Malta

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Welcome to the Keen Blog.

I have an apology to make to Mrs K.

Our taxi is booked 4 hours before our flight to Malta. It is only 45 minutes to Gatwick and I suggest we might be hanging around quite a bit at one of my least favourite airports in the world.

The taxi driver turns up late to pick up Tony and then has to stop for a wee on his way to us. Mrs K gets on the phone to the taxi firm. The taxi ride is uneventful except for our rather erratic driver. He asks me the best way to Gatwick at the end of our road.

When we arrive at the South Terminal, the KM Malta queue is the longest in the terminal and there are only 3 check-in desks open. It takes us an hour to get to the front at which point our check-in agent seems to be on her first day on the job. She makes a mess of our check-in and has to start fresh. Then she loses one of our baggage tags.

We escape her and join the queue for security. Four of our bags are singled out for closer inspection and Mrs K's handbag is found to have traces of explosives in it.

“Don't worry”, we are told “this happens all the time.”

The supervisor is called over and the contents of Mrs K's bag are inspected again.

Greg: “Where are you travelling to?”
Mrs K: “Malta”
Greg: “How long for?”
Mrs K: “6 weeks”
Greg: “You live in Malta?”
Mrs K: “No”
Greg: “But you have a Maltese passport?”
Mrs K: “Yes, my parents are Maltese”

He seems unconvinced.

He is on the phone and tells us he is trying to get us cleared.

I wonder if he is calling MI5 or perhaps the SWAT team.

Mrs K points out that our flight is boarding.

Greg: “You should have arrived here earlier”
Mrs K: “We got here 2 hours ago!”

Greg shrugs.

We are eventually released and sprint to the gate (with Tony in his wheelchair). We go straight on to the plane.

I won't complain about the 'Buhagiar' thing again – always wanting to get there especially early.

Our flight is comfortable and on time. Mr and Mrs K have been upgraded to Club (for some unknown reason) but Tony has to rough it in Economy. The pilot warns us the temperature in Malta is 42C. The BBC says 37C. When we arrive, I am in seat 1C and I am first off. It's like opening the door of a pizza oven and I am sweating before I get to the waiting bus.

We are warned that there is a big concert in Floriana, near to where we are staying in Valletta. That means gridlock traffic conditions – only slightly more busy than usual though. We drop off Tony at his apartment in Msida and arrive at our apartment. Unfortunately, there is a power cut in Valletta and the electronic entry system at the apartment is not working. We have to call the landlord and then wait outside with our bags for 15 minutes. Fortunately, it has cooled to only 36C.

It is now 7pm and we are told to get out what we need for the night and morning in case the power doesn't come back on. Apparently, the Prime Minister of Malta has had to make an apology to the nation for the power shortage. Some streets do have power and the MTV concert goes ahead without a problem.

We manage to find a restaurant with power to grab a bite to eat, but by the time we get back to the apartment, the power is still off in our street. I check on the EneMalta website and see that our corner of Valletta is the only part of the city without power. Great.

Meanwhile, half a mile away, Katy Perry is surfing the crowd in a giant plastic water bottle, watched apparently by Justin Trudeau. Mrs K tells me they are an item. Wonder who Sir Keir is going to end up with?

Next morning we have our power back. Thank goodness! Mrs K says she needs to go to the spa. Wow that was quick, we only just arrived. No, she means the Spar supermarket.

Our apartment is right next to Upper Barrakka Gardens where they fire the cannons every day at midday and 4pm. Mrs K's Aunt's family run the café there. These are the views from the cafe.

When we leave the apartment there is a gathering across the small street at the entrance to the War Tunnels. We have been to the War Rooms before, but this is a newer museum that we hadn't been to before.

Mrs K asks if we can join the tour. Yes of course. We have 2 minutes to buy our ticket and the other members of the group are cursing us for making them wait longer in the extreme heat.

