Venerating Valletta
The Guinness
Choosing a destination to have my Guinness in Valletta was
one of the simplest decisions of the whole challenge. Google search 'pub', 'Valletta' and 'Guinness' and only one place pops up, and pops up a lot - that's partly because it is
actually amusingly called 'The Pub' and also the only bar in the small city selling
itself as a British or Irish type watering hole. The other reason to visit is so that you can
share in their claim to fame as being the place where the actor Oliver Reed died after an all day drinking session with British sailors who, so the story
goes, goaded him into drinking and arm wrestling competitions.
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| Enjoying a Guinness at The Pub in Valletta with Bojan picking out my next destination. |
Bojan, the barman,
quickly understood my challenge and joined in the fun. I asked him to pick my next
destination out of the hat. This took a
bit of explaining as there was only one destination left - Reykjavik in Iceland. I'm sure it didn't look suspicious at all -
offering Bojan a box with a little straw in it.
Luckily, when the bit of paper that was inside the straw was unwound, it
did indeed contain Reykjavik in Iceland and not somewhere else.
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| The originally named pub 'The Pub'. |
The Guinness tasted good but we needed to check its consistency
so stayed for a couple more and came back the next two nights just to make sure
we hadn't just happened to hit it on a good night. The Pub is a convivial place, with a mix of
Maltese, ex-pats and visitors as customers, a cosy bar with lots of memorabilia,
an outside street patio area and one of the weirdest toilets you could
imagine.
Team make up
My travelling companion for this trip was Kay, an old friend
from university days, when college pranks and alcoholic hazes were more the
order of the day. Nowadays we wear our
sensible heads and tut at any misdemeanors but can still reminisce about the
good old days. .
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| Kay ensuring the Guinness quality is up to par. |
Sightseeing
Valletta isn't huge but it has lots of charm, sited as it is
on a small hilly peninsula jutting into the Mediterranean. Malta has had a turbulent past with many
countries conscious of its potentially advantageous geographical position in
the mid-Mediterranean and eyeing it up as a military base. Everywhere you look there seem to be
fortifications built from the manila coloured sandstone. It made me wonder where all this rock came
from. Is there the mother of all
quarries hiding away somewhere in the middle of the island.
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| Valletta parade puppets |
We took a trip on a small ferry across the harbour to Cospicua,
one of what is grandiosely described as 'three cities' nestling on peninsulas
across fr
om Valletta. If ever you go
there we've a recommendation - don't just explore the bit around the
harbour. Instead climb the hilly narrow
lanes up into the heart of Cospicua and prepare to be wowed by its hidden charm. Remember - you read it here first. After that, cross the narrow habour on the
footbridge and go up into the next town of Senglea. You may be getting tired of all the historical
stuff by now so head to the western side of the town wall and pop you head over
into the dockyard. Fascinating.
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| Cospicua - steps, narrow streets and bags of atmosphere. |
Food and Drink
One thing for sure is I will never make a food blogger - I
don't ever remember to take pictures of my food. That's probably a relief to the restaurant
owners and the people travelling with me.
There is a heavy British influence on Maltese life, so in honour of this
on the first night we ate in Tuk Tuk, a southern Indian restaurant and I had
chicken tika masala. Looking back I
think my other meals were all Italian, a spaghetti dish, a pizza and
calzone. The later looked very tempting
when I saw some being made but wasn't the wisest choice on my part. We were in Is-Suq Tal-Belt, the Valletta Food
Market, a food hall in a Victorian building surrounded by many food
outlets giving us choices from all around the world. It was also the night of the big parade in town
so the place was heaving. Here's a hint
- when you see a very busy pizzeria, don't order the one item that takes four
times as long to cook as a simple pizza.
It was however very nice.
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| Siege Bell, Valletta |
Accommodation
I didn't spot anywhere in Valletta at reasonable cost using
booking.com so instead stayed in a very nice apartment in Msida which was a
short bus ride out of the capital. Fortunately
the bus service in Malta is pretty good and I could enjoy an evening out in
Valletta before getting a late bus back. The apartment I was staying had three
rooms so occasionally I would bump into other guests, though luckily not in the
middle of the night on the way to the bathroom - it's an age thing. When I arrived I was warmly welcomed by the
efficient owner who made sure I had all the information I required about the apartment
and locality and places of interest though I wasn't quite sure why I was being
told about nearby schools.
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| Centre Point in Msida, Malta. |
Kay on the other hand had managed to book through Airbnb and
had found a very quirky basement room in the heart of Valletta with a
seventeenth century grave headstone embedded in the rook adorned with skull and
crossbones, apparently synonymous with the Order of St John.
Getting there and around
A Ryanair flight from Bristol got me to and back from Malta
with little hassle. After that it buses
using the five day bus pass that also included a couple of free ferry rides
across Valletta harbour and a free day on the hop-on-hop-off tour bus. there was so much to do and see in Valletta
that I didn't us the tour bus option so swapped bus passes with Kay on leaving
enabling her to make use of the tour bus.
Unfortunately a pickpocket helped themselves to the bus pass apparently
so its left to our imagination if they ever went around the island on the open-topped
bus. If they did then I hope it poured with rain and the bus broke down.
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| St Domonic's Church, Valletta - the whole city is this colour! |
Outside Valletta
We had a day-trip by bus to Mdina, an ancient walled town,
once Malta's capital, in the middle of the island with narrow streets. I got the feeling that visiting this tourist
honey pot out of season and in the morning had its advantages as we could still
get a prime seat in the rooftop cafe with great vistas and equally good cake. Just
as we began to tire of being tourists an idea of tackling a geocache
dawned. It involved collecting clues
form locations around the compact town which kept is well enthralled for an
hour. The nearby town of Rabat, a short
walk away was equally charming but in a different way.
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| A splash of colour in Mdina |
Quirky Moments
I have been uploading my photos of my Guinness trips onto
Flickr in the vague hope that a Guinness executive will spot them and offer me
sponsorship. Somebody did contact me regarding
a Malta photo but it wasn't Guinness, it was Superyacht Times. They had seen a picture I'd taken of a
strange stubby-nosed vessel Olivia O in dry dock in Senglea and wanted to use it for an
article. At least I got to find out what
the vessel was called which is something I'd been wondering. Still waiting for the free ride on it though.
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| A surprise place to find one of my photos |
Also in the dock having a refit was the
enormous Superyacht 'I Dynasty' measuring over 100 meters in length, You are left wondering whether you should be appalled
by the decadence or admiring of the engineering and craftsmanship. This was contrasted later in the day when
back in Valletta when we witnessed a rusty Maersk container ship Sealand New
York, gently being pulled by tugs into the harbour, presumably for a much
needed repainting job. It looked ancient but it was only built in
2000. Seawater is a corrosive
beast. Best use a good undercoat next
time I think.
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| Not everywhere serves Guinness in Valletta |
More photos of the trip can be found on Flickr
Thanks for visiting!
