Going Gozo

My first comment is – thank God for Quells!! The sea is much calmer today than yesterday evening, when there was quite a swell running. Today, the weather is much finer, but once out from land, the catamaran ferry is lurching around so much that I certainly can’t walk in a straight line. Even M. deigned to take a tablet after a while. [In fact, M started to feel fairly unwell…]

The crossing from Sicily to Valletta is only 90 minutes (though because you have to be there an hour before sailing and it takes about 30 mins to get on and off the boat, total time is more like 3.5 hours).  I have already noticed differences. For a start, smoking was confined to a small section outside on the rear deck, delineated by a yellow line (this must be SO hard for Sicilians, who seem to smoke everywhere). And the roads and infrastructure here seem so much better. There is very little litter and there are even gardens planted on the roundabouts.

We’ve decided to rent a car for the 4 days we are travelling to/from and on Gozo.  Rental rates on Malta are cheap – only about 12 euros/day, and we’ll save so much time not having to fit with public transport.  After some confusion finding our car rental guy, the rental transaction was quickly done from his suitcase in the boot of our new wheels, and we were soon in the middle of a Valletta traffic jam, back on the right hand side of the car and the left hand side of the road – not easy after 10 days driving in Sicily!  I lost count of the times I turned on the windscreen wipers instead of the blinkers (and I lost count again of the number of words starting with f … ). I grabbed the door handle four times to put on the handbrake, and J had to gently remind me which side of the road to drive on only twice.

But we made it to the Gozo ferry unscathed, admiring some spectacular scenery on the way (though haven’t actually paid for the ferry crossing – we kept waiting for a ticket office, but there wasn’t one, so we joined the queue for the ferry and drove on, again with no one checking if we had paid, so who knows, maybe we will not be allowed off the island).

Off the ferry, and had a nice time exploring Victoria , the capital of Gozo, and Il Kastell, the fortress above the town, on our way to our base for the next three days at Xlendi. (which we’ve now found is pronounced Shlendi).

For those who don’t know (we didn’t), Malta is made up of 3 islands. The main island, Malta, then Gozo, smaller at only about 14 km long, and tiny Comino in between, which is very picturesque but uninhabited.  Gozo is much more fertile than the other islands and boasts some quite dramatic scenery, especially along some of the coastline, which features cliffs, sea caves and nice beaches. It is a very Catholic country, and Gozo alone has 46 churches for only 30,000 people.

Malta has a very mixed history of conquest by the Phoenicians, Romans, Arabs, Norman, Spanish Aragonese and Hapsburgs, Knights of St John (you know, the Maltese 8 point star/cross), French and British. The people here speak Maltese, closely related to Phoenician/Arabic/Italian/Spanish/French, and English and also often Italian. An interesting culture. At the moment, Malta seems to be making the most of its English heritage. There are certainly lots of of English speaking tourists here, and many of the pubs and eateries have names like “Ye olde English …”. And the pedestrian crossings could be in London.

Back to the present day and it’s been a warm 28 degrees today and will be again tomorrow, so looking forward to a swim (M, not J)as the water here is very clear, every shade of blue and full of fish!