Thursday, December 22, 2016

Europe 2016 - Malta Day 1

After an exciting time getting through security in Frankfurt (long and short of it is I had 5 armed German police officers surrounding me because my bag tested positive for explosive material on it), we made it to Malta around 10pm.

Allen got our car all checked out, and he knew it was a stick shift, but neither of us knew the driver side of the car would be on the right-hand side. We loaded our bags into the trunk, and I went to get in the passenger side, only to see the steering wheel. Allen did a great job driving, as well as parallel parking the car on the steep, crowded streets. I never felt like I was going to die and was so thankful I was not driving...because we might have died if that were the case!
Saturday morning leaving our Airbnb for the day.
The view from breakfast Saturday morning.

Driving around the island. I was surprised at how much desert landscape there was - I was thinking it was an island like Hawaii.
Our first stop was the Popeye Village. This was the set for the 1980 movie, Popeye, starring Robin Williams. I had never seen the movie but Allen said he had many times. 
Popeye and Olive Oyl
Strong like Popeye

We then stopped at Golden Sands Beach for a couple of hours.

Our afternoon stop was St. Paul's Cathedral in Mdina, Malta.
During one of Paul's missionary journeys he was shipwrecked and spent 3 months on the island of Malta.


The site of this cathedral is supposedly the location where the Roman governor Publius met Paul following the shipwreck.
The town was decorating for the celebration of St. Paul which was happening the week following when we were in Malta.
As we walked the neighborhoods, we noticed so many different colored doors.


Our place didn't have an interesting color door.
We were staying in Sliema, which is a major residential and commercial area. We were able to walk to dinner both nights. This was the patio we had dinner at on Saturday night.
Allen ordered the Maltese sampler.
After dinner we stopped for gelato since it was also right around the corner from our place.

No comments: