It’s a small world

On Malta, nowhere is very far away though the suburbs around Valletta stretch for miles and the amount of traffic makes bus journeys slow. That doesn’t matter to us as the bus ride is part of the fun and we don’t need to be anywhere at a particular time. The walk to the bus station, from our Valletta house, is 10-15 minutes and mostly uphill. Summer valiantly tackles pushing Racheal up the first section, which is very steep, each morning and then takes off at speed on the less steep slopes with me trying hard to keep up!

On the first day of Valletta carnival we headed out of the packed city to the artisan craft village at Ta Qali for a bit of retail therapy. The craftspeople make use of buildings on an old wartime airfield to make and sell their wares. We spent a pleasant few hours exploring the ceramics, glass and jewellery shops and watching the artists creating in their workshops.

While we were there, we popped in to the small café for a post-picnic cuppa and cake, and to escape one of the frequent showers. As we were munching our way through Maltese apple pie, a familiar voice said ‘hello’. I looked up and there stood a colleague from over 13 years ago, in Malta for a short break! Becky was an occupational therapist in the office next door when I was a children’s community nurse. It certainly is a small world, and it was fun to catch up with her for a few minutes.

The following day, we thought we would just walk down the hill to the passenger ferry to Sliema, hop on a boat and explore the promenade there. It looked straight forward enough and only a short distance. However, distances may be short in Malta, but walking routes are often complicated by obstacles such as steps, barriers, narrow passages or pavements, steep hills and even vertical cliffs. On this occasion a lift that should have taken us directly to the ferry from the park above was out of order. We followed what seemed like an obvious alternative down the steep road only to find an uneven, narrow passageway at the bottom, leading to steps. A lady kindly informed us we needed to retrace our steps halfway up the hill, cross the road and go through a tunnel down to the ferry quay. By this time our short walk had taken nearly an hour to cover quarter of a mile! The boat journey was a pleasant excuse to sit down for a few minutes.

The promenade in Sliema was a welcome change from the Valletta hills, providing a wide, flat area to walk. One of the frequent benches provided a good picnic spot and we even found a ramped walkway right down to the sea where we could explore some rock pools.

After an essential ice cream stop, we decided to take the slow bus back to Valletta so that we could walk downhill from the bus station instead of uphill from the ferry!