Malta: Closing Thoughts On The Trip

So ends our much-anticipated visit to the tiny and beautiful country of Malta. It was certainly an educational and interesting experience, but what did I really think of it?

Overpopulated and Over-touristed

Well, for starters, it’s so, so crowded there; there’s always someone at your elbow wherever you go. Everything is chaotic, disorganized and haphazard. If your purpose in coming to Malta is to chill out and relax (as ours was), you’ve come to the wrong place. Relaxing in Valletta, especially, is like trying to chill out in New York’s Times Square, or the centre of Rome, or the Tokyo subway at rush hour.

Malta is one of the most densely populated countries in the world, and its small size means a large number of people are concentrated in a limited area. Adding to this they have a high immigration rate and large tourist numbers, due mostly to the many cruise ships that come in to port every day. This high density of people and cars puts a strain on the road network, especially in Sliema and Valletta, leading to perpetual traffic jams and crowded public transport.

We found the Malta bus system absolutely impossible to figure out – when we asked for directions or assistance in getting somewhere on their transit system, we received six different directions from six different people. Even if we had figured out the bus system, the rider queues were massive and the buses so packed when they finally did arrive. Due to congestion it always took us so long – hours in fact – to get anywhere or do anything; as a result our days there just flew by. On this congestion issue, Vince created a Malta travel mantra: “you can’t there from here”.

To further confuse things, there is no proper signage, directions or instruction for anything! As I mentioned, we found it impossible to figure out their cryptic transit system, so we just took a Bolt car anywhere we needed to go. Bolt, by the way, leaves Uber in the dust on Malta, literally – there were hundreds of Bolt vehicles buzzing around, but an Uber car was a rare site. Bolt is far more prevalent than Uber in Europe as they’re a European company (headquartered in Tallinn, Estonia).

Infrastructure Woes

The streets in Sliema and Valletta are extremely narrow and usually lose one side of the street to parking. It’s very challenging when a big truck comes down those little streets. Speaking of the streets, they are in wretched condition, especially the sidewalks: they are full of potholes, broken concrete, raised or uneven surfaces, and missing sidewalk sections. My personal favourite was the massive hole in the sidewalk near our hotel – some old planks had been thrown into the pothole in an attempt to fix it! To call Valletta and Sliema’s sidewalks precarious is an understatement; I had to watch my every step; I didn’t fancy taking a header as I did on our UK adventure last year.

We’ve heard many people say that Malta has a very corrupt government. Officials there allegedly channel public money (i.e. taxes) away from infrastructure maintenance, and into their own pockets. Corruption, and the over-tourism of the island, probably help contribute to the current unhappiness of the Maltese. Much has been written on the Web about this corruption – Daphne Caruana Galizia investigated corruption for a living and in the end paid the ultimate price: she was assassinated (see my Day 1 post and this article for a little more info on this). If you’d like to read a little more on how the locals in Sliema currently feel, check out this article published in the Malta Independent (which, by the way, was the paper that Daphne Galizia wrote for).

Driving In Malta

Three words: DON’T DO IT! The traffic is CRAZY! The streets and roads are so densely populated, and everyone drives either like a maniac, a bat out of hell, or a combination of the two. There is considerable horn-honking and yelling from the drivers in Valletta.

All cars in Malta are very small (thank goodness!). The majority of cars we saw were Smart cars and Fiats, along with smaller models of Toyota, Volkswagen and Peugeot. I remember seeing only a couple of North American-sized SUVs during the duration of our visit, and they were out on deliveries.

As in the UK, Maltese drive on the left side of the road, with the steering wheel on the opposite side of the car, compared to what we’re used to. Also like the UK, as a pedestrian you have to look carefully before crossing a street as the traffic is coming from a different direction.

