council.  We enjoyed the little touches of Norman architecture:

Jordan in front of the Cathedral

When the Knights of St. John arrived in Malta, they made Valletta their capital, and Mdina sank into the background as a holiday destination for the nobility.  Now, it seems as if the city is pretty quiet. We wandered the streets, not a whole lot was going on:

If you like some good cake, and need a place to eat breakfast take our advice and stop into the Fontanella Tea Garden.  This should be our motto to live by:

We were pretty hungry, so we split three different things:

Egg, Ham and Cheese Sandwich (First time experiencing egg sandwich with a hard boiled egg, but it was good!)

They had so many cakes to choose from! We tried the Lemon Meringue and Banana Toffee-both delightful!

Not to mention, they have a pretty spectacular view of the ocean and Valletta from their patio:

From Mdina we drove out to the Dingli Cliffs.  The cliffs are the highest point along the Maltese Island-220 meters high-it's nice to take a stroll around, enjoy the views, and the tiny deserted island of Filfla off the coast. Filfla was used by the British as an artillery target for many years until they discovered it was the only home to a certain type of lizard found no where else. Luckily the lizards survived years of bombardment and now get to live in peace.

Our next stop was to one of the highlight restaurants on our trip, so take note, because if you or I ever go back to Malta, this is where we'll eat.  We learned that it is best and probably necessary to make a reservation at Diar Il-Bniet (especially on a Sunday).  It is worth a visit!

The food was authentic, and we really enjoyed that they value a farm-to-table philosophy-where all their ingredients are picked from their fields, and everything else is locally selected very carefully.  I love the store they have inside selling things they make from their farm products. Honey, Jam, Syrup, Olive Oil, you name it they make it...and it all looked to good!

Jams of every kind:

Pickled products:

There wasn't room for us to sit in the main room (make that reservation) so they let us dine in the foyer.  Jordan is getting ready to eat, and it looks like the man in the poster is rubbing his back.

So this was a feast, and the reason why you wont see any more food posted from Day two...because we were so full that we couldn't eat more after this; the portions here are VERY generous!  We really liked their lemonade, not too sweet, and the added fruit was nice:

Here's what we tried and recommend:
Starter: sheep cheese ravioli

Macaroni pastery (it was like a pasta bolognese pie... A-MAY-ZING!  My favorite thing)

Just look at that and tell me how it's made so I can duplicate it again!

We shared the Rabbit entry, which was very flavorful, and the veggies were excellent (the portion size is for a king)!

They had so many desserts to choose from, all looking sweet and good.  We split the apple crumble and strawberry cheesecake.

I'm not entirely sure how we managed to even move after all that food, but it was really outstanding and we would eat here again!  We spent the rest of this glorious day enjoying the weather at one of the many beautiful swim areas on the island.  Ghar Lapsi was our local stop today, and one of our favorites because of its accessibility into the water, and snorkeling!

Jordan checking out the water:

Snorkeling away!

Day 2 was great! We had so much fun, and what made it even better for me was being able to explore with this guy right here:

-Day 3-

We've had such great weather in Malta, we were really enjoying ourselves.  More fun in the sun for us starting off with a trip to the Blue Grotto. We went on a tour, and it is suggest to go first thing in the morning because of how the light shines, so we hopped on the first boat at 9am.

Such picturesque little boats, reminds me of when we checked out the Blue Grotto in Capri.

Life vests on and ready to go!

Such awesome natural caves, we wish we could have jumped out of the boat for a swim, but there were too many people.

Amazing colors: blues and purples

Seriously want to jump in and cool off...

Grotto Selfie!

After some time on the water we put on our archaeology hats to check out the oldest free standing structures in the world.  We went to Hagar Qim, where the first inhabitants of Malta settled around 5200 BC from Sicily.  There are some seriously enormous megaliths! 

Dimpled decoration on the doorway

Rooooockssssss coooooollll!

I can only go a few hours without getting hungry, so next stop was lunch.  As a sea-food lover, there is no better place to eat marine creatures than from the sea so we went to Marsaxlokk Bay to check out where the fishermen fish, and to eat of course. 

This water is my happy place:

For lunch we went to Terrone.  It is on the water (can't complain about the view!) and the food was de-lish; a mix of Italian and Mediterranean with fresh seafood.  Here's what we recommend: 

Starters: Frittura Mista de Pesce (fried local calamari, scallops, wild seabass & rosetti) & Fresh steamed muscles in a garlic white wine  

Main Dish: Pan seared (rare) wild Yellowfin Tuna with chargrilled asparagus and pepperonata

Dessert: Apricot almond tart with a scoop of gelatto

 Awesome stop over for lunch and here we are really REALLY full and happy!

On the south-east end of the island not far from Marsaxlokk is: St. Peter's Pool-one of the popular swimming and sunbathing spots on our list to checkout.  There is no sand, but the rocks are smooth and flat, so it was a comfortable spot for sunbathing. 

If you want to get in the water, the best way to do it is jump off the rocks and plunge right on in (there was a small entry way in too).  I was way too afraid, but Jordan is the courageous one of the two of us and had no problem jumping.  

Live video here:

Jordan rocking a great "dad bod" :)

I think at this point we are starting to look tan?!? Yeah??

Day three was a success in the books!

-Day 4-

Our fourth day was our last full day on the mainland of Malta before we headed off to the island of Gozo.  We got on our swimsuits and headed to the Northwest side of Malta, specifically Golden Bay for a day of relaxation on the beach. 

The nice thing about Golden Bay is that it is situated on a large stretch of sand, is easy to access for families (and they have showers), and has a few restaurants.  We also liked that you can rent lounge chairs and not have to lay on the ground!

There were lots of fish out in the water, and one thing we did was bought a loaf of bread at a grocery store to help lure them out.  It was fun to see them all, so we recommend bringing a snorkel.  At the end of the day we drove over to Popeyes village where they filmed the 80's film.  Today it is a small theme park, great for kids, not as amusing for adults.

Maybe we'll be back one day with our little one??

After a really nice day in the sun we drove over to the port and onto the ferry to take ourselves (and car) to the island of Gozo for a few days!  Check out what we did in our next post, you won't want to miss it!