#005: The Malta Experience
Malta is a small island country in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea. We made a 48-hour weekend trip in April. Kind of a last-minute on the spur of the moment decision. Unfortunately, turns out we ended up arriving on the one weekend where we had some not-so-great-weather, as there was a wide spread dust storm blanketing the city. Blown up from the north of Africa. So, most of the days were overcast with a slight yellow-ish tint in the sky. Nevertheless, it was a great warm weekend away from the cold of London.
You could go around the island in a day and you can get a public bus passes that lets you hop on and off where you want around the island. We spent the first day roaming around Valetta, the capital city. The second day, we went to Mdina and then to Sliema. Visiting these three areas of Malta would give you a great overview of the new and the old Malta, as well as a view of its country side. Mdina is an old city fortress in the middle of the island. Sliema is the newer side of the island with more modern looking apartments and shopping. There is also another island called Gozo which you can visit via ferry, but you'd need more time to visit that, which we didn't have on this trip.
The weekend that we were there, there was also the celebration of the Feast of St. Publius. Part of the celebration included revelers gathering around the streets facing residential apartments and jumping to catch all sorts of toys and items that are thrown from the balconies . It was fun to see this tradition playing out, as it wasn’t something we were expecting to see on the trip. We saw it when passing on a bus and rushed to get off at the next stop to take a look.
We tried to squeeze in a trip the Popeye Village, the movie set for the 1980 Musical Production 'Popeye' starring Robin Williams as Popeye the Sailor Man, but the limited time and the weather kept us away from it. Judging by the photos I saw of it, it looks like a fun trip to do, if you get the chance.
I did not set out to make my blogs posts like this into a travel blog, even though the last few entries have been about my trips. The next one will hopefully be about street photography and stuff I do when shooting on the streets.
All photos taken with the Fujifilm X100S.
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