It was opened in 2017, having been closed up since NATO left in 1972. It is a fascinating look at how the military command guided air and sea forces through the second world war. It is also all underground in the cool. Tick.

On Friday night we go to a concert of Swing music. It is held in the Royal Opera house, also no more than 500 metres from our apartment and next to the Parliament building. The Opera house was bombed in the war and has never been rebuilt. Apparently, some German POWs offered to pay for it to be rebuilt just after the war. I have seen an estimate of £1.25m for the cost of rebuilding, but that was in 1950. Probably closer to £100m today, I would guess. It is now just a frame of steel girders surrounded by a few remnants of the old stones. It is open air, but the temperature has cooled to the mid-20's.

Before and after of the Royal Opera House…

Unfortunately, Tony left his phone in a taxi on his way over, so we have the uncertainty of that while we enjoy the excellent singers, the big band and a new Maltese Swing Dance group. The driver is tracked down later that evening and the phone delivered back to Tony the next morning – thank goodness.

We enjoy a firework display over the harbour on our way back to the apartment – specially for us we presume.

We continue our cultural rediscovery of Valletta on Sunday when we visit the Grand Master's Palace, which used to be the Government building up until 2015. We have walked past it a hundred times but have never been in. It doesn't disappoint and the Maltese have done a great job of showing off the history of the island and restoring some of the rooms to their former splendour. We are told the armoury contains one of the largest stores of armour in Europe. Given the amount of defending the Maltese have had to do over the centuries I am surprised there is much left.

Congratulations to Charles and Myriam. We celebrated their 50^th wedding anniversary with a family meal at the Corinthia and at the mass before, they were presented with a certificate from the Pope.

Our cultural journey continued on Tuesday when we visited the Three Cities. Some of you were with us last year in Senglea to celebrate Mrs K's 60^th. We return to the 'scene of the crime' but this time on the other side of the creek to Birgu which is in fact older than Valletta. Fort St Angelo was the base of the defence against the Ottoman attack and great siege of 1565. The Maltese were outnumbered (8,000 to 50,000 men) but the Knights of St John were able to inflict enough casualties to cause the Turks to retreat. They were rewarded with the thanks of the major European nations and used the funds to build Valletta.

The second siege of Birgu was in the second world war when the Maltese islands were attacked with 15,000 tonnes of bombs. But again they held out, though nearly succumbed to starvation. A lot of Birgu was wiped out due to its strategically important dockyards, but fortunately there is a lot left to see, including the Inquisitor's Palace. It sounds like a place of torture but it was more of a court where they tried people that were guilty of religious crimes e.g. teaching protestant doctrine. They had ways of persuading people to recant their beliefs which were brutal but very rarely led to death. Matthew shows us some of the persuasion techniques and I think I would have preferred death.

Matthew walks us round the city with a family from Paris and he really knows his stuff. The French were a massive influence on Malta via the Knights and obviously due to Napoleon's brief occupation at the end of the 18^th century. We enjoy exploring the palace and the surrounding streets. It is overcast but very very humid and the French father has a funny turn, but he is OK.

The islands were handed over their full economic independence in 1979 (political independence in 1964) which was marked by the last British troops leaving Fort St Elmo, just a short walk from the Birgu main church.

Mrs K and I enjoy a fantastic tasting meal at one of the many Michelin star restaurants. This one overlooks the harbour and the Three Cities.

Every day we walk back from the centre or from the bus station (yes Mrs K has been seen on a bus), we walk past the beautiful buildings around Castille Place, including the Auberge de Castille and the Stock Exchange building. The Auberge de Castille was rebuilt in 1740 and is where the PM sits.

One day we are walking back just before 4pm. It is the first time we have got our timing right to watch the “Saluting Battery”. We pay our €3 and descend the steps to watch the demonstration of the firing of the cannon. Unfortunately, there is a mis-fire (which we are later told is a very rare occurrence) and the backup cannon is quickly deployed. The firing took place at a few seconds past 4pm that day.

