Revenge is ours!

Malta. Getting there was tough, but ultimately well worth the effort. You heard about the bad, now hear about the good.

The good.

First, while technically a rock in the middle of the sea, Malta is gorgeous. Golden stone, azure water, handsome architecture, vestiges of ages past at every turn … it’s a veritable movie set. In fact, it’s an actual movie set. Loads of movies and TV shows have been shot in Malta. Part of Game of Thrones was filmed right across from our hotel, which is not exactly a selling point for me since I detest GoT; however, Paul, Apostle of Christ was also filmed in Malta and that is cool.

Who wouldn’t want to shoot a movie here? NO ONE.

Second, Malta’s breadth and depth of history is astounding; the whole country may as well be governed by UNESCO. And while fans of all eras are well-served, the prehistory crowd is especially spoiled. The place has megalithic temples that predate Stonehenge, for crying out loud. Malta is also home to the phenomenal Hal Saflieni Hypogeum, an underground burial site and temple that is among the marvels one must see in one’s lifetime, if one has the chance.

The Hypogeum’s iconic 5,000-year-old “Sleeping Lady,” who looks truly great for her age.

Perhaps unsurprisingly considering its 7,000+ years of history, Malta has a TON of ruins. There are ruins lining every field, just sitting there in the hot, hot sun, waiting to be admired. There are also many extensive and extremely awe-inspiring catacomb sites. We visited Saint Paul’s Catacombs, which are not only badass (albeit haunting), but also offer a welcome bit of respite from the pounding heat. Not sure I’d have a full-on meal down there though, as early mourners are believed to have done. I once saw a group of tourists try to have a picnic inside Chartres Cathedral, which was shockingly uncouth, but interestingly, eating alongside decomposing bodies in the catacombs back in their heyday was, I’m assuming, ceremonially respectful. Probably stinky, though.

Saint Paul (we meet again!) is especially beloved in Malta for having spent several months on the island following a shipwreck on his way to face trial in Rome sometime around 60 AD. One can visit the cave in which he is said to have stayed during his sojourn. You bet we visited it. It was rad. 

Highly shipwreck-worthy.

Like Saint Paul, the Knights of Malta are a very big deal. They are notably celebrated for the heroism they showed during the Great Siege of Malta in 1565, when some 500 knights and 6,000 foot soldiers managed to fend off an entire armada of like 30,000 angry Ottomans. I won’t bore you with the details (which are frankly not so much boring as they are bloody and gross). Instead, here’s a kid-friendly summary:

“GO AWAY.”

What else can I tell you about Malta?

Malta is dry. And as someone who grew up in inland Southern California, I know about dryness. Malta is “tumbleweed and baked earth” dry. How anyone cultivates anything there is a mystery. Luckily, Sicily is nearby, and while also dry, apparently it grows more stuff than Malta. Malta has fennel. And cows. But the cows are from Sicily.

Dry toast. And ruins.

Driving around Malta is terrifying. First, they drive on the left, which, with all due respect to Lord Let’s All Drive on the Left, may be the dumbest idea anyone has ever had ever. Second, they drive really fast. Even my husband, who drives really fast, said repeatedly that the Maltese drive really fast. Plus our rental car had an engine about the size of a coconut, meaning going uphill was somewhat comical. The battery, apparently even smaller than a coconut, died on us while waiting to board a ferry to visit the nearby island of Gonzo. That was much less comical.

The Maltese language is crazy. It’s a mix between Arabic, Italian, Sicilian, English, French, Spanish, and the kitchen sink. And while written Maltese uses the Latin alphabet, it includes letters I’ve never seen anywhere else, but for some reason they give me a thrill. Check this out:

Do you have goosebumps? I have goosebumps.

Eating lunch on the street in Malta is very cheap. You can buy these fun little stuffed pastry things called pastizzi for about €1 and be full for like eight hours.

Malta takes Covid seriously. Really seriously. When you arrive, you are immediately faced with a wall of stern-looking authority figures demanding to see your paperwork. Woe to those who have not the proper paperwork! Also, the testing procedure on the island is next-level absurd. They send you to a sketchy parking garage behind a “hospital” in a part of town that looks like Baghdad, where you must pay in cash so that some dude wearing a moonsuit can jab at your sinuses with a glorified Q-Tip. I’ve now been tested like five times since the start of this Corona madness and honestly, the process is less painful each time. Is that a good thing? It doesn’t seem like a good thing. You’d think my sense of smell would have improved, but instead my hay fever has worsened. Hmm.

