Marsaxlokk and Birżebbuġa in Malta

Posted on 16/06/2014 by sofia armenteros

Svara

(So yes, it was a while ago we came back from Malta, but I’ve been to busy to write about it, at least about all days)

On our fourth day we visited Marsaxlokk, it’s a traditional fishing village located in the south-eastern part of Malta with about 3500 inhabitants.The bay of Marsaxlokk is in the southest point of Malta.

It’s about 40 minutes with public bus from the capital Valetta (public bus 81 or 85). It’s a really nice trip there, filled with vineyards on both sides of the road.

Nice restaurants and cafés at Marsaxlokk

A church and nice restaurants and cafés in Marsaxlokk

Marsaxlokk is well known because of the many colorful and traditional fishing boats called luzzu. The painted eyes on these luzzus are believed to protect the boats from danger.

Marsaxlokk bay

The small fishing boats and the Luzzus

Pretty colorful boats

In Marsaxlokk bay!

I was surprised about how small the village was, you walk it through in about 10 minutes haha (at least the central point of it). We were happy to find a street market along the bay with delicatess food, souvenirs and clothing. We bought a few traditional souvenirs and some more :) The Marsaxlokk Market has a long history. The market took place even before the sea side restaurants who sell delicious food especially the fish.

A merchandist from Senegal, we bought some really cool stuff from there to our living room, for a very good price! :)

Then we thought about visiting Birzebúgga, which is close by. The bus only goes once per hour, so we had a stop at a small shore/beach nexto the stop and bath our feet (cold water) and picked some sea shells before heading there.

A small beach outside the busstop

Picking out some sea shells for future handicraft work :)

Birżebbuġa is a seaside resort not far from Marsaxlokk with a population of about 10.000. It is popular among Maltese holiday-makers, and it has some important archaeological sites, like Għar Dalam and ”Borg in-Nadur”. It also has an artificial sandy beach commonly known as ”Pretty Bay”.

We were really hungry when we got there, so we looked around on a few of the restaurants by pretty bay and chose one. And boom, delicious food!!! I had a veggie burger and Duilio had a big plate with different typical Maltesean traditional foods. I’ve never seen him so happy! He said it was the best he ever tasted, haha.

Duilio, superhappy with his plate with different traditional maltesean food.

With our stomaches full we went to the beach and fell asleep right there. Lovely. The beach is a really nice beach for Malta (which has very few beaches with white sand), but the view is only nice from one side, if you look at the other side, you see big cargo ships and a big main power station just there. Quite interesting, but not paradise-alike, haha.

Zzzzzzz! Best siesta ever.

Pretty bay in Birzebugga!

View over Pretty bay on the other side, with the cargo station.

Well home, we enjoyed our last night on our balcony in Sliema. You know one of those moments when you really enjoy and love life? That’s how we felt.

Perfect evening at the balcony in Sliema!

I love you! (Doing a pose we saw some other girl do at the beach with her hair, haha)

Malta – Mdina, Rabat and Búggiba

Posted on 11/06/2014 by sofia armenteros

We started the day by taking the bus to Mdina, commonly called ”The Silent City” by natives and visitors. It is a small medieval town and has about 300 habitants. The town is surrounded by thick defensive walls and a wide moat, separating it from its nearest town Rabat.

When Malta was under the Roman Empire, the roman Governor built his palace here. Mdina lies on one of the highest points on the island Malta and as far away from the sea as possible, so it’s probably the first fortified city because of the strategic location. There are evidence of settlements in Mdina back to 4000 BC.

The streets of Mdina

Hello!

Streets in Mdina

Wtf? Hahaha. Why put a childrens head there? It’s creepy.

Beautiful with the red flower.

Super catholic here. Statues in every corner.

The transport in Mdina

The church that wanted us to pay 5 euros to go in. Nope.

We walked around for a few hours, visited some museums (glad it was included in the ticket, because it wasn’t worth 10 euros), bought some typical Mdina Glass-souvenirs and had the greatest lemon cheese cake I’ve ever had at a café just above the wall with a nice view over the farmlands beneath.

It is a super cozy little town, with narrow streets and all buildings of lime stone, as everywhere else. It has plenty of churches and viewpoints over Malta.

Visited the national museum of Mdina. This was the coolest thing. Haha.

