In archaeological digs, they have found “smaller” prehistoric elephants and hippos in Malta so some believe Malta may have been connected to Europe at one time.

Not sure why … all kinds vacant abandon buildings around Golden Bay.

Every evening this old man spent some time fishing in the bay.

Lots of agriculture on this side.

Prickly pear seen all over this island…. introduced from Mexico.

Big cotton growing country.

Churches in villages or small towns have 2 clocks….. the one on the right is the correct time, the one on the left is incorrect as to confuse the devil.

Fort. St Elmo, at the tip of the Valletta harbour(site believed to have been fortified since the Punic era…200 bc).

We got off the bus at one of the fingers of this incredible harbour, where you can see oh so many sail boats and huge luxurious ocean going yachts and Ft. Angelo…. a fort that has survived sieges by the Ottoman Empire in 1565 and the other the Axis command in 1944.

While sitting at a seaside eatery on opposite side of Valetta harbour, with umbrellas with the support off to one side set up to shade the customers. The granite support broke on one and the whole thing crashed down on the table but missing the two ladies sitting at it. Shocking!!!

Grapes are picked only from 5:30to 10… otherwise too hot.

Marsaxlokk is the lovely fishing village with bakery sweets and other tourist trinket markets….. is also a LNG and other container port.

There are six grottos for scuba diving incl. blue grotto.

There doesn’t seem to be any stray dogs and next to no livestock… odd!

The roads are very bad outside towns.

I left the next morning bound for London, Vancouver and home to Victoria for knee surgery. Ron, on the other hand was just starting his incredible journey…. heading east. Thanks for sharing!

We took a hop on bus from our location at St. Julians Bay to Sliema to start a tour of the upper part of the island. This is a gorgeous harbour with magnificent yachts.

Valetta, is an absolutely stunning harbour that we checked out the next day. It is one of the few surviving inhabited walled cities in the world and is a UNESO world heritage site. It was started by the Knights of the Order of St. John in 1568.

We stopped at Mosta with its domed church, is the third largest unsupported dome in Europe. It survived a direct hit from a bomb (unexploded) during WW2 for which the pilot later apologized for.

Mdina (meaning walled city), was the capital before Valletta, has been inhabited since 700 BC by Phoenicians then in 218 BC by the Romans.

60,000 people were killed in the region in a earthquake in 1692 ad. The vast majority of buildings had to be rebuilt

There have been prehistoric excavation of ruins in Mgarr from 3500bc and another from 5000bc.

Not sure why … all vacated abandon homes around Golden Bay

Prickly pear seen all over this island…. introduced from Mexico.

Salt flats at Bugibba.

More pictures to follow….

We got a taxi from the airport to our hotel …the Juliani Boutique Hotel on St. Julian’s Bay. Interesting thing….the taxi is not metered but you are charged a flat rate to the specific areas you are travelling to….and collected at the place of origin. Unfortunately the driver took us to the wrong hotel and we ended up walking and dragging our suitcases along the very narrow ( unlike Barcelona’s) to the correct one. The hotel was very lovely with a rooftop pool and deck that overlooks the bay…..nice! From the rooftop, Ron counted 30 hammerhead cranes…..amazing!

First day….November 3rd……

Finally I think I am able to post the remainder of my trip. I ran out of space and had to upgrade. Sorry for the delay!