It’s the last week of summer vacation, and just like every other week, it flew by. Brooklyn had more babysitting and pet sitting jobs and both kids did tours of their schools in anticipation of school starting next week. Can’t believe Brooklyn will start high school this year!
Thursday morning, we headed out of our last summer trip to Malta. We dropped the dogs at the kennel and raced to Munich where our flight was from.
Malta was definitely different from what I expected. It is a desert island, as opposed to being tropical, and the architecture kind of makes it look like it’s in the Middle East. All the buildings are cream and white shaded cubes and power lines are crisscrossing streets from building to building. I thought they spoke Italian there, but they do actually have their own language, Maltese, which is based on Arabic and sounds nothing like anything I’ve heard before.
We stayed at the Westin Dragonara and got upgraded to a terrace room! The room itself wasn’t much bigger than a regular room but had a huge terrace with a great view. As soon as we got to the hotel, we got into our swim suits and hit the pool for a little while. Our hotel was in the St. Julian’s district and was surrounded by lots of restaurants and clubs and we walked to an Italian restaurant down the street for dinner.
Friday morning, we grabbed a taxi and made our way to the ferry port at northern-most part of the Island. We had hired a boat for a few hours to take us on a tour of Comino Island. Comino is midway between Malta and Gozo Island and features a lot of ocean caves and lagoons. The captain of our boat took us to a lot of the caves and then to swim and snorkel in both the Crystal Lagoon and Blue Lagoon.
After our boat trip, we went to Ocean Basket for lunch. Ryan’s guidance counselor recommended the restaurant when she heard we were going and he was eager to try it out. We stuffed ourselves with tons of seafood and then headed back to the hotel for a nap.
We finished out the day with dinner at the hotel and 1000 rounds of Uno with the kids.
Saturday, we headed to downtown Valletta, the capital of Malta. It’s a tiny, medieval walled city, founded by Catholic knights in the 1500s. It’s also the smallest capital city in Europe so east to cover on foot in a day. Most of the city is cobblestone, pedestrian streets and most of the buildings are cream colored with colorful window boxes.
We decided to take the tourist train in order to deal with the steep streets and got a quick tour of the city, picking out some places to return to once the tour was over.
After the train tour, we had lunch at a pizza restaurant and then did some walking around to take more pictures and shop.
After our day in Valletta, we went back to the pool for some swimming and then dinner.
After dinner, we took a taxi to the town of Sliema. When we arrived in Malta, we saw lots of billboards advertising fireworks Saturday night to celebrate the Stella Maris (Our Lady Star of the Sea) Festival. We got there around 9pm and it was just in time as people were starting to stake out their spots. We were to get a place to sit right on the water’s edge. The fireworks were supposed to start at 10, but were delayed until 11. The island where the fireworks were to be set off had a huge fire that we were able to watch from where we were sitting so maybe that was the cause. Unfortunately, right as the fireworks were about to start, a ferry parked right next to us, which partially obscured our view as well. Despite the challenges, the fireworks were ok. They were made even more interesting by the fact that a couple of fires broke out during the fireworks where embers landed on the island. Fireworks on a desert island doesn’t seem like the best idea to me.
We were super late getting back to the hotel due to traffic and had to get up again at 5am to make it to the airport for our 9am flight back to Munich.
We hit a ton of traffic driving home from Munich but had time to stop by the commissary where we found Ramen was finally back in stock after being out since May. Brooklyn and Ryan were ecstatic!
All said, Malta was great- we were able to combine just the right amount of activity with relaxing. If I am being honest with myself though, I have to admit that we are tired! We spent an unusual (for us) amount of time at the hotel, sleeping in, taking naps, and going to bed early. If we had been more refreshed, we could have done a little more with our time there. Most of us being tired is down to the fact that with the exception of the week we returned from the US, we have not been home for more than 4 days straight since early May. We are not just tired in general, but tired of the constant cycle of unpacking and repacking suitcases. I didn’t ever think I would get to that point. But, even before we left for the trip, I kept asking myself why I wasn’t more excited to go. We definitely enjoyed ourselves and are grateful for the opportunity to go to Malta, and everywhere else we have been. However, moving forward, we are going to try and not stack our schedule so much so we can truly enjoy each adventure, instead of just rushing from one to the next. Of course, we have something planned the next couple of weekends so we will have to start this new outlook after that LOL. In the meantime, we are looking forward to school starting next week and to getting caught up on some much needed sleep!
Gilcrests Abroad 