The Maltese People

For Vince and I, the local people we encounter and interact with when visiting a new country can make or break a trip. This is one of the main reasons Malta disappointed us. Maltese people are not friendly: they are po-faced, unsmiling, and can be quite brusque. I found the Maltese generally unhappy. These folks are not good at public service/tourism; they are not welcoming and seem to resent tourists. The only nice Maltese we encountered on the main island were those at our hotel, and they were paid to be nice!

I know I shouldn’t paint all Maltese with the same brush – to clarify: my impression is based on the locals we met and interacted during our visit there. Other people’s mileage may vary. The Maltese we encountered, especially those working at the docks of Sliema, were totally indifferent, condescending or simply unresponsive to tourists’ questions or concerns.

Looking at the Maltese, they appear stone-faced – you can’t tell if they’re happy, sad, angry or otherwise. The Darth Vader principle definitely applies here:

OK, let the flame wars begin…

However, the few interactions we had with folks on the island of Gozo turned everything around – the locals there were quite pleasant and were lovely people. When a waitress in one of the Gozo pubs saw me taking the picture below through their open window, she stuck her head out the window and threateningly said to me:That’ll be 2 Euros if you want to do that!! I was taken aback, as is my Canadian way, but then she burst out laughing and said she was just kidding… wow, a Maltese with a sense of humour…

An observation regarding service people: almost all of the waiters in Valletta and Sliema we encountered were of Indian descent. Curious.

Food And Water

As the Maltese islands are basically just big rocks in the Mediterranean Sea, their drinking water comes from the sea and is desalinated for use. All the Malta pre-trip research we did warned of the water having a slightly foul taste and, as a result, we should buy bottled water once we arrived. Vince and I found this to be totally false – at least to our taste palates we could not detect anything unusual. This was most likely due to our being used to the treated drinking water in Toronto.

The food in Malta was great! So flavourful and delicious – the Bragioli and Pastizzi were magnificent. We had only one bad meal, which was our own fault – that day we had eaten lunch in the Valletta tourist zone where restaurant prices were high and the quality low.

Languages

The Maltese language (aka Malti) sounds like a weird jumble of Arabic, Hebrew and Italian, and it’s spoken very quickly; it was unlike anything I’d ever heard. Linguists consider Malti to be related to the Arabic dialects of western North Africa.

One of the odd things about this visit was that we encountered no Americans or Canadians as we usually do in European cities we’ve visited. There were, however, thousands of Europeans and we overheard virtually every language under the sun, moon and stars while there; English was a definite rarity. Clearly, October was vacation season for neighbouring Europeans.

So, Is There A Return Trip In The Works?

So, after saying all of this, would I someday return to Malta?…uummmm… a hesitant “yes”, but only to visit Gozo, the second largest island of the three. Although we were only in Gozo for a couple of hours, everything seemed to change while there – it was much less crowded, the people were much, much friendlier, the vibe was very chilled out, and the architecture immensely charming. Gozo streets and alleys reminded me of some of the smaller towns I visited during one of my Italian photo tours.

Wrapping Up

I hope I have not painted too bleak a picture of Malta. Everyone’s mileage always varies, and you may have a better experience there or be more tolerant of challenging people and packed crowds. My recommendation would be to not visit Malta in October as we did – we did lots of pre-trip research and were aware that October is the rainy season in Malta, but somehow it still seemed surprising or annoying when it rained. We lost about two days to rain, but made the most of them by visiting indoor venues.

Malta is such a beautiful country. Reviewing and prepping my photos for this blog as I’ve been doing has caused me to re-visit the island; it truly offers some wonderful vistas and architecture.

A heartfelt thank you to everyone who read my blog and followed our adventures. Also, a HUGE thank you and shout-out to all who commented on the various posts – it’s much appreciated.

So, until the next blog… So Long!

The Malta Adventures Ends!

P.S.: I know everyone looks forward to the photos of a trip. The Malta photo albums will be up online in a few days for all to enjoy. I will send out a notification post to let everyone know when the galleries are up and ready.