Valetta

The plan was to visit Valetta. The plan was to arrive by water, but the choppy seas this morning put pay to that idea. We again purchased a day ticket for the buses and hopped on the No. 13 heading for the town.

It didn't take long before we were rubbing shoulders with the general tourists and wandering the streets of the town. We stopped for a coffee and watched the world go by. It was clear that the real throng clustered round the squares by the Co-cathedral, the Library, and the Palace. Being different, we headed off down the side streets.

This gave us the chance to poke our noses into some of the less well known churches, and to see the warren of streets that make up the town. We headed down to the fortifications that protected the harbour entrance and looked across at the ancient fortresses that once guarded against the Turks.
It was time to grab a drink, and so we headed back up towards the main square foe some ice cream and refreshments whilst waiting for St Johns to reopen. There was a flaw in our logic, however. On Saturdays it closes at 12:30, and stays closed!

And so, we never got to see inside.

We wandered down to the ferry and got a water taxi back to Sliema where we waited for the bus to the hotel. Just as the bus came into sight, the rain started and as the bus pulled in a big German woman barged through to the front of the queue, beckoning her husband to follow. The Gorse Fox, in a move that would have earned him a yellow card at Wembley, stepped across the path of the advancing chap and blocked him off entirely. Satisfied GF ushered several people onto the bus in front of him, before clearing his lines.

Quite a satisfactory day.