Malta

One of the funniest holiday ever! Also cultural with the beautiful remains of the Templars or from the Arabic dominion.

My wife and I took a holiday to Malta a few years ago. The people are very friendly and the restaurants were very accomodating of our 9-month old baby. It has a surprising amount of English culture mixed with the Mediterranean. What is most surprising is just how small the island is.

I ended my European excursion in Malta, which turned out to be the perfect place. I didn’t realize how tired I was after all the walking and sightseeing I had been doing for the previous five weeks. I have never been much of a sit by the pool and lounge type of girl, but my first two days there, that is what I did. I sat on a lounge chair, napped, read, and ate as I gazed out at the glorious sea and view. I nursed my sinus infected self back to a better semblance of health, and then got out and explored for a couple days. However, this just made me wish I had more time there. So I already know I’ll be going back. I really wanted to dive, but the sinus infection prevented it. So for sure next time, I’d like to stay for a couple weeks. The people are great, and there is so much to go explore.

Malta was more and less than expected. The cities are kind of a mix of 3rd world facade and first world economy. Charming, but weird. It was really hot, so I’m glad we didn’t go in the summer. Countryside looks nothing like I expected and the cacti are huge! Tarxein was a huge disappointment (don’t redo ancient stuff with concrete. Duh!) , but the other ruins were very cool.

As everyone else said watch the heat
Malta is very small. VERY small.
98% of the population is Roman Catholic
Divorce, Abortion and the Morning After Pill are illegal
As you can guess, it’s very conservative
Right now is a difficult time for the country. The arrival of many immigrants from Africa is bringing out a racist/xenopobic streak in some people.
Environmental and Animal Rights are not high on the list of priorities in this country.
I went for 6 months on a student exchange and it was worth it…it was definatly an invaluable experience…but I wouldn’t want to live there. Best to go for a week or two, hit the beaches, temples and churches, all lovely. But living there may make you go crazy, I did.

I have seen great pictures of this place and I would like find vacation rentals here.

http://www.rentalio.com

When you go to Malta, definitly go during the Festa. You will have a lot of fun.
Be careful about the heat though, there are only very few places with AC there and thought it is not humid, it can get pretty bad.
My family is from this beautiful country, I would recommend going to the beach. It is beautiful and fun.

Because you will have a great time, especially if you go in the summer.

February 2003.
It was OK, not the most exciting or beautiful island that we’ve been to but steeped in history though not a great deal of it left partly due to the intensive bombing during WW2. Very easy to get about and the buses are fantastic if something of a health and safety worry. Enjoyed Valletta very much, and the trip to Gozo was well worth it. I guess that we should have gone in the summer when the weather would have been be better.

i went to malta with my class last year in june. and since i live in vienna it seemed to be soooo small to me!
some things you should know if you’re going there: it’s HOT, there’s practically no drinking water (it usually doesn’t rain a lot there, so what they do is they convert salt water into drinking water… as i’m used to austrian water quality, it was awful for me and my classmates too, but the people there were quite happy with it), you have to buy water in bottles and it’s EXPENSIVE AS HELL, you have to watch out for jellyfish (two of my classmates got stung by them) and the hotels aren’t that nice and clean
beside this… it’s a great island and really worth visiting. to me, it was like a different world and i’ll never forget the atmosphere