Enjoying our coffee (fika) with a nice view in Mdina!

Some maltesean farmers :)

Love the small details.

Later we walked to the nearest town Rabat. The name of the village is derived from the Arabic word for ”suburb”, as it was the suburb of the old capital Mdina.

We had some nice sweets from a vendor on the street, delicious small things. We just wanted to try a few of the local sweets, so we asked for 2 different kinds, and it costed 2 euro! Quite expensive we thought, but then we looked in the bag, and apparently you get 4 each of every kind, so it ended up being very price worth :)

In Rabat!

Streets of Rabat

A church that looks like a cirkus :)

Duilio, always investigating what things are and how they work….. this

Local sweets!

The two sweats we chose :)

Rabat is home to the famous Catacombs of St. Paul and of St. Agatha. These catacombs were used in Roman times to bury the dead as, according to Roman culture, it was unhygienic to bury the dead in the city Mdina and parts of Rabat were built on top of an ancient Roman city.

It was included in our multi-pass ticket. We got an audio-guide and walked around in the catacombs. Two catacombs are open to the public, but these are only a small part of the entire St. Pauls and St. Agatha’s complex. And still: It was huuuuge!

The first catacomb we visited was quite small, there are surgical tools carved in relief in one of the blocking stones in the inner chamber and they think that it was the burial place of a group of surgeons.

In the small catacombs, the carving suggests that there were a group of surgeons lying in this catacomb

Then we walked down to the main complex, which covers an area of more than 2000 square metres! It is a extensive system of underground galleries and tombs dated from the fourth to the ninth centuries BC. Very interesting. I loved it!

Plenty of catacombs, if you watch closely you can even see that they have carved out ”pillows” of stone in the tomb!

Main complex in St Pauls Catacombs

Discovering the many many graves in the catacombs

Catacombs everywhere

It was so fun to see some other tourist doing poses in front of the catacombs that me and Duilio had to make some of ourselves. But seriously, who poses in catacombs? Hahahah.

This is Duilio, in St Pauls Catacombs

This is me, in St Pauls Catacombs

Then we took a bus to the north of malta, to visit the town Bugibba in St Pauls Bay. Buġibba’s sea front is very popular, so we thought we would have a day on the beach….. but the beach was almost the worst beach I’ve ever seen, haha. It looked like a construction site.

But we enjoyed the sun, took a siesta, a bath (Duilios first one in the Mediterranean sea) and I read my book. (And hated in silence some really disturbing Maltesean that thought they owned the beach and were the most cool on earth, drinking beer and yelling to women around them ”fuck you bitches!!”).

At the beach in Búgibba

When we got tired we walked along the sea walk and found some public toilets. Here in Malta there are really good free public toilets EVERYWHERE, it’s great!! :)

Then we stopped by a nice small food stand with a view over the bay and had some veggie burgers, french fries and cisk-beer. And reeeally really loved life.. Haha.

Duilio having a veggie burger in Búgibba

Enjoying Cisk :)

View over the bay in Bugibba (and the ”beach”)

On our way back with the bus along the coast, we decided to jump of at St Julians and walk around there. It’s very touristic with hotels, pubs, bars and shops. Lot’s of young people on the streets and a big party vibe. It’s nice but I’m glad we are not living there haha. :) Bought like 3 pairs of earrings. Love them!

St Julians at night

Maltesean is somewhat impossible to understand.

Haha. Such a tourist. :p

Waiting for you just outside the walls :)

I love butterflies :) At the national museum of Mdina

Me in Mdina

View over the farmlands and the sea far away

In Mdina

Me in Mdina

A lizard on the wall! Hehe

Streets in Mdina

Super nice terrace and delicios pasteries here! And free wifi :)

Balconies in Rabat

In Rabat

Popular place by the main square :)

Nice spider living in the catacombs. Looks like a poodle.

Main complex in St Pauls Catacombs

In the main complex of St Pauls catacombs

At the beach

Posing.

Doing some poses again

Hahah… has another meaning in Spanish!

Enjoying a veggieburger in Búggiba

St Julians at night

Malta – Hypogeum, Tarxien, The 3 cities, Sliema and Valetta

Posted on 29/05/2014 by sofia armenteros

Svara

Well, HELLO again!!!

