Wednesday, July 18, 2018

Made it to Malta!


Leaving the farmhouse we only had a 90 minute drive to our overnight stop. We called into Direct Factory outlet to kill time. Wandering around these places I am still amazed at how people afford some of the prices. I did get myself a new pair of trainers as they were $70 cheaper than at home but nothing else.
We had an overnight hotel which had a pool, needed in this heat, and a pleasant restaurant. There are  now just 6 of us travelling together.
Sunday saw us driving to Marseille as this was where we were flying from to Malta. Found parking easily and got onto the ‘hop on/off’ bus to have a view of the city of Marseille. It was an interesting tour and not the sleazy city of the past. As we stopped for lunch the French football fans started to appear. They were draped in flags, blowing loud whistles and wearing weird and wonderful hats.
We had  lovely lunch of bouillabaisse – it was delicious! 



We dragged out our lunch as long as possible but had decided to head to the airport before the ‘big game’ started as we didn’t want to be in the middle if things didn’t go the French way!
Unfortunately our flight didn’t leave until 11:30 pm so we were at the airport way, way too early but there was nothing else we could do. As you can imaging every TV screen in the airport was surrounded by football fans- I was secretly going for Croatia! We always knew when France scored and the were a lot of groans and head holding when they didn’t! We were finally able to check in at 9:30 only to be told that the flight was delayed by 2.5 hours!!! We made our way through security and then stretched out on the seats – no way I could fall asleep!
We finally reached our apartment about 5am and promptly went to bed! Upon waking a few hours later we set off for the supermarket to stock up – never seen so many extraordinary English cheeses! The day was very low key and we all had a siesta that afternoon. We have a lovely view over the ocean but it’s rocky with no sand. It’s really  hot with a little humidity but pleasant enough to sit outside for our dinner.

Yesterday we took the ‘hop on/off’ bus. We thought we were on the southern tour but ended up on the northern one. Some areas look like the Gold Coast and just hotel after hotel. It is very dry inland but they do seem to grow extra large pumpkins. Much of the food etc is imported and there are many Italian restaurants probably because we are so close to Italy.
The day was hot and humid and the bus trip very long. We asked ourselves why we weren’t able to cope with the heat as it’s no different from what we experience in Oz – we had no answer! We left the bus to visit the Medina, an old walled town, which was quite interesting. We learnt a little about the history of Malta – it was the most bombed country during World War 2. There is a lot of building and renovation going on here.



Will finish this in a while as I offered to go out and buy the croissants each morning  - yesterday they were still warm – yum! My stomach will get a shock when I get back home😯 Just had breakfast , croissants were warm, now planning a walking tour of Valletta.




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