So there you have it. An overall wonderful trip despite a very rocky kick-off. If you ever have the opportunity to visit Malta, definitely seize that opportunity. Just make sure your Covid paperwork is pristine, your rental car is bigger than the Hot Wheels model we had, and your flight is not with Lufthansa (sorry not sorry).

Ahhh.

Revenge travel?

Ah, vacation. Remember what that used to be like? You know, in those carefree, innocent days before Covid-19 stole all of our naive illusions and sent them plummeting into the abyss?

Well, we had a chance last week to do more than reminisce about mobility. With the world gradually opening up to travel again, my hubby and I decided NOW was the moment to finally celebrate our 10-year wedding anniversary (which was technically in April) by boarding an actual airplane and flying to an actual place. But where to go?

We chose Malta. Its beauty, history and relative proximity convinced us.

So we sent our kids to visit their grandparents, which was weird in and of itself.

Then we packed, which was also weird after what felt like a lifetime of not packing.

We underwent the requisite Q-Tip-up-the-nose PCR test in a sketchy pharmacy in the ghetto (PCR tests are hard to come by). 

We filled out a lot (A LOT) of paperwork. International travel these days demands much more of that than before. Thanks, Covid.

And we went to the airport. Or rather, we dove head-first into a sea of humanity rather like this:

I’d forgotten how much I hate the airport.

Many hours later, we staggered to our departure gate. Our “airplane” looked like this:

The flight was delayed. First 20 minutes (excusable), then 1.5 hours (inexcusable), and then just flat-out cancelled (have I mentioned that I hate the airport?).

Thus commenced many hours filled with that noxious yet familiar cocktail of boredom and panic that pretty much defines my whole relationship with travel. I’ll spare you the details, but in short, it was bad. At least I met a nice fellow passenger from LA who knew my hometown, which was a little ray of most welcome sunshine.

Ultimately, we were placed on a new flight connecting through Frankfurt. Only here’s the thing: PCR tests expire after 72 hours, and with the rerouting we would technically be over the time limit by a couple of hours. “No problem,” said Lufthansa (you bet I’m naming names).

So we flew to Frankfurt and then proceeded to our connecting flight, operated by Air Malta. Air Malta, you may be surprised to learn, is far less laid-back than Lufthansa. They were not buying our “but the airline said it was OK” spiel. Thus, we were barred from boarding, and were offered exactly zero sympathy from the flight attendants, who suggested we go tell our sob story to Lufthansa customer service before moving on to the next passenger. So much for Mediterranean warmth.

So we went to Lufthansa customer service, which was located on the whole other side of the airport, distraught AF. To their credit, they were kind (as they should have been, considering the whole mess was their fault to begin with). They gave us vouchers for a new Covid test, vouchers for a hotel, vouchers for dinner and new tickets for the following morning. They also made fun of Air Malta, which we appreciated.

Then they sent us, minus our luggage, to an airport hotel whose vibe was something like this:

The hotel offered us a room and a sterilized, socially-distanced buffet dinner consisting of canned vegetables and mystery meat, in an atmosphere somewhere between a wake and a strip mall on a Sunday night. Our bathroom was lit by a single red light. On a timer.

At 5 am the next morning, we fell out of bed and got ready in under 10 minutes—as one can when one has pure anxiety coursing through one’s veins, as well as no luggage.

We boarded a shuttle BACK to the airport, where we took yet another Covid test. It was negative, so that was positive (a little Covid humor for ya).

We boarded the plane to Malta. It didn’t crash, thank God.

We exited the airplane and went to baggage claim. Our bags were not there.

We spent 40 minutes filing a missing baggage report, which at this point was (almost) comical.

But then, negative test results in hand and no luggage weighing us down, we marched boldly past the immigration gestapo and felt the tide turning in our favor.

We picked up our rental car. It looked a lot like this (only smaller):

We rediscovered the thrill of left-hand traffic, which is how Malta rolls, thus kicking my cortisol levels up another notch.

Ah, but a short while later we reached our hotel, whose vibe was something like this:

And believe it or not, but the rest of our stay was really wonderful—albeit often surreal. It deserves its own post, which it shall have.

To be continued!