It’s been a while!! Haven’t been traveling lately, just enjoying spending some time at home in Stockholm, Sweden. But as we say in Swedish ”det kliar i fingrarna” (sort of that my fingers started itching) meaning that I really wanted to do just a little trip to someplace new! So I gave my boyfriend this gift for his birthday – a trip to Malta! (He didn’t know anything about it until his birthday :)

So the 20th of may we flew to Malta – an island in the mediterranean sea, somewhere between Sicily and Tunisia. Malta’s location has given it great strategic importance throughout history. Phoenicians, Romans, Moorish, Normans, Aragonese, Habsburg Spain, Knights of St. John, French and the British have ruled the islands during different periods. Malta gained independence from the United Kingdom in 1964 and became a republic in 1974.

Malta is a quite big tourist destination because of its warm climate with crystal clear water and architectural and historical monuments. It has plenty of UNESCO World Heritage Sites and temples.

We landed in the evening, took a bus from the airport to our hotel in Gzira close to Sliema. The bus really went everywhere and we didn’t understand at all were we were, but we arrived well. The bus ticket fare is 1,50€ for a day, as many trips as you want, so it’s really nice!!

Arriving in Sliema!

Our room!! :)

Our ”room” was much better then expected – I thought it was only going to be a hotel room, but it also had a living room, a kitchenette and a balcony, and bathroom of course. So we were happy! And really hungry. After packing up we went to find a restaurant which the receptionist had recommended, called ”Ta Kris”.

The entrance to the restaurant, it’s in Sliema close to Zara.

The prices are ok, a little bit expensive at first. We chose the little cheaper options, I had a pasta with basil and tomato and Duilio had a maltese cuisine called ”Dad’s Famous Braggioli”…. and the food….. AMAZING!!! It was sooo goood. Fresh local food, and I don’t know what the heck they had done – but it was the greatest pasta sauce I’ve ever had. We spent about 20€ for two meals with a beer each and it was totally worth it.

Check it out – Ta Kris Restaurant – 80 Fawwara Lane, Sliema, Malta.

Duilio looks forward to eat his plate! Cheers with the local beer Cisk!

The greatest pasta I’ve ever tasted!!!!!

After dinner we enjoying another Cisk in our balcony! Cozy!

Day 2

Enjoying the breakfast buffet! Haha. We ate all we could!

View from the restaurant at our hotel

We started early by enjoyed the hotels breakfast buffet – yummi yummi. Had everything. Then we went to the Hypogeum which I had booked tickets for long before. You have to be about 2 months ahead to get tickets there, and they cost 30€ each. :/
The Ħal Saflieni Hypogeum is an underground prehistoric burial site. Earliest remains at the site date back to about 4000BC, and the complex was used over a span of many centuries, up to c. 2500 BC. Cool place sure, but you couldn’t take any pictures and only walk around were they had a pavement, and also they only lit up only a few places at a time, if someone was in the way for you to see you missed it. So to me, it wasn’t really worth it.

Picture of the Ħal Saflieni Hypogeum from Malta Heritage Site. Didn’t look like this while you were there though since only a few parts were lit up at a time.

Went to the hypogeum. You are not allowed to take any pictures inside. :(

Went to the hypogeum. Just there, in the middle of a neighborhood! Haha

After the visit we went around in the streets in Paola and went to the Tarxien Temples that are quite close, thanks to a map. A funny thing here, nothing is marked out well! We got to the bus station closest to the hypogeum, which is a mayor site of interest, and there are no signs of where it is, you have to ask around how to get there. People here are super friendly, and everyone speaks english! Old ladies, men, teenagers. But there are not really any signs on the street of where the site is until you get to the same road where it is located.

They drive on the wrong side of the road!! Haha. Looks crazy!

Walking around on the streets around Paola

We figured we would ”win” on buying a Malta Heritage Multi Ticket for 35€ each with entrances to all the places/museums/temples by Malta Heritage, instead of buying ”loose” entrances to the places we wanted to visit. Very good decision!!! All entrance fees are between 6-10 euros, and I would have gone quite mad at some sites since they didn’t live up to my expectations, but since they entered in the multi ticket (which as a value of 95€ if you visit all the places) – I didn’t mind so much. Hehe.

