Travel Day and Reflections on Malta
Our flight from Madrid to Malta left at 10:10am. So we wanted to be at the airport by 8:10am. According to Google that meant a 30-minute suburban train ride right from Puerta del Sol (with 1 transfer). Easy peasy! Yeah, it didn't go that easy.
We got out of our hostel a little later than we had wanted just from packing up after being there 3 nights. Then we had to buy the actual train tickets because they're different than the subway pass we had been using. Then we missed the train we wanted by about 2 minutes. We had to wait 8 minutes for the next one. THEN, the train drops you off about a 15-minute walk from the check-in area.
Long story short, we were feeling the pressure. We still had plenty of time normally but the line to check-in and drop bags at Ryan Air was moving at a snail's pace. Eventually, they told us to switch lines and we got up to the counter but we were both sweating bullets at the time (about an hour till our flight took off at this point). As chance would have it, as soon as you drop your bags you can go through some like backdoor security check and there was literally no line for that. So that was nice. We ended up being plenty early for our gate. We even had time to grab a couple croissants. I don't do super well at feeling behind on time so Lacey was a saint (as usual).
We made it on the flight to Malta (about 2.5-hour flight). I caught up on some blog posts and Lacey napped.
Malta: Why did we pick it? That's a great question. Malta gets about 300 days of full sunshine every year (one of the sunniest places on Earth). Plus, looking at temp forecasts we thought it would be quite nice (low 60s for highs and mid-50s for lows). We also thought we could rent a scooter or a car and just drive around the island. A lot of these things turned out not to happen. It was definitely colder than we thought (warmer than London and MN of course but not hot by any means). Also, because I didn't get my International Drivers Permit, we couldn't get a scooter or car. Because it's offseason, a lot of the ferry tours were not open.
We knew all of these things were happening to our original Malta plans while we were in Madrid. I wouldn't say we were freaking out but we were definitely worried about what we were going to do.
The hotel we originally booked was up the coast of Malta in the more resort area. This would have worked out great if we had been able to rent a scooter or car because there was ample parking. Without a scooter or car, this area makes it difficult to connect to the rest of the island. To visit many sites, we would have had to take a long bus down to Valletta, the capital, and then out from there. Just very inconvenient. Also, our hotel didn't have that much going on (it wasn't fully inclusive and the outdoor pools were closed). Lastly, that area didn't have many food options other than the hotel restaurant. Soooo, we called an audible and canceled that hotel (with no charge) and booked a different one.
The new hotel was called The Cumberland Boutique Hotel and was in the capital city of Valletta. This gave us more freedom to eat (lots of options), take more buses to other areas, and just, in general, felt more like what we wanted. We got to the hotel easily by taking a bus to Valletta then walking into the walled city. Valletta is on a peninsula of land with a big wall on one end. Most of the city is pedestrianized and easily walked. Our hotel was easy to find and was very nice. We were in a room we called "The Cave" because it felt like we were sleeping in a cave. The beds were comfy and the shower was AWESOME (rainfall shower again). It also included a free breakfast.
We got settled and set out to see what Valletta was all about. Our first stop was a food market that had lots of little restaurants serving all kinds of food. We got a delicious pizza for lunch (at like 3pm haha). It was like a Punch pizza but had salami on it. Nice!
The main Cathedral in Valletta is not super interesting on the outside but is very brightly decorated inside. Unfortunately, the hours for the cathedral were awful (like 10am to 4pm, the only time of the day we would never be there). We never saw the inside.
On one side, Valletta is across the bay from 3 other small cities. There are gardens that give a fantastic view across the bay. We visited those and watched a ceremonial cannon fire. This was pretty cool and we didn't intend to see it.
At this time, I was feeling... I don't know, down? I was questioning our trip decisions because we hadn't had our "WOW" moment yet. On our Thailand trip, this was our scooter ride in Cambodia. On our Portugal trip, it was our scooter ride in Sintra. Because I messed up the scooter license and because I felt rushed and underprepared for what to do in Malta, I was just feeling weird. All of this makes me sound ungrateful for our Spain and London portions. I was definitely grateful and had a lot of fun in all of those places we visited. I just really wanted that jaw-dropping moment haha. I was getting down that it wasn't going to happen.
