27th Message:
Helen on World Cruise (Valletta, Malta)

Stroll through the city’s narrow streets and let your guide introduce you to Mdina’s history and provide an orientation to the town itself. From the bastions, enjoy the fantastic view over the valley and the surrounding areas. Take advantage of some free time to visit either the cathedral or another historic site pointed out by your guide. There is also the option of souvenir shopping.

Ride by motor coach to Valletta — the present-day capital. You’ll walk to St John’s Co-Cathedral and view this lovely building from the outside. Also, view the Grand Master’s Palace from the outside — it now houses the Parliament and the President’s Office.

Use your free time to either visit St John’s Co-Cathedral, or for shopping, or simply relax at one of the sidewalk cafés and watch the world go by, Malta-style.

Walk past the Auberge de Castille — the office of the Prime Minister — and your last stop is at the Barrakka Gardens, located on the highest point of the 16th-century walls that the Knights of St John built to protect their city. Take in the splendid view of the Three Cities and Fort Ricasoli.

One day, while I was at sea, I figured out how to copy and paste excursion descriptions into the messages I would send in the future. This has saved me much time laboriously scrutinizing the excursion description or painstakingly retyping the whole description. The descriptions are posted online in such a fashion that you do not use your expensive internet time accessing them. The drawback is that, once the day of the tour has passed, you can no longer find the tour description.

The tour description above is not the tour we took. The tour we took was called “Malta Scenic Drive.” We had a couple of very brief picture-taking stops and one twenty minute stop at a fishing village.

Our day in Malta was clear but very, very windy. Our fishing village stop was fun despite the wind. It happened to be Palm Sunday. We walked down to the shoreline to get better pictures of the bay and fishing boats. In doing this, we came upon an authentic farmers market. Many markets are incorporated in tours but I feel this one was just coincidental. We were at the right place at the right time, at least that’s how it seemed to me.

One of the market images that sticks in my memory is a basket of huge ripe strawberries. This basket had already been purchased by a family. A little girl who may have been three or four years old was a part of the little group. The incredibly big red strawberries would soon be on her family’s table. I wondered if this was a special treat for her or just part of daily life.

I do not own a laptop. I have been creating these messages through the generosity of John Attard who lent me his little Toshiba laptop. John is originally from Malta. One of the first things I noticed as we began our shore excursion was the name “Attard” on a building. How often does something like that happen? Maybe his last name is as common as “Smith” or “Jones” is in America but I am going to pretend I have a friend in San Diego who is famous in Malta.

Malta has a 6000 year history. Like most other countries we have visited, it has been taken over by one group of people and then another. There are fortresses and impressive walls. The pier where we docked was at the base of a very high wall. The city of Valetta was high above the pier at the top of the wall.

Our tour bus was parked on the pier when we began our tour but when we concluded our tour, we were let off at a different location. I got off the bus after most other passengers had exited it. I then found a woman who had one foot in a cast and was walking very slowly. I decided to walk slowly with her just so she did not feel abandoned. The irony of my gesture of kindness is that she knew where she was going and I did not. It seemed like we were being funneled into a large gift shop. I thought this was a little unorthodox but such things happen at places like Disneyland and Sea World. That was where the ‘slow-walker’ wanted to be.

I came out the other side of the gift shop and I could see my cruise ship relatively close to where I was standing but could not see an obvious path to it. Those who had stayed in a group when they exited the bus, followed signs that were counter-intuitive. The Amsterdam was obviously there to our left but we were guided by signs to turn right. Somehow I went through a special underpass and a security check before approaching the ship from a different angle.

Our stay in Malta was brief. I did not get an opportunity to visit any famous churches. (The tour guide said there were enough churches to visit one daily for a year.) I know there is an interesting history about the Knight of St. John that could be studied. There is also biblical significance to Malta because of a shipwreck of St. Paul. This can be found in the New Testament.

I did get an opportunity, after lunch, to come back down onto the pier. There were plenty of restaurants and a relaxed atmosphere of people enjoying the day. I saw two little children playing an area near a “bounce house.” The little boy was talking to the little girl in a distinctly British accent. It really tickled me. I later learned that these were the grandchildren of Captain Jonathan. They will be on board for part of the cruise. I think I am a little jealous. These children will have wonderful memories of going to sea with their Captain Grandfather.

The “all aboard” time for this visit was 4:30pm. I was up the gangway at 4:28pm. I beat the clock by two minutes. Our plastic key cards have bar codes which register our disembarkations and embarkations. My name and stateroom number would have been broadcast throughout the ship if my re-entry was not properly recorded. Schedules must be kept. On to the next port!