We visit the Manoel Theatre. It’s a tour run by one of the Maltese actors. He loves his job, I would say. It’s unbelievable what you find inside dusty buildings on narrow streets.

This picture is outside one of our favourite places to eat and with the Balluta building in the background. I used to sit next to the water polo club’s pool and look at that building and think that it would be a great project to buy it and return it to its former glory. Someone beat me to it.

We are nearly at the end of our stay in Valletta and will be travelling over to Gozo on Saturday, where we will be in very different surroundings in the very quiet village of Gharb in a small villa with a pool. We were in the same village last year, so we know it very well.

The scrabble score is 5-0 to me. Mrs K doesn't want to play any more. I might need to let her win a game.

Part 2

Boom!

The windows shake. Are we in a war zone? No it's just the fireworks in Gozo which are like cannons going off. It's the festa in St Lawrenz (the next door village) at the weekend and it will be a slow wind up to the Sunday evening when the charming village will go into lock down , centred around the church of course. More on that later.

We are more than settled into our Gozo house now - where did 3 weeks go? Everyone will tell you that Gharb is a very quiet village. It has a resident population of 1500, spread over 5 square kilometres. We are doing our best to boost the population and the noise level with our guests. Charlie and Myriam, who celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary in Malta, are here for a few days (2nd honeymoon?) and the Berkeley clan have arrived too, making 9 of us at the moment. That number will ebb and flow over the next couple of weeks, as family come and go.

The evenings tend to end up with a game of Maltese rummy which involves money. Myriam was cleaning up from the visitors from overseas at first but we all soon got into our stride.

Our other frequent guests have been the maintenance team, to deal with various issues, including the Internet and the pool pump. But hopefully we are all fixed now.

The other 1st world problem has been the parking. We are nicely in the centre of the village and just 300m from the church (cue bells every 15 minutes) but that means nowhere to park most of the time. Our street has about 7 houses and only 6 spaces for cars, and even then, barely enough space for parking on both sides of the road. A few times I have had to park in another part of the village and walk back. This eats into my time reserved for sitting, sunbathing, eating and swimming in the pool. Like I said, first world issues.

I wrote a blog on Malta and Gozo in 2022 (available here) and I included a section on a day trip to Gozo back then.

Mrs K and I have been out for early morning walks. There is a trade-off between how early we are prepared to get up and how much we want to avoid the heat. It gets above 30C by about 8am, so we elect to leave by 7.30am.

Our first walk was down to the Dwejra Bay, where the Azure Window used to be. It was used as a location in the first episode of Game of Thrones but was washed away by high seas in 2017. Mrs K gets a great shot of the cave between the Inland Sea and the Gozo Channel.

I manage to talk Mrs K into taking a more adventurous route back up the cliff and we look back at the bay and the famous Fungus Rock.

For our next 2 walks, we are accompanied by Lucy. We show her the Wied il Mielah (Valley of Salt) which is the next best thing to the Azure Window.

Its amazing to see what is growing in the intense heat of the sun.

Another day we visit the Xwejni salt flats where Gozitan families have been harvesting salt from the sea for 350 years. We see a local sweep up huge shovels full as we pass. There is a group of oldies out for their morning swim. The bay will be full of divers later in the morning – this is a bit early for that crowd.

Our destination is a tiny inlet called Wied Il Ghasri where we decide to return to for a morning swim soon. And then back again past the new and weird sculpture that wasn't there on our walk last year. By the time we get back to the car the temperature is already up to 33C at just 9am.

The oldies are back home now having their morning cappuccino, but the divers are out in force kitting themselves out and preparing to go out. We drive back up the hill through a village called Zebbug where they are also preparing for their feast the following weekend. The local police are out in force with blue flashing lights to re-direct the traffic around the crews putting up banners and lights. It's all go in Gozo.