The Heritage Malta Multisite Pass

The Tarxien Temples was built between 3600 and 2500 BC and re-used between 2400 and 1500 BC. It’s a UNESCO World Heritage Site, one of six inscribed as ‘The Megalithic Temples of Malta’ in the World Heritage List and one of the largest and most complex of the prehistoric sites on the islands. Home to some of the best examples of prehistoric art which have survived the millennia. Sure a nice place, but much smaller then I thought, took less then 30 minutes to walk through.

The Tarxien temples, a UNESCO world heritage site, dated to approx 3150 BC.

Old water hole from 3150 BC, nowadays you can throw in a coin and make a wish :)

Some of the parts left. Cute little whole there, looks like the big entrances to temples, but a mini version.

This alter is believed to be the place where they sacrified animals, due tu the stone gravings

After the Tarxien temples we took the bus to The Three Cities, the harbor in front of Valetta. We visited Vittoriosa, an old fortified city in Malta, very pittoresque and sweet with narrow streets and all limestone buildings here as well as the rest of Malta. We bought some stones there for future jewelry and visited the The Inquisitor’s Palace and the Malta Maritime Museum. The Maritime Museum is nice but nothing I would pay 9€ to see if it wasn’t included in my ticket.

Walking around in Vittoriosa

The Borgo himself in Vittoriosa!

Old diving equipment – omg.. scary!! I’m glad I’m living this decade and using the modern equipment! (At the Malta Maritime museum)

The Inquisitors Palace is the only one open to the public in the world and an architectural gem, representative of the chequered history and European heritage of the Maltese islands. It’s a former centre of power accountable directly to the Pope. At first a little bit of a deception too, until we got to the prison complex and the torture chamber – where you can see some ”grafitti” from old prisioners – day counting, names and some images carved into the soft limestone. They also have put up som printed stories from the old prisioners that were released. So it was quite cool after all!

Nice place to hang out (The Inquisitor’s Palace).

Nice place to hang out…eh?? (The Inquisitor’s Palace).

A old prisioner was counting the days in the cell in the The Inquisitor’s Palace

Nice bathroom. You can see old rests of excrements along the wall, from the cell window down to the well.

Duilio trying out the cells bathroom…

Then we took a boat taxi over to Valetta – the capital city of Malta. It only lives about 7000 people there, and it’s quite small with a couple of main streets. The city serves as the island’s principal cultural centre and its unique collection of churches and palaces.

Taking a boat taxi with this man over to Valetta!

Enjoying our little boat trip in the harbour area for 4€ each!

We arrived by the water and climbed up for maaaany stairs to get up into the Upper Barraka Gardens. You could also pay 1€ to take the elevator. Funny, a woman came to us and asked for money, we thought it was a beggar at first, but she only wanted to change because the elevator only took 50 cents-coins or 1€ and she had everything in 10 and 20 cents haha. Then I realized – there are no beggars here and you don’t see homeless people either. Weird!

View from the Upper Barrakka gardens

At the upper Barakka Gardens we had a couple of Maltesean pastizzes and pies, filled with chick peas and Ricotta-cheese. Delicious, and the pastizzes only cost 70cents and the pies 1,5€. We sat there for a while and then started to walk around Valetta.

In the upper barakka gardens where we had some snacks and beer

Enjoying some pastizzes and lokal beer with a nice view over the city!

We visited the The National Museum of Archaeology. It serves as a good introduction to prehistory and early history in Malta and puts Malta’s archaeological sites in context, but we were a little bit tired of seeing artifacts and tools.

Very cool timeline at the National Museum of Archaeology, showing about 2000 years of Malta

Old tumb at the National Museum of Archaeology

Instead we walked around Valetta, which is also a UNESCO world heritage site and plenty of films like Troy, Gladiator, World War Z have been filmed here. We even found a leather craftsmen who made the costume to all those movies! Hehe. This city is quite weird, there are totally abandoned buildings with a super nice sea view, just next to some church.

For a second Duilio thought someone had stolen his sunglasses, but then we walked back a block and they were lying there on the ground. Malta is actually super safe, you can easily walk around with money and phones and camaras, you don’t feel like a target for robbery. It’s one of the safest countries in Europe.

We bought some local sweets (honey rings) and went down to the wall that surrounds Valetta and enjoying the last sun of the day.