Malta Meltdown, side trip solution!

As Jill and I ducked and dived in and out of the shaded streets of Malta…and the heatwave sun set….

We sat on our front terrace in the shade….deciding we needed a side trip to another town, another country!

Malta is good for this! So after a couple of beers (for me) and G&Ts (for Jill) we started searching nearby destinations that neither of us had visited!

We have both been to Sicily, but not the northern area…so when a Palermo airfare for €100 each popped up we grabbed it! Then booked ourselves in a luxurious hotel for five nights! Oh well we only live once, as we are both 65 years young.

The weekend passed with meandering around our local area, a visit to Mdina/Rabat on Sunday where we “stumbled” across a street market! And dehydrated ourselves in the late morning heat!

Monday was a shopping excursion to Fgura and a big afternoon Nanna nap!

Tuesday, our day of departure (evening) , we went to st Thomas Bay for an early morning swim…

Glorious morning dipping and drying off on the lookout above the bay…

And the deep swimming holes …. Clear to the bottom… before the heat haze rolled in… after cooling off, we went to the beach pub for coffee and brunch! Which took soooo long and we did not get back home until after 1pm. At which point we needed to wash laundry, shower and pack for our evening departure!

Arriving at the airport (Malta) a little under 2 hours before take off, we were subjected to a small area…malfunctioning aircon, and a 3000 punters waiting for flights! No seats….limited food and drink options….and a sauna for two hours before boarding the plane to Palermo!

Our (free) taxi driver was waiting as we walked out of arrivals….10.15pm! This is the good part! We ran after him to his Taxi, not a word exchanged…he threw us in the back, still no communication, drove at 150kms….to our hotel! OR was it…slammed on his brakes in a busy street 11pm…threw our bags on the street and pointed to a very large closed door! Which happened to be 2kms from our actual hotel! Oh well… (there’s no such thing as a free ride!) However, in good Sicilian culture the world is alive at this time and we trucked through crowds, night markets, bustling cafes…following google maps until we arrived at our destination. Luckily booking an expensive hotel…meant the night porter was waiting…and took us to our air conditioned room explaining the logistics of the hotel! Midnite…,

Breakfast at 8am… on the rooftop terrace overlooking the city of Palermo…our first glimpse of the landscape, as arriving in the middle of the night does not really do it justice!

We then wandered out through our hotel…a 3-400 year old palazzo!

First stop supermarket, water, milk, beer and wine to stock up our fridge! Then off wandering….a thing I do on the first day in any new town. Palermo is the capital city of Sicily, with a population of around 800k(more than Maltas total resident population)

At 9.30am the street were buzzing with market stalls and humans!!

First we stumbled on the four corner fountains…. On our way to the Palermo cathedral….

Cafe’s beckoning us in….

The No Mafia museum…a visit on the to do list…

Street stalls…a dog lover selling doggy adornments….(who Jill annoyed by dropping his merchandise on the street)….move on!

And the cathedral!

Free entry…. Unlike Spain where you had to pay to enter a church….

The alter…

And the outside….a beautiful church! Having done the pilgrim thing….we were once again becoming dehydrated and very damp from sweat! it was time for refreshments…

Alesandro beckoned us into his cafe, where we sat under brollies and had our first Sicilian cocktail on ice (and extra ice!)

Cooled off enough to move again…and perused the locality…looking for a frock that we could wear braless and that didn’t touch our bodies! We got close, but gave up after an hour or so and plonked down at another side street cafe, inhaled two large bottles of water, followed by a beer and wine!