We did return to the Wied il Ghasri inlet for a swim a few days later. While we were there a guy got badly stung by a jellyfish when he was exploring under the overhanging rocks. He was shaking with the pain, which caused his young daughter to cry. Joan managed to provide an antihistamine from her medical pouch though we weren't sure that would help very much. I had a minor sting a few years back and it took about half an hour to wear off, but his was across his tummy and up his arm. Nasty.

These are two views from nice restaurants we have been to in the last few days.

The food was excellent in both locations. The locals agreed. A small lizard made a jump for Joan's starter but missed and landed on her head. I have never seen Joan move so quickly. Mrs K came to the rescue and swiped it away but unfortunately in the direction of the table next to us. The lizard was not seen again and we hope it wasn't hiding in the poor girl's soup.

On Sunday evening Mrs K and I walked over to the next village (St Lawrenz) to watch the main night of the festa. The town square was full of people waiting for the church statue to be paraded around the streets. It's a small village but the procession makes slow progress because the band stops for a break every few yards and the statue carriers also need a rest. We get a constant stream of fireworks and cannons. The main volley occurs as the statue leaves the church and goes on for about 20 minutes. We are treated to an orchestra and choir in the square and then the brass band assembles to parade with the statue.

Poor St Lawrence was killed by the Romans. He was tasked with collecting all the riches and he turned up with all the needy children and sick. Suffice to say the Romans were not impressed. They slow roasted him on a griddle.

Mrs K and I are now on our own for a couple of nights. There has been no time for scrabble apart from 1 game which took the score to 6-0. We are now waiting for Anthony and Maria to arrive and are looking forward to spending a week with them. Mrs K is worried where we are going to find vegan options in Gozitan restaurants.

Part 3

It is now 7-0.

We are sitting by the pool , waiting for Anthony and Maria. Their plane is due soon. I check the flight tracker and I notice it is due to fly over very soon. I am not sure how near the flight path is, but sure enough, about 5 minutes later we see it flying over.

I forgot to mention something from Malta. Some luck – which seems to follow Mrs K all the time. Having enjoyed supper at the Busy Bee in Msida, one of our favourite cafés, we pass a betting shop where Mrs K’s cousin (Daniel) works. Mrs K thinks it would be rude not to have a flutter, so we buy 2 tickets for the Lotto. A few days later we check the numbers but are confused about which draw counts. The ticket gets put to one side and forgotten about. A few days later it occurs to me I should check the rules of the lotto. I realise we have won something. Mrs K tells me she put the ticket in the bin and the cleaning service have been into our room since. Rest assured the ticket was retrieved and we collected our €38 prize money – a big thrill.

Our next big walk is to the hill next to Ta’ Pinu church where there are 14 life-sized stations of the cross. We have never been up that hill before. For good reason – it is very steep. Maria accompanies us. Anthony decides to go for a run, but he was doing it in his sleep it seems. The church is a shrine, marking the site of several miracles and sightings of the Virgin Mary. Several Popes have visited the site. If nothing else, it is a spectacular church and sits all by itself on the side of a valley. It's quite a climb up the hill, but you can measure your progress as you pass each of the 14 statues. At the top, there are amazing views of the whole island. This is the first time I have been able to see the sea on both sides of the island from a single vantage point.

On Saturday, it is the Santa Maria feast which is celebrated across all the islands and the feast in the Rabat (English name Victoria) in Gozo is one of the best. The day (15th August) is the anniversary of the arrival of SS Ohio into the Valletta harbour in 1942, lashed to two destroyers, having been torpedoed by German U -boats and carrying essential supplies to the islands. At the time the Maltese were on the brink of starvation. That just adds to the emotion and the significance of the celebration.

We take the bus into the capital because we know that traffic will be heavy and parking will be impossible. Earlier that week, we had gone into Victoria with Colin and Joan. The idea was breakfast followed by a mooch around the small shops. I dropped the 3 of them off and went in search of parking. After a half hour of driving round in circles, I gave up on the idea of breakfast and decided just to seek out a barber for a quick haircut. After visiting about 7 barbers and having been asked at each one if I had an appointment, I had to give up on that too. By the time I eventually arrived in St George’s Square I was a bit grumpy!

