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Active Old People should walk

Summary

The best holidays are those which have a few surprises or wow moments. Our last few holidays have gone to plan and met our expectations but there were nothing unexpected. This holiday had a few surprises so it could be said to have been good.

The first surprise was Valletta, we were fortunate to stay in a hotel in the middle of the old city which was ideal and despite being very popular with tourists it is also a real city with local people living, working and, importantly for us, eating in the local restaurants and cafes. There were not too many tourists in the evenings which makes it a nice place to stay. We did not bother with a car but next to our hotel we noticed a number of parking spaces reserved for the Ministry of Active Aging, surely they should walk to set an example!
Valletta is a great place to stay for a few days, the museums and galleries are good, there are few cars and everything is in walking or ferry distance. The architecture is impressive although all from the same era and there are there are rather too many WWII museums but it was good just to wander round the streets and fortifications watching the world go by.

The Grand Harbour

The other surprise was the neolithic sites left by the Temple people of 3,600 BC whoever they were. We had read the guide book before the holiday but had not picked up on how exceptional they are. Admittedly we are old ruin enthusiasts being old ruins ourselves but those we visited are much more interesting than anything in the UK.

Gozo was a little disappointing primarily because it is over sold by all the Maltese we met in Valletta. They all rave about its laid back, relaxed style, lovely countryside and rolling hills but we did not think it was so very different from Malta. Of course if we hadn’t gone there we would have worried about what we missed after all the hype. It is a nice place but not so very different from the “mainland”.

An old man on his 70th Birthday

Both islands are tiny which took some getting used too, we hired a car on Gozo but probably didn’t need to and on Malta you are never more than 20 minutes drive from anywhere.

You are also never more than a few hundred yards from an enormous church, we did not see many people going to mass on Sundays so I suspect the hold over the island by the Catholic church is waning. It seems that every recent Pope has made at least one visit to Malta to drum up support, perhaps there is a direct Ryanair flight from Rome.

We were told that driving in Malta is dangerous but once you realise that no one is ever going to use their indicators it was fine. Of course being “British” they drive on the left, also have real 3 pin plugs and phone boxes, we did find one box with a phone in it, most are empty.

So we had a great time and can recommend Malta for a holiday but having done most of the attractions we probably won't visit again.