Our flight from Catania to Valletta, Malta only took 30 minutes but the move took up most of the day. The first thing we noticed when arriving into Malta, even at the airport, was how clean everything was. We had been warned in the guidebooks to try and ignore the litter and filth problem that plagues Sicily, but it does get to you after a while. The constant stream of rubbish along the highways and through the streets becomes a little depressing after awhile, especially against a backdrop of such beauty with their towns, monuments and beaches. Our driver from Valletta  airport told us that Malta used to have the same litter problem as Sicily but that was back in the 70s and 80s and  they undertook an education program to solve the situation. I can safely say it has worked; the airport was clean, the highway was clean and the streets of Valletta were clean as well.

Our apartment, for our eight night stay in Malta, is on the top floor of the building and has a large terrace with great views out over the harbour. We dropped our bags and did a quick load of washing, Brett would be impressed, and headed out around 6 pm a little uncertain about what we would find. The narrow streets around our apartment were rather empty of people, but not of cars though; Malta seems to share the same affliction as Sicily; there were cars crammed in everywhere. The area around our apartment building is quite hilly and so we walked up three flights of stone stairs and landed at Merchant Street. Well, we found everyone! Merchant street, true to its name, was lined with all sort of cafes, bars and restaurants and doing very good trade for a Wednesday evening. Much of the area was pedestrian only and there were plenty of them. We were pretty tired from the day of travel and so opted for one of the closest restaurants to have dinner. The meal was nice and our lovely waitress was even nicer. She was from India and out here studying Finance and Economics and had become stranded in Malta during Covid. She was excited to be heading home in November for her wedding though, she hadn’t seen her fiancé for 7 months, and I even got to see photos of her wedding dress. They had been a couple for 10 years and have battled the caste system to persist with their plans for marriage and, I was pleased to hear, both families had reconciled to the situation and it was going to be a true Bollywood event.

We made sure to leave the restaurant before 9 pm so that we could head to the local markets to pick up some supplies for the morning. It had been a very full day but a productive one.