Perhaps my fascination with tiny countries extends to the fact that I live in a nation as inconceivably vast as Canada - it's not just that Canada is huge, but also filled with massive regions without any sizeable population, or any infrastructure - even roads.
Malta, therefore, is maybe an idealistic dream to a person confronting the identity of living in a massive country - here is a tiny island nation in the mediterranean, steeped in history, with development on nearly every square metre. Moutainous, dense, and straddling the waters between two continents, Malta is a tiny crossroads nation that 's an easy hop from London, with plenty of sightseeing opportunities for a few days. I also have always wondered what it would be like to be trapped on a tiny island, where the ground has limits, where there is a definite end to the surrounding land. Shockingly, perhaps, there is plenty to see and do in Malta, and is also the site of a society caught between dreaming of Europeanness and pleasing its close good neighbours, the Arabs.
I arrived late at night, as I usually do, and shared a taxi with a businessman from Libya into Malta's city centre of Valetta. I was surprised to find out that Malta has several towns, and while most of them merge into one sprawling metropolis on the eastern side of the island, there are still separated communities that live apart from the hustle and bustle of Valetta - which is a ten minute drive away. The taxi driver was Maltese, and offered to take us to a three-star hotel. The Libyan businessman wasn't keen on the price - I even offered to split the room with him, but he knew better of the prices in Malta, and declined two hotels. Frustrated, the taxi driver said in a huff, "Fine. I will take you to your Arab friends."
It was a dingy hotel, away from Valetta and in the slightly seedier area of Sliema. The rooms were meagre, slightly dirty, and therefore relatively cheap. Excellent. The cab driver left us, and I thanked the Libyan for splitting the rather expensive cab ride with me into town. Malta's not cheap - not as expensive as western Europe, but not as cheap as eastern Europe.





The next morning I headed out onto the seaside; the boardwalk of Sliema. It took longer than I thought to walk from my enclave over to Valetta; Malta is not as small as I had thought. Someone on the plane told me that it would take a good two days to walk across the main island alone; which really isn't much, but it's more time than I had planned. It was a solid hour of walking from Sliema, around the inlet to Valetta - although quite interesting. Not a square metre of this area hasn't been touched by development, with ancient buildings packed tightly together. This gives Malta a very unique feel - while other parts of Europe have the bricks and the castles, they certainly don't have them all so closely packed together as here. Valetta feels like an ancient fort, which it was, as Malta has often played host to numerous invaders both attacking and defending. And the even more interesting thing is that Malta is far from flat - it's a rocky island. But, naturally, that has not curbed the onslaught of development.





The crowd is thick along the main boulevard. I wonder what it's like in the high season. I walked along the high walls, staring directly below at the sea. You can walk around the perimetre of Valetta proper in about half an hour - or take a horse and carriage if you are feeling touristic enough.
Just beside Malta is the other town of Floriana, although they merge seamlessly together - except Valetta has a wall, and Floriana is the gateway to Valetta. I picked a good time to visit - the Maltese often through feasts and festivals, and the street was thick with shredded paper and catholic banners.






The churches and museums seemed to be missing or closed, so I decided to walk around the other side of the peninsula(Valetta is a peninsula in a small bay), and to the other three "cities" facing Valetta from the south.








To call them "Cities" is a bit much; and there was a vending machine selling "Kinnie's", Malta's very own soft drink. Made with orange peels. I wouldn't drink it outside of Malta. And the vending machine ate my whole Maltese Lira, which is worth about one and a half British Pounds. An expensive drink - and I'm not one for bitter softdrinks. But as for the cities - they're tiny little peninsulas, each barely a hundred feet wide, but still dense as ever with winding little streets and plenty of churches. Every bit of the shore has been overtaken by a sidewalk. And to reinforce my stupidity I found a bus that takes a mere ten minutes to get from the tri-cities to Valetta, instead of the one hour walk along roaring traffic that I undertook - I don't recommend walking.

To round off the day, I took the wrong bus to the extreme south of Malta - about fifteen minutes away. Oops - but it reinforced the obvious to me, that Malta's main industries are tourism and shipping. There is a beach here, in Birzebugga, as well as a massive setup of cranes that puts Eritrea to shame. This would be the best beach I saw in Malta - surprisingly, for a place that's a big draw for European sun-seekers, the shorelines really suck for sand and surf. What you end up doing is hanging out in Bugiba drinking and yelling in the bars. Or if you're young, dancing the night away in Saint Julian's. I felt strangely alienated from these pleasure-seeking escapists for the duration of my trip.
Just before it became totally dark, I headed west across the island to the Dingli cliffs - which are quite a nice sight, and you pass through a nice little medieval town with a tiny little castle area. It takes half an hour to reach the far side of the island by bus - even though the metropolitan Valetta sprawl encompasses most of that, there are still a few small farms operating. Which is surprising again, given that there isn't much arable land in Malta to begin with - there are some "cart ruts" as they are called, which are rocky divets in the ground, and can be found everywhere amongst the rocky island. But in between that - a few farms? Go figure. My assumption is that it's not enough food to support Malta's population of 0.4 million. But perhaps they are worried that when the apocalypse comes, they better be ready to support themselves. Because the folks of mainland Europe may not help them.





I found the Arabian hotel again - a bargain at 10 Maltese Lira a night, or 20US dollars. The hotelier was Libyan, but spoke far better French than english, so spoke to me far too quickly and incomprehensibly in French. For the next day? Since I've seen the southern half of the island, I suppose it's time to visit the northern half.

To the Temple of Hara Qim, Bugiba, St. Paul's and all the stuff north of Valetta.....



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