Waiting for the bus today I met another English ex-pat – Steve. He currently lives in Sydney but his wife Gulina is Maltese so they were in the country visiting her family. As we chatted on the bus ride, he told me he was headed for a relaxing day at the beach. Now, most of Malta’s beaches are rocky and local people have told me that the few sandy beaches tend to be on the northern part of the island so I found it curious that he was traveling south but, to each his own.
He and his wife have traveled frequently in the U.S. and for some reason Steve, at least, has a particular fondness for Delaware. I must admit I found it a bit surprising because I never imagined Delaware being high on any tourist’s list but, as I said above, to each his own. He told me he’d considered buying a place in the States where he’d live during the Australian winter but then learned that spending all that time outside Australia would have cut deeply into his pension. He tried to explain why this would be the case but I never really got it. Nevertheless, he travels stateside with some frequency instead.
It’s time to talk a bit more about the buses. In years past, Malta’s bus system had a reputation of being quirky and unreliable. Almost a year ago a company called Arriva took over the operations of Malta’s buses and there seems to be unanimity on two fronts. First, while not yet perfect, the system has become more reliable and the drivers more professional. Second, there’s still plenty of nostalgia for the old buses and if you ask around, you can still find one or two.
Perhaps the system itself was a bit nostalgic today because the bus we rode was late arriving and even later departing from the terminal in Valletta. The electronic signs were tagged to a different route and so many people had piled on at the start that I was unable to ask the driver which stop was closest to my first planned stop at Ghar Dalam. As we neared that location, Steve took matters into his own hands on my behalf, turned to a young woman and asked her where I should disembark. She said I should get off with her and she’d show me where to find the entrance to the cave.
Now for a few words about Ghar Dalam and why I wanted to visit. (Pronounce this Ar DA-lɘm.) This Maltese name translates as Cave of Darkness. Both the cave and the museum contain bones of animals that became extinct on Malta at the end of the glacial retreat and this is interesting enough. But the real importance of Ghar Dalam, at least for me, is that this cave has the first evidence of human habitation on the island and that evidence dates back 7,400 years.
Like most of these sites, I thought it was a bit underdeveloped as an attraction and it was most certainly unobtrusive. There was one very small road sign a few hundred meters away but nothing else to let visitors know that they were approaching a true heritage site. Here’s the entrance:
Since I was the only visitor, how wrong can my impression be? (Another couple did arrive as I was leaving so perhaps three visitors in an hour is enough for Maltese tourism.) This isn’t a place where one will spend a significant amount of time – particularly in its current state of development, or rather, lack of development. There is a small two room museum (with a free wandering cat). One room focused on animal migratory patterns and the other had fossil bones and skeletal reconstructions of some of the notable animals found at the site. As I think I mentioned elsewhere, I was excited to visit this place because it has the earliest evidence of humans on Malta dating back over 7,000 years. Sadly, I found the cave itself disappointing. I thought the labeling was insufficient and didn’t highlight the evidence of human presence enough to meet my expectations. But, this is Malta.
From there, I walked down to Birzebbuga which was probably about two kilometers from Ghar Dalam cave and clicked off a few snapshots there and along the way.
I spotted a few people using a small stretch of rocks as a beach in Birzebbuga and the scene brought Steve to mind because I thought this was probably very much like the place he was spending his day. The remaining pictures from Thursday are in this folder.
The day had grown quite hot and someone who knows the way might be able to walk from Birzebugga to Marsaxlokk in fewer than the five kilometers I would have needed to stay on the main roads but again given the heat, the enervation I’d experienced yesterday, and the fact that I had unlimited bus rides, I thought riding the bus would be a better and wiser choice particularly given my plans for the evening.
The bus arrived in Marsaxlokk and I somehow missed the stop closest to the harbor – which is the main attraction of this traditional fishing village. However, this allowed me to walk through parts of the town most visitors likely miss. It’s a picturesque little place and the harbor is filled with lots of traditionally painted boats probably as much for the tourists to photograph as for practical use. I had a lovely seaside lunch of sea bream caught by the restaurant owner’s husband. The restaurant also had a cat. (You can see both of today’s cats in the “Random” pictures folder.)
I wasn’t able to find the so-called “Seasick Summit Monument” (from the George H.W. Bush Mikhail Gorbachev meeting) and neither of the people I asked seemed to know where it was. It turns out that my notes were wrong about the location and I should have asked about it when I was in Birzebugga not Marsaxlokk. The power plant that’s clearly evident in the picture above is the construction that Hugh (and Patrick and Steve) warned me spoiled the beauty of Marsaxlokk’s harbor. I can imagine that it did but since I’d never seen the harbor without the power plant, I didn’t find it as jarring as those who knew the spot before the plant was built.
Eventually I got back to Valletta and found myself once again in the early evening sitting on the rooftop with beer and book in hand delighting in the breeze and the view and thinking, “Oh, I could do this!”
As for those evening plans, I’m meeting John and Sally for dinner tonight – letting John choose the restaurant. His first choice was closed due to street work blocking the entrance so we went to a restaurant called Spezzo and had a lovely dinner complete with a bottle and a half of a nice Maltese white wine. As with so many of these evenings in Malta it was a leisurely affair and afterward we walked to a café around the corner from our flats where I met Albert, John’s best friend in Malta.
We had some more wine and Albert brought us a lovely dish of squid (I think) but the bottles and glasses of wine have left my memory a bit blurry. He sat with us and we had an interesting conversation over a wide range of subjects. Albert seems to share the generous Maltese spirit I’ve found in the people of this tiny country. We left without paying for everything but Albert seemed untroubled so I didn’t think much about it – Perhaps he and John would square the tab later or perhaps it was a gift. Either way, it was a fine way to end a fine day.