Walking. Gossip. Travel.

Category: Malta

  • Malta – Malta International Airport – VIP Arrivals Lounge

    Malta is a relatively small airport, but they have an arrivals lounge, a luxury usually limited to larger airports. It’s not a very big lounge, and it’s actually rather small with just a few tables, but it’s a handy little option for those arriving into the country.

    There are a few pre-packaged snacks, cans of drink, coffee, teas and the like, and the environment is comfortable. It’s included in the Priority Pass scheme, and no doubt most similar lounge schemes, and it was spotlessly clean and tidy. Although I don’t think that the lounge is particularly heavily used, so it’s probably one of the easiest lounges to keep clean.

    The lounge is located at the rear of the baggage collection area and it relatively well signed. I only stayed for around forty minutes, but it’s possible to stay for three hours should anyone wish.

  • British Airways (Gatwick South to Malta) – Second Time

    The BA plane having arrived in Malta, this is G-DBCK, which is a former BMI A319 aircraft. I understand that this one might not be in the fleet for much longer.

    The flight load was very light, only 32 passengers across both cabins, meaning I had the row to myself. The seats aren’t the best in the fleet, although it’s inevitably comfortable when there’s no-one in front and no-one else in the row. A light load means customers want to change seat, but a crew member had to stop customers moving about the cabin for take-off on the instruction of the pilot because of the trim.

    The menu for the flight.

    I thought that the crew were meant to go front to back to take food orders, but they seemed a bit erratic in how they took orders. No matter, I got what I wanted, the meat platter which was as I had enjoyed before. Although it was served cold, and I know it’s meant to be cold, but it wasn’t far off being frozen. Those strawberries were rather pleasant, and all told, it was a nice light meal.

    The crew were polite, but they didn’t have the engagement of the crew member I had from Luxembourg the other day. I spent a lot of the flight asleep though so it all seemed to go quickly.

    I moved to the window seat when the pilot mentioned that we were flying over Sicily.

    Back in Malta.

    Disembarking, or deplaning as the Americans call it, via the steps. All on time, this was a comfortable flight. I’m aware it’s January, but it did seem a much lighter flight in terms of customer numbers than I’d have expected.

  • Malta (South Eastern Region) – Valletta – Old City Steps

    Now closed off, this is an original part of Valletta’s defences, as constructed by the Knights of the Order of St. John. It’s not particularly interesting in itself, but in its unrepaired state it feels like a little bit of a connection with the Valletta of the sixteenth century. Well, I say sixteenth century, it might be slightly later, but I don’t want to ruin the magical idea that I had given myself that it was sixteenth century….

  • Malta (South Eastern Region) – Valletta – Flame Which Never Dies

    This is the ‘Flame Which Never Dies’ sculpture which looks over the city of Valletta which was unveiled on 7 July 2017. It was designed to mark the country’s Presidency of the European Council and was designed by Valerio Schembri.

    The sculpture is designed to “reflect the enthusiasm and continuous work of the Maltese to decide their own future while improving their standard of living”, so a recognition of those who contributed to ensure that Malta could determine its own future.

  • Malta (Southern Region) – Birżebbuġa – Borġ in-Nadur

    Borġ in-Nadur is a temple arrangement dating back to 2,500BC located near to the town of  Birżebbuġa. The site was then turned from a religious site into a Bronze Age village and numerous buildings were constructed around it. I thought it was interesting that they also fortified their settlement, a forerunner to the later efforts of the Knights of St. John which were on a much larger scale.

    The villagers were concerned about an attack from the land, rather than the sea, and this site is the oldest fortification in Malta. The complex was discovered again in the sixteenth century, with numerous digs taking place in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

    I didn’t expect this site to be open, but was I told at another Heritage Malta site that they were opening it up for the day, so I trekked off down here. There was a lady at the entrance who was friendly and gave me an A4 laminated sheet to help me understand the site. I was the only person at the site and she did say that it hadn’t been very busy.

    This is the A4 sheet explaining the site. I didn’t understand any of it as I couldn’t work out what rocks on the ground related to this plan. I think I vaguely worked it out towards the end, after tramping about the publicly accessible part of the site, but I didn’t exactly feel like I knew what I was doing.

    Entrance was free with the Malta Heritage Pass and although I didn’t really understand the site in its entirety, it was pleasant to see something which was so old and was still standing.

  • Malta (South Eastern Region) – Valletta – City Defences

    Just working through the photos that I didn’t upload during the week, here are some of the city defences. This is also the main entrance point into Valletta, the Knights of St. John certainly made their capital city look imposing.

  • Malta (Northern Region) – St. Paul’s Bay – Malta National Aquarium

    For reasons I don’t entirely understand, but won’t complain about, the National Aquarium is on the list of locations that I can visit free of charge with my Malta Heritage Pass. But, aquariums are exciting (not as exciting as zoos though), so given that it was free to go in, I went.

    Jellyfish!

    This very much discriminated against tall people, as children and short adults could walk through this mini-tunnel. This reminds me, this is another place that Dylan and Leon would like. Not because they’re short, which they obviously are because they’re young, but because they’re children.

    Urgh.

    Horrible.

    A walk through tunnel, this one was suitable for people of all heights and ages.

    A happy little octopus. I admit that I don’t know if he was happy, but he didn’t look unhappy, and I like to think that he was having a lovely time.

    A frog thing.

    A chameleon.

     

      

    And lots more fish and other associated items.

    It’s quite an expensive aquarium to get in, and irritatingly for some visitors, they might go to the on-site cafe afterwards and then be given a discount voucher. Not a great deal of use at that point…. I got in free with my heritage card, but I’m not sure that I would have paid the full price.

    There was also one of those photographers standing by the entrance, who I had to rush by whilst not looking rude, with some exorbitant price charged at the end for those who wanted to keep their photo. I thought that attractions were doing away with this now, or letting visitors have the photo for free. It doesn’t give a great welcome in my view, for what that’s worth…

    It’s not that big an attraction either, I think I was in there for under an hour, although I was distracted reading something in the Guardian for some of that time. It was busier than I thought it’d be, although by no means packed, but it is perhaps rather more busy during the summer months.

  • Malta – Malta International Airport – La Valette Club

    Malta’s international airport only has one lounge in departures (there is another in arrivals, which I’ll go to next week) and it’s a clean and organised set-up. It’s one of those airport lounges which is easy to find, sometimes they seem to be like the toilets at Wetherspoons, at the back of beyond somewhere.

    The staff member was friendly at reception although she asked if I had visited before and I said “no” and she then didn’t tell me anything about the lounge anyway, which seemed slightly bizarre. Anyway, there wasn’t much to really say about the lounge, it’s quite spacious and the food and drink options are pretty obvious. I didn’t opt for any alcohol, since it was before mid-day, but it was all self-pour and there were named brands available. The coffee was good too, and I didn’t break the coffee machine.

    This photo is a bit washed out as the sun was shining in, but there’s a decent view over the tarmac.

    There’s an area for those who wanted to recline, and there’s also an outside terrace for smokers, which I didn’t investigate for obvious reasons.

    This is what I want to see, some cold meats and cheese. I didn’t bother with the fruit, but I’m sure that it was lovely.

    The pea cakes on the left were very moreish, as can be evidenced with the knowledge that I had seven of them.

    Muffins and cakes, which were perfectly acceptable.

    All in all, a perfectly nice lounge, and I look forwards to another visit there. Everything was clean, the staff were polite and the food and drink met my expectations.

  • Malta (South Eastern Region) – Valletta – L’Academia Cafe

    Situated next to Burger King (which I had to resist) is this little cafe, which is located opposite to the modern Maltese parliament building. There’s an internal seating area, but I decided to sit outside amongst the 50 pigeons who were flapping about. Malta needs to do something with all these pigeons, move them to Sicily or something, they are a bit of a nuisance.

    Quite a murky presentation of the latte, but it tasted fine with a decent flavour. Service was very efficient, indeed it was a bit quick, as the server came over with the menu, handed me it and then asked straight away what I wanted to eat. So given that I was panicked at what seemed to be an undue haste, I didn’t order anything from the printed menu (which had been my intention). However, I had already seem a lemon meringue pie in their display counter, so I thought I’d have that.

    And I was happy with my choice, nicely presented and a lemon flavour, although it would have been tragic if it hadn’t…. All with a dollop of whipped cream, what more could anyone want? Well, a hot meal like I had planned, but the lemon meringue sufficed.

    It’s a decent little location with affordable prices, especially given its central location near to the Parliament building and the central bus station. They’ve picked up some negative reviews recently, but I couldn’t find much negative about it. Other than the pigeons, but that’s not really their fault.

  • Malta – That’s It For Week One

    The first week is over…. I’m back next week though  🙂

    I got a relatively early bus to the airport from my hotel, the bay was looking rather colourful this morning…. Looking forwards to going back.