The trip commenced with an evening flight from Sydney to Dubai via Emarites for a change.
For me, any international flights are always long as as I don’t tend to sleep on flights much. Emarites do seem to have more leg and, importantly for me, more shoulder room which was good. I was also in luck that I had a window seat but the seat next to me was unoccupied during the whole flight. They also seem to have lots of little food knick knacks at meal time (biscuits, bread, etc) which can be a little hard to manage in the limited space on your table, however there certainly wasn’t a lack of food.
First stop, Dubai, which meant a change to a connecting flight. This meant finding the Connection Flight point, passing through a security check and then making my way to the designated gate. I’ll be back here later on with this trip but Dubai airport is roomy, clean and efficient. It is easy to navigate even though it is quite large, however it is well signed but in my case it did require a lot of walking and transferring by shuttle train to the designated gate for my next flight.
Now, my connecting flight to Malta was via Tunis. Interestingly, Tunis comes with government travel warnings highlighting the current dangers of the region. I had been assured that all that would happen in Tunis was offloading of passengers and picking up new ones on their way to Malta. This meant that I wouldn’t even need to leave the plane but would spend an hour or so on the ground during this stop over.
After about another 7 hours of flying time we landed in Tunis and the majority of people disembarked. The only view I really got of Tunis was from the plane as you see above.
As promised, after about an hour on the ground we were off for the very short 45 minute flight to Malta. Touch down was on time and we were provided a shuttle bus from the plane to the terminal. The whole airport is small a very quite compared to other international airports,but given the size of Malta this makes sense. I will also report that getting through customs and immigration was a breeze. Basically all you need is a smile and a valid passport (for me anyway) and you’re in.
Now travelling, like anything, has its good and bad points as well as its challenges and to expect anything else is being un-realistic. In my case, I was just about to be faced with some of the challenges and bad points.
First, the challenges, I had arranged a transfer by car from the airport to my hotel, however upon arrival I saw no sign with my name on it as expected. So after wandering around a bit and not finding anything that made sense I called the number given on my instructions. I was then directed to a location where all the transfer companies reside, the driver was then located and I was off to my hotel. The positive here was that I now knew my pre-paid phone SIM worked internationally, so there is always a silver lining!
Now the bad. My driver was pretty much totally solemn while at the same time managing to almost have an accident at every intersection. Cornering was completed in a rather vigorous and violent manner, making me in fact more motion sick than I have ever been on a plane!
Upon arrival, I departed the car, grabbed my bags and said ‘thanks’. At first, I didn’t digest the reply I received from the driver. However, upon repetition he was basically saying that my ‘thanks’ meant nothing to him and all he wanted was a tip! Welcome to the joys of international travel.
I’ll pause here just a moment to make a comment in this. The American concept of ‘tipping’ has really made travel somewhat complex now, with so many places expecting something ‘extra’ no matter how bad the service. In this case, Mr Grumpy, hadn’t even tried to be nice. Hadn’t even tried to welcome me to his country. Hadn’t even played a bit of a tour guide. Hadn’t even driven in ‘reserved’ manner but instead given me the full ‘European’ traffic experience after almost 24 hours of constant flying.
All of that, and the fact that, to mind, a tip is a reward for better than expected customer service, which honestly wasn’t forthcoming! All Mr Grumpy needed to do was be a little bit communicative, welcoming and so on and things might have been different. You know what mate? It ain’t my fault you don’t like your job and your fault if you don’t do something about it. You are doing yourself and your country no favours by denting my initial travel experience coming to a wonderful place like Malta. May be you were having a bad day and I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt as it wouldn’t be nice to have that attitude every day. As the Americans say ‘Thank you and have a NICE day’.
Bad experiences happen when you travel. Hopefully, they don’t occur that regularly. Hopefully, I’ve had my full allocation for this trip now up front and I can get on with the enjoyment part.
My next few days would be at the Fortina Hotel, Tigne Seafront, SLM 15 Sliema Malta, just across the water from Valetta proper.
After trying to checking into the wrong hotel and being directed to the ‘non-five star’
The room was nice and modern with a rather grand bathroom. This style of bathroom doesn’t make sense to me really but you want to know the best part? The bathroom comes with a bathrobe and slippers. Now that’s luxury!
After winding down a bit, I took a shower to refresh and hit the streets.
Luckily, my hotel has some pretty spectacular views of Valetta, across the water as you can see.
I decided I’d take the long walk along the water front to Valetta, how dinner and return via ferry.
The views across to the city are pretty spectacular as you can see.
Another interesting aspect of Malta is the architecture as seen above. These buildings are along ‘embassy row’ and give some idea of the ‘solidity’ that surrounds Malta.
The other thing about Malta, obviously, is its links to the sea. There were certainly no end to the boats in the harbour as you can see above.
Taking a long walk to town gives you a better ideas about what this place is all about I think, as well as some exercise.
After hiking up the hill into Valetta proper you start to get a better idea of the history of this place as you approach the city center.
You can see the main tourist drag that runs through the city center. It is quite picturesque and maintains that ‘old world’ charm.
There is also plenty of history here like the church of St John above.
This part of the city is lined with narrow laneways with buildings on either side as you can see above.
As you move away from the city centre these streets descend quite quickly to sea level making some very pretty pictures.
After walking around for a bit in Valetta, I grabbed a quick bite from one of the many side walk cafes and decided to head for the ferry back towards my hotel.
There are simply so many places to eat in town it ain’t funny. if you want more choice then head towards the eastern end of the main city square.
I headed down the hill to the ferry terminal only to discovered that I had just missed the last ferry and the next one wasn’t for another two hours or so. I therefore decided to hike back up the hill for some more wandering around Valetta.
Walking the streets you get a real sense of the history of this place, which is what has drawn me to it. Even through the modern veneer you can appreciate the centuries of history that have walked these same streets.
With fatigue starting to catch up with me I headed back to the Ferry terminal for the final treat of the night, a spectacular cruise across Valetta harbour for the grand sum of Euro 1.75.
Tomorrow’s a full day here and the next I depart for the next stage of my trip. Clearly, there is going to be far more to see that I can hope to cover in a day but hopefully I can report back on the sights that I did manage to experience.
The good from the day, apart from the sites and experiences of Valetta, where that all my technology is working as expected. Using a mobile device when travelling makes life SO MUCH easier! The hotel is great and more that I expected. The bad? Mr Grumpy but that’s history now.