Lacey and I found a spot on the city walls and hung out for a bit to talk and recalibrate. She had similar questions but a more positive attitude (as usual haha). As it turns out, all this worrying was for nothing but we had our reasons for the worrying too. Preparation leads to opportunities and I was feeling underprepared. We went back to the hotel to get to work finding things to do. We had a couple ideas (I won't spoil until the blog tomorrow).
It was dinner time and we weren't that hungry since we ate lunch so late. I was still trying to force memories and we went to a mildly fancy Italian restaurant. The carbonara pasta we got was good but we were just too full. Plus, we were tired of sit down restaurants. The food was good but it was a bad choice for that moment.
We went back to the hotel and watched some travel YouTube videos. Even on a trip to a cool, new country, we still like watching videos about other places we can go to. One YouTube channel we particularly like is "Kara and Nate". While we watched, we did some more research and called it a night.
For a pretty boring day, I found a lot to talk about haha. A lot of this is probably boring but I thought it was important to talk about some of the thoughts and feelings we had throughout the trip and especially at the Malta point. As it turned out, this would be an INSANE couple days that we will remember forever but we didn't know that going in.
Thanks for reading!
We got out of our hostel a little later than we had wanted just from packing up after being there 3 nights. Then we had to buy the actual train tickets because they're different than the subway pass we had been using. Then we missed the train we wanted by about 2 minutes. We had to wait 8 minutes for the next one. THEN, the train drops you off about a 15-minute walk from the check-in area.
We made it on the flight to Malta (about 2.5-hour flight). I caught up on some blog posts and Lacey napped.
Malta: Why did we pick it? That's a great question. Malta gets about 300 days of full sunshine every year (one of the sunniest places on Earth). Plus, looking at temp forecasts we thought it would be quite nice (low 60s for highs and mid-50s for lows). We also thought we could rent a scooter or a car and just drive around the island. A lot of these things turned out not to happen. It was definitely colder than we thought (warmer than London and MN of course but not hot by any means). Also, because I didn't get my International Drivers Permit, we couldn't get a scooter or car. Because it's offseason, a lot of the ferry tours were not open.
We knew all of these things were happening to our original Malta plans while we were in Madrid. I wouldn't say we were freaking out but we were definitely worried about what we were going to do.
The hotel we originally booked was up the coast of Malta in the more resort area. This would have worked out great if we had been able to rent a scooter or car because there was ample parking. Without a scooter or car, this area makes it difficult to connect to the rest of the island. To visit many sites, we would have had to take a long bus down to Valletta, the capital, and then out from there. Just very inconvenient. Also, our hotel didn't have that much going on (it wasn't fully inclusive and the outdoor pools were closed). Lastly, that area didn't have many food options other than the hotel restaurant. Soooo, we called an audible and canceled that hotel (with no charge) and booked a different one.
We got settled and set out to see what Valletta was all about. Our first stop was a food market that had lots of little restaurants serving all kinds of food. We got a delicious pizza for lunch (at like 3pm haha). It was like a Punch pizza but had salami on it. Nice!
The main Cathedral in Valletta is not super interesting on the outside but is very brightly decorated inside. Unfortunately, the hours for the cathedral were awful (like 10am to 4pm, the only time of the day we would never be there). We never saw the inside.
On one side, Valletta is across the bay from 3 other small cities. There are gardens that give a fantastic view across the bay. We visited those and watched a ceremonial cannon fire. This was pretty cool and we didn't intend to see it.
Lacey and I found a spot on the city walls and hung out for a bit to talk and recalibrate. She had similar questions but a more positive attitude (as usual haha). As it turns out, all this worrying was for nothing but we had our reasons for the worrying too. Preparation leads to opportunities and I was feeling underprepared. We went back to the hotel to get to work finding things to do. We had a couple ideas (I won't spoil until the blog tomorrow).
We went back to the hotel and watched some travel YouTube videos. Even on a trip to a cool, new country, we still like watching videos about other places we can go to. One YouTube channel we particularly like is "Kara and Nate". While we watched, we did some more research and called it a night.
For a pretty boring day, I found a lot to talk about haha. A lot of this is probably boring but I thought it was important to talk about some of the thoughts and feelings we had throughout the trip and especially at the Malta point. As it turned out, this would be an INSANE couple days that we will remember forever but we didn't know that going in.
Thanks for reading!
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