Malteser

Well Summer was rubbish, we had only a hand full of decent days and I don't think it got close to 30 deg once. We really wanted to get across to Europe for some beach and sunshine but we didn't get around to it. We left it pretty late and finally decided to book 5 days in Malta in late November.
Malta is south of Italy and not that far from north Africa and enjoys lots of sunshine and decent temps all year round.

When we arrived it was about 20 deg and a nice bit of humidity in the air. We had booked most of our stay on the smaller Island of Gozo as it is quieter and a bit more relaxed. We stayed in a great hotel that overlooked a small harbour and was just a 10 min boat trip to the small island of Comino which is home to the crystal clear waters of the blue lagoon. We headed there on our second day and had the remote island almost to ourselves. It was warm enough to swim (water temp about 23 deg) and we took full advantage of this after not having had the chance to swim in over a year.

The weekend was very windy so we stayed away from the beach and checked out Victoria (capital of Gozo ) and Valletta (capital of Malta). They were both really pretty towns with a mix of Italian and British Influence. The buildings are Italian style but as Malta was a British colony until the 60's they still have red British post and phone boxes and old Bedford buses everywhere. The food was a mix of Italian and local with great cheese and pastries. Malta adopted the Euro this year but was still very cheap compared with the UK and western Europe.

For our final night we stayed in a big hotel in Valletta, it was built in the 30's and had a real old world colonial feel to it. On our last day we visited some ancient ruins on the coast of Malta that are over 5000 years old and were built before the Pyramids. We also checked out the Town of Mdina which was fortified around 1000 years BC. Malta has an amazing history and has been occupied by the Phoenicians, Arabs and Romans to name a few. It is also where Saint Paul was shipwrecked in 60 AD.

We really enjoyed our time in Malta and Gozo, Beautiful Islands, warm sunshine, cheap and everyone speaks English. We are off to Paris next for Renee's birthday then to Morocco over the Christmas New Year period. Check out the pics below.

Pics here