We went to Malta on August 24 for just over two weeks. This was to celebrate a "big" birthday for the padre. We had just over a week in our flat at Hilltop not doing anything particularly as the weather was very hot Between 31 and 35° most days and quite a lot of humidity.
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The new small children at the school were eased into school life with a foam machine. And the padres snook off to a cafe without us
On September 2, we were ready for the main business of this trip. We took an Uber up to the north of the island and caught the ferry across to Gozo
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| We get the ferry from the north of Malta. It only takes about 15.. | ..minutes. And we enjoyed the sea air |
We were booked into the Kempinski hotel for three nights. This was the sort of poncy hotel that we quite like
We had a lovely room there overlooking the main pool . On the last night, which was "the" birthday, we ate at the hotel's up market restaurant and this was also very very pleasant
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| Funny sort of name for a Maltese hotel | But it was a nice room and .. | had a view of the swimming pool. So we could eat cake .. | .. and at the same time supervise the madre's swimming sessions |
Then we got down to eating the birthday cake. Luckily we had thought ahead, and advised the hotel of the birthday and the need for a really gooey chocolate cake
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| The cake happily arrived as soon as we arrived at the hotel | It was big, chocolatey and gooey, and is actually quite .. | ..difficult to get the chocolate off your paws |
On the 4th Sept we took a jeep tour from the hotel around the island which was interesting but not quite so deluxe as we thought it should be. In fact it was not de luxe at all
The jeep the he had been allocated for the day was on its last legs and the two bench seats in the back were not suitable for the occupants to see surrounding scenery . The madre bagged the front seat, so was able to see more.
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| This is us sitting on the jeep | We inspected the citadel in Victoria | We thought this was ice cream, but it was salt in a salt pan | And here they were extracting old stones for building |
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| This temple as a pile of not just old, but very old. We think that | ..these the the oldest piles of old stones that we have .. | ..ever had the misfortune to see.. | ''and we have seen a lot of old stones in our travels |
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| We had a couple of nice stops by the sea ... | ..at this one we had an ice cream (shared) | And at this one, there was no ice cream... | ..so we just got to admire the view |
We stopped for lunch in an inland village and this did not amount to much at all - just salad - no pudding, no buns.
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| They snook off without us quite a lot. For dinner .. | But we did get a breakfast | However missed out on this ice cream |
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| Nice bar for cocktails | It was so nice that we bought the madre a cocktail .. | ..and the padre too |
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| The birthday dinner was more than acceptable | The hotel had a very good playground for small bears | Then back to Malta on the ferry |
Back in Naxxar there were the fireworks, Now we like fireworks, but really only the pretty little fireworks. The Maltese are into BIG VERY NOISY fireworks. Probably what a WW1 battlefield would have sounded like. We had to hide under a pillow for a lot of them
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| A few bight ones | We saw these set up outside the church, | but never saw them going off | |
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| Most of the fireworks were this sort of big bang. | The whole building shook when one exploded | And just before we left there was a total Lunar Eclipse. |
Then back on Ryanair to Valencia. Ryanair does not offer Business Class