For the the very special Santa Maria Feast the scenes in Victoria take you back to scenes in the ‘The Godfather’ in Sicily. The women are dressed up for a night out (the men less so) and the town centre is lit up and full of people, some from the main island. There are two orchestras and two marching bands. After a meal, we go out in search of the statue which is doing a tour of the narrow streets. We catch up with it in a street where the statue has to be carefully guided between banners and under telephone lines. I get some close-up photos of the amazing silver base which was made in Rome and only gets one outing a year. I captured some scenes in this 2-min video if you are interested.

7-1

A bit of a story for you. Last year Mrs K discovered a new shop in Valletta called Hollywood. It’s kind of a boutique gift shop. Mrs K had a good chat with the proprietor, Thomas, because she had been watching the refurbishment on his Instagram. They got chatting about the changes to the city over time and Mrs K mentioned that her family used to own a coffee shop in Republic Street (the Oxford Street of Valletta) called the British Bar. It’s now McDonalds. He said “Wait, you’re not from THE Buhagiar family are you?” “Yes I am!” said Mrs K, proudly. Then it turned out that he is a collector, not just of old Maltese floor tiles (which we had to buy a few of to take back to the UK) but he also has some saloon doors from the old coffee shop. The saloon doors have the initials of Mrs K’s great-great-grandfather (Dimitri Buhagiar) etched on the glass. Those doors are also ‘special’ because the shop was a location for a scene in the film Midnight Express, starring Robert de Niro, and the doors can be seen in the film. We retrieved one of the old coffee tables many years back and it sits in our house, so naturally Mrs K has her sights on those doors. While we have been here there have been some conversations about thedoors and I will just say that the asking price was about 5 times what we had guessed. We might need to do the Lotto again. And with all that going on, no wonder Mrs K has not been focused on her Scrabble!

We have been hearing a lot about Warhammer in the last few days – not a subject that we usually spend much time on. It’s war gaming but you collect your own armies of figures and pit yourself against an opponent on a large square tabletop. The competition is taking place in Belgium between 46 countries – bit like the World Cup. It’s exciting to see that Malta has a team and is taking part. Sadly, they finish 41st. They should have recruited Anthony to play for them because he has a world ranking which is higher than almost all of the Maltese team. This is one of Anthony's hand-painted figures.

We set off early for another walk. I have spotted a lake on Google maps about 4km away. Can there really be any standing water in Gozo? All the rivers are dry. It seems unlikely but I want to go and find it. It’s another early start to avoid the heat of the day but it is easily 30C already. Fortunately, we are snaking our way across the island in the shadow of hills and high stone walls. We pass a few quarries. Most of the rock here is limestone and they use it to build the houses. The depth of some of these quarries is surprising – maybe 10-15 storeys?

We are told that the rock is getting harder to come by. I wonder how much deeper they can go and what they will do when they run out. A few big trucks pass us on the narrow roads laden with new blocks, no doubt on their way to a new build. You never know, one day that new build might be ours. Mrs K is looking at property – again.

We arrive at Rafla Lake. Mrs K says it's more like a pond, but I am calling it a lake. But fair to say the water is not that inviting. From there it's a long walk along the cliffs back to civilsation. We can see Xlendi in the distance and yet another sighting of a window in the rock. One to visit. We find a bakery in a village called Kercem and they have vegan ice-cream for Anthony. We have walked 5 miles so it's a taxi back to Ta' Majsi.

8-1

It's a big day at Ta' Majsi. There are 7 people arriving from the UK, which will make 11 in the house tonight. We all meet up for dinner at Mgarr Harbour.

We have a complicated weekend ahead because we are returning back to the UK, just for 2 days. Looking forward to a big event on Saturday night and then we return to Gozo with our two granddaughters. The next week or so will be less quiet than the previous one!