Walking. Gossip. Travel.

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  • Malta – Central Region – Manoel Island – Duck Village

    Manoel Island is quite a quirky place and takes its name from the Grand Master who built a fort here in the early eighteenth century. At the entrance to this island, which is connected to Sliema by a small bridge, is Duck Village. I’m not quite sure what to think of this little arrangement, but there were some children there who really enjoyed it. It can all be seen from the road and there’s the option of leaving money for the owners to pay for duck food.

    The ducks, chickens and cats all seemed to be living alongside each other quite happily, and it’s a harmless little enterprise. Well, so I thought until I went to TripAdvisor and saw this:

    “Ramshackle run down junk compilation of scrap that is an insult to the ducks, primarily designed to relieve idiots of there hard earned pennies”.

    The ducks looked quite happy to me, and if it keeps children happy, then I’m unsure why people have to throw comments around such as “idiots”. But, such is the world we live in. Photos of this experience below:

  • Malta – Central Region – Sliema – Love Locks

    The phenomenon of love locks has reached Malta (apparently over a decade ago), with the theory being that happy couples can place a lock on a fence and chuck the key into the water. Very romantic….

    I think it looks ridiculous, although this is one of the neatest examples that I’ve seen.

    Fortunately, the authorities have limited this love lock exuberance to just a few panels.

  • Malta – South Eastern Region – Valletta – Sunset

    The sun setting over Valletta, very peaceful…..

  • Malta – South Eastern Region – Valletta – Make a Donation

    The wording on this statue apparently means “help me become a Priest” and there has been an art project based on this. I’m sure that these used to be more common, although this is the only one that I’ve seen in a long time.

  • Malta – South Eastern Region – Valletta – Views From Sliema

    Photos of Valletta taken from Sliema, which is a strip of land just to the north of the country’s capital. Sliema is where the Ottomans attacked the Knights of St. John from, and is where Dragut was killed. It was a fishing village for some centuries, although there was a military garrison located here until the British left in 1979.

    These photos would have looked rather better if it hadn’t been raining for most of the morning…..

  • Malta – Northern Region – Ta’ Ħaġrat Temples

    This is another UNESCO World Heritage site, dating back to around 3,600BC. As with the Skorba Temples and Ġgantija, it’s genuinely difficult to grasp just how long these sites have been here. For these sites to be nearly 4,000 years old when the Romans were building Hadrian’s Wall is not insubstantial.

    It’s a relatively compact site, although there’s much more still standing than at the nearby Skorba Temples. As with other similar sites on Malta, there was a village here before the temple elements were added.

    Certainly not a bad location and it’s possible to see the sea from the temple complex. The site itself has been badly damaged by being repurposed for farming use over the centuries, although the first archaeological dig didn’t take place until the 1920s.

    A heap of stones at the rear of the temple site.

    The site hasn’t been particularly mauled about by archaeologists in an attempt to restore it, although this stone doorway has been recreated with what I understand are the original stones.

    Like Skorba, there aren’t any facilities at the site, but there is better signage at this location which gives an understanding of the history of the temples. A visit isn’t going to last particularly long given the relative small scale of the site, but it’s the importance of the history which makes this worth seeing.

     

  • Malta – Northern Region – Mgarr – Monsinjur Orazju Vella

    In my occasional series about people represented on statues, I had hoped to find out more about this individual. All I know is that he lived from 1912 to 1980 (that bit was easy to work out) and he came to serve the church in Mgarr in 1954. Beyond that, I couldn’t establish much, but I’m guessing that he was a popular local member of the Catholic Church.

  • Malta – Northern Region – Mgarr – Bohini

    Located behind the church is Bohini, a cafe which opened last year in the town of Mgarr (the one on the main island, not in Gozo).

    Appetising cakes, which were all well presented.

    In an attempt to come across as a millennial, I ordered the avocado and egg bagel. The bagel was crispy, but I like a bit of texture to them, and the egg was freshly made. The avocado was smooth and had a richness of flavour and the tomatoes actually had some taste to them.

    The latte was served at a temperature something akin to the centre of the sun, I’d rather they didn’t serve it so hot. It also kills some of the taste to me, although it wasn’t an unpleasant or overly bitter flavour. I had finished the bagel well before the coffee was at a temperature that I could drink.

    I had a dilemma with the sugar. I had already used the spoon served with the coffee so I couldn’t dip the spoon into the sugar. Given that self-created problem, I decided that I needed to elegantly tip just a little bit of sugar out onto the plate, which I would then transport to the latte. To cut a long story short, I spent several minutes cleaning off the sugar which spread itself out over a wider area that I had anticipated.

    Service was friendly and attentive throughout, and the environment was comfortable. It was a bigger location than I expected from the outside, with around ten tables, and it stayed pretty busy during my stay. I wasn’t sure whether to order at the counter or at the table, so I faffed about a bit and guessed correctly that it was an order at the table situation. There’s also a small outside terrace which I’m sure is rather delightful during warmer months.

    This cafe has a more modern feel to it than some of the others in the locality, but the prices have remained reasonable. All rather lovely.

  • Malta – Northern Region – Car

    I think it’s broken, although I’m not a car expert.

  • Malta – Northern Region – Dine West Restaurant

    There are several dining options in Mgarr and this restaurant specialises in local dishes, pizzas and food from the grill. The branding is a little confusing from the exterior and if I hadn’t already looked it up on-line, I’d have been unsure what style of food it was offering.

    The restaurant was fully booked when I went in, but the manager mentioned that a few tables weren’t booked until 13:00, so I could have one if I would be finished by then. Since it was only 12:00, I was hopeful of achieving that target, although I did drop my plan to have the octopus starter (I haven’t had octopus in a long time).

    The wine menu was prohibitively expensive, and seemed out of all proportion to the food menu pricing, so I went for an orange juice, which was very affordable at just over €1.

    The meat pizza, which had a deluge of toppings on and was not insubstantial in terms of its size. I like the leopard spotting on the pizza, although it might have been slightly over-done for some people. The toppings were generally of a high quality, especially the Maltese sausage which was packed with flavour. The beef was less impressive, but the chicken was tender and moist. The tomato on the base was quite sweet, but the base was a little too wet and was probably inevitable given how the toppings had been quite generous. The portion size was large and the pizza base wasn’t too heavy, but the volume of toppings certainly made it a challenge to finish it. However, I battled on and finished it all successfully.

    I would have ordered another drink but no-one asked. It’s obviously a popular restaurant given their reviews and how busy it was on a Sunday, although the atmosphere was just a little over formal for me. Overall the pricing was reasonable though, just under £10 for the pizza and drink.