Mosta and Mdina

We hired a small car from a local leasing company a short walk from our hotel. Driving in Malta should be pretty straight forward as they drive on the left like we do in the UK. We had observed in taxi rides that a speed limit doesn't seem to exist, or if it does, it is ignored! Steph was the driver, so she just drove with good care and attention!

We decided this trip would be a visit to Mosta and the famous Mosta Rotunda, the walled city of Mdina and to Golden bay beach.

As Malta is such a small island, it wasn't long before we had arrived in Mosta. We parked up and found that we were a little early as the Rotunda hadn't opened yet, so we went to a nearby cafe and enjoyed some breakfast. In Malta they like you to respect their dress code when visiting churches, so shoulders and knees covered is the way to go.

Mosta dome church (The Rotunda) is a pretty amazing site, it was built in the mid-19th century with the worlds largest unsupported dome. This was possible as it boasts walls which are up to 6m deep. The church is just as impressive on the outside as it is on the inside. There are six side chapels, marble floors and murals by Giuseppe Cali.

It was very awe-inspiring when entering. The design and structure is not just why it attracts visitors, but is known where miracles have happened. In 1942 during the second world war, the church was hit by a 200kg bomb while the church had a full congregation. The bomb failed to explode and also didn't land on anyone, everyone escaped unhurt. The church also managed to withstand two more bombs, which apparently just bounced off the dome without exploding!

The church today has on display a replica of the bomb that came through the dome and if you look up at the dome from the inside, you can see one tile that has not been fully restored, marking where the bomb came through.

If visiting, take your time to wander and appreciate the beauty of this church.

Our next stop was a short drive to the Mdina walled city. The Arabs built a 19m wall around Mdina, leaving the poorer people outside in the area that is now known as Rabat. Mdina was the capital of Malta until Valletta became the capital in 1571.

As you can imagine, Mdina was certainly not built for cars with its narrow winding streets, so we parked nearby and let loose on foot.

You can enter Mdina through a rather grand entrance called Greek's Gate or Mdina Gate. It is so named as a small group of Greek's settled in that corner of Mdina.

Mdina is full of interesting things to see with excellent views over Malta. The city has an aviation museum, Roman antiquities, dungeons, St Paul's Church and Grotto amongst numerous cafes and interesting architecture. As you can see from one of the pictures, there are good views from the wall. We enjoyed walking around this interesting walled city and would recommend it as a worth while visit.

Our car hire trip ended with a visit to one of Malta's few sandy beaches, Golden Bay.

Golden Bay was very busy (not surprising really as its one of very few sandy ones). It was large enough with plenty of water activities if you so wished. Golden Bay does have some history, it was where British naval forces trained during world war two, but as you could probably guess it is today full of sun worshippers.

We enjoyed some relaxation and we were very much entertained by a dog that belonged to an Italian couple. This dog was having the time of its life, jumping in and out of the water!

Mediterranean Marine Park

We decided on a trip to the mediterranean marine park to see Dolphins, Sealions and Seals. The park doesn't consider itself as providing entertainment, but to put on educational shows and teach about conservation. They certainly did that and as well as learning about how intelligent these mammals are we learnt that the tricks they were doing are actually capable abilities and not tricks.

It was stunning to see how beautiful they were and see them in action, how quick and agile.

St Paul's Bay

Beautiful blue waters

The site of St Paul's shipwreck

The fish farm

We took a glass bottom boat from Bugibba to view sea life and to see the site where St Paul was shipwrecked in AD60. St Paul brought Christianity to Malta. Before his landing, Malta was a Pagan society which has now stayed predominantly Christian since St Paul, apart from the period of occupation by the Arabs.

The story goes that the church of St Paul was built upon the site where St Paul built a bonfire and threw a viper into it ejecting all the poison from Malta's snakes.

The glass bottom boat was small and very pleasant, with few passengers. The glass bottom was clear, if not a little claustrophobic. You climbed down some steep steps into the bottom of the boat where there were benches. A few passengers decided against it and were quite happy to go back above on deck. The sea life was clear to see, but there was nothing exciting, no unusual fish, etc.. just schools of the same small fish, interesting enough seeing them weave in and out. We weren't down there long and simply enjoyed the ride. The crew were very helpful in pointing out sites of interests and knowledgeable in their history.

We sailed leisurely passed the point of St Paul's shipwreck site and passed a fish farm which was guarded.

The trip didn't last more than a couple of hours, back on shore we enjoyed a nice lunch and some swimming to cool down.

We used Captain Morgan Cruises for our Underwater Safari in the glass bottom boat. Departing from Bugibba from 10am onwards.

Qawra, St Paul's Bay

Celebrating our Engagement

Fun in the roof top pool!!

Qawra at dusk

The view from the hotel roof top

Our hotel was nestled up a slight hill in Qawra. We only booked into one hotel during our entire stay because Malta is a small island with 27km being the longest distance from southeast to northwest, so having one base seemed plenty.

On our first morning we decided to check out the hotel before taking a walk along the promenade to see what day trips we could take during the rest of our trip. The hotel indeed did have three pools, one large one on the terrace which was more than adequate with the most stunning views (beyond the other rooftops!), one smaller one hidden in a courtyard surrounded by the rooms and one inside in the basement which was a lovely pool but very warm. The basement was also a gym.

The lobby was quite grand looking and the staff seemed friendly and pleasant enough.

There was a bar and indeed restaurants. Just down the road from the hotel was another little bar, which we were to enjoy a few nights at!

Our complimentary breakfast wasn't anything to shout about and decided there was probably better breakfasts out there. We don't always tend to constantly have all our meals in our hotels as we like to go out and sample different cuisines at different restaurants, so we weren't really disappointed.

After our stroll down the promenade which took us into an area called Bugibba we had decided what we shall do. We booked ourselves onto a glass bottom boat which would also take us along the coast to where St Paul was shipwrecked, another booking secured us a place on a boat that would cruise us to the Blue Lagoon just off Comino island. There is also the island of Gozo as well. The blue lagoon is a tourist hot spot, but considering the time we had decided to visit, there was no escape! Mosta and the Rotunda and the walled city of Mdina with a trip to a beach would all be done by car hire. A trip to the capital Valletta and water park and marine park were also on our list. Malta doesn't have 'proper' beaches, they are mainly pebbled and very small, the one we visited was a sandy beach called Golden Bay.

After our first day of exploring our immediate surrounding and deciding on our sight-seeing, we returned to the hotel to get ready for some nightlife! Now as I was in the middle of getting ready, Andy starts to act all strange, being a bit more lovey-dovey than normal, I finally click and he has proposed! Of course I said yes! Claire and David were a little shocked, not because of the proposal (they knew), but the fact he had done it already. The plan was that they would leave us so we could have a nice meal together but Andy 'chickened out' figuring that our hotel room was a safer bet! No matter as you could probably imagine we were all ecstatic and enjoyed our night out immensely!

Where did 2008 go?

Well, apologies are in order. We've been away from the blog for quite a while, but intend to get back to it after a busy 2008 for us. Towards the end of 2007 we took a trip to Milan for Andy's birthday, in 2008 Andy was very busy with TSFC as success came easy to them, but unfortunately they narrowly missed out on promotion, I had essays and exams galore, joined a netball team and we attended 5 weddings with one being our own! Our trip to Malta turned out to be our engagement!
I will finish the report on Malta first, then have trips on Milan, Malaysia and Thailand to post. In May we are off to Crete for our honeymoon, we plan on taking the dogs somewhere again and TSFC have lots of important matches to look forward to, the rest of 2009 is yet to be decided!
Good Times!