On the way into the port.
Malta was our next stop. The capital city, Vallette, has the world's largest natural harbor. Malta is also just about exactly in the middle between the Suez Canal and Straits of Gibraltar, so it's in the middle of the Mediterranean. So this little island nation is very important, and was fought over many times by different factions. Eventually a group of knights came to be in charge of the island. They moved the capital from the Medina to Valletta. That was in the Medieval time period. Thus, Valletta has a medieval feel to it, unlike a lot of the other European cities we saw, which were much older. It was very cool looking, as you can see from the pictures.
We decided to explore Malta on our own, rather than with an excursion. So we took the but up to the main bus terminal of Valletta. Actually, first, we took money out of the Bank of Malta, but then tried to get change inside the branch. That took forever, and at first they said they couldn't do it. But we persuaded them. Anyway, we took the bus from the port to the bus terminal. It was a nice drive. We decided to go to the Medina, the old capital, first. It only cost us .47 euro to go there. The bus driver was very nice, pointing out which way for us to go to the Medina.
It was a very nice little town. The actual Medina is walled off, to defend from attackers during the day, but around it is the present town. We were hungry, so we stopped off for something to eat.
We had some good Malta pizza at this place. I really liked it and planned on eating the rest of the leftovers, but we had so much food and we didn't have a refrigerator, so we didn't want to chance it. But it was pretty dang good. There was a nice man and woman who ran the restaurant.
Afterwards, we went on a little train trip around the area.
One of the pictures I took from the train
After that nice little tour around the area, we decided to actually go into the Medina.
Even more beautiful architecture to be found there.
Malta is now known for these cute yellow busses. They restored several of them from the 50s.
We made it back to Valletta and explored the city. It was starting to get dark, and there was so much to see. I definitely need to come back here.
They had set up the Christmas decorations. Although we saw some other towns with their Christmas decorations up, these were the first ones we saw lighted.
And eventually we had to pull out to go to Sicily. Goodbye, my Malta! I miss you! The people there were just nice and a welcome relief after the aggressive Tunisians and the sometimes not as polite Italians. I can't wait to go back!
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