Malta Things To Do For Families, With or Without Children: Attractions and Bargains

TRANSPORT
LAND
The hop on hop off bus has a top deck for good views. In Spring take an umbrella.
Alternatively, there's a horse drawn carriage to take you around the city of Valletta.
Vintage bus tour.
Gozo Segway tours.
Malta Classic Car Museum, Tourists Street, Qawra SPB 1020. www.classiccarsmalta.com
Cars, motorbikes, model cars, life-size figures and gift shops.
Rolling Geeks, electric powered cars with GPS and commentary. www.rolling-geeks.com
SEA
Take the ferry to Gozo. See Azure.
Side trip to Sicily.
Captain Morgan boat trips.
Blue Grotto Boat Service, 20-25 minute trip passing several caves, 9.30 winter and 9-5.30 summer, weather permitting. www.bluegrottomalta.com.mt Passengers must wear life jacket. Tickets 8 euros.
Malta Maritime Museum.
AIR
On the former site of the RAF station, includes aircraft which played on important part in WWII 1940-43, including Spitfire, de Havilland Tiger Moth, Douglas DC3 and more. Cafeteria and garden, near picnic park and Crafts Village. Last entry 4 pm.
Malta Aviation Museum
www.maltaaviationmuseum.com

ANIMALS, BIRDS, FISH
Land, sea and sky provide constant interest.
Bird Park Malta.
Malta Falconry Centre.
National Museum of Natural History.

FISH
Malta National Aquarium
Triq It-Trunciera, Qawr, San Pawl Il-Bahar, SPB 1500
www.aquarium.com.mt

HISTORY & MUSEUMS
Lascaris War rooms, Valletta, where Eisenhower and Montgomery planned operations, underground Med HQ, code room and more.www.lascariswarrooms.com
National Museum of Archaeology, Valletta, Malta.
Museum of Archaeology, Victoria, Gozo.
Valletta Living History, Malta.
The Malta Experience.
The Mdina Experience.

LANDMARKS and LANDSCAPE
MALTA
Limestone Heritage Park and Gardens
Multi-lingual film, walk through dioramas and Punic tomb, stone carving, farm animals, 30 foot waterfall garden, coffee and souvenirs shop.
www.limestoneheritage.com
GOZO
Azure Window (arch over sea). Windmill. Calypso Cave. Prehistoric temples.
COMINO
Blue lagoon.

ACTIVITIES
Paintball.
Waterpark.

ATTRACTIONS and Museums
Malta 5D.
Malta experience. 45 minute show. www.themaltaexperience.com
Valletta Living History.

TOYS AND FILMS
Popeye Village
www.popeyemalta.com
Manoel theatre has lots of adults and children's events, some in the local language.

LANGUAGE
Rainy day, stuck on the ferry, or in a queue? If they are interested in language, or map-reading, point out that Triq is track or street, San is Saint and Pawl is Paul. Mt in the internet address is Malta. You could devise a quiz, or ask them to devise a quiz for the family.

HISTORIC
Lascaris War Rooms.

FAMILY DEALS, DISCOUNTS, BARGAINS FOR THE BUDGET CONSCIOUS
Malta Public Transport
www.publictransport.com.mt
Malta Discount Card
www.maltadiscountcard.com
Tel: (+365) 7921 1329
@info@maltadiscountcard.com
Up to 50% off. In Feb 2015 the deal was a 10 day card for only 20 euros, valid for holder and one guest and up to three children under 12 years.
See their website for where to buy and where it is valid.

ADULTS EVENING ENTERTAINMENT
Trabuxu The Wine Bar, Strait Street, Valletta. Tues until Sat. 7.30 until late. www.trabuxu.com.net
Twenty Two. Night club on floor 22 of Malta's highest building the Portomaso Business Tower, St Julian's, Malta.
www.22.com.mt
Open Wed-Sun 9.30 until late.

Wine & Food of Malta and Gozo

Malta

Maltese wine is not well known elsewhere so trying Maltese wine is one of the pleasures of a trip to Malta, as well as sampling Maltese cuisine.

We had our first taste of Maltese wine on the evening of our arrival, in the bar of the Grand Excelsior Hotel.

Restaurants
Then we paired wine with food at the Legligin restaurant. The restaurant name means glug-glug.

During the day we passed it and we booked dinner in the evening, and came back to try the tasting menu including fish, Malta being an island, and rabbit, which is a local speciality.

I suggest you splash some cash on the truffles, as we did, three per person, absolutely wonderful.

After eating here I went back next day to meet the owner, Chris.

We had researched the wineries on Malta before going there and had received a reply and invitation to call from the Marsovin winery in Valletta, the capital of Malta.

Malta
The Winery, Wills Street, Marsa, Malta.
Marsvin.com
In the entrance you see the old cart which was pulled by a horse and used to deliver wine to customers in the old days.
Upstairs in the tasting room you see the artwork used for the bottle labels - commissioned from local artists, different each year.
Excellent tour of the 400 year old cellars below, years ago used by the Knights of St John. You learn about the grapes, the wine development and the bottling and corks.
Up the spiral staircase - to finish with the wine tasting. In addition to the wines you get a few snacks such as cheese.
 The tour and tasting costs about 10 Euros. Prices are different if you do this tour as part of a package with a coach pick up.

Gozo
Ta'Mean Estate, Gozo
On the main road from Victoria to Marsalforn Bay.
www.tamena-gozo.com

What are you interested in? Red wine? White wine? Tomato jam?

The owner is friendly and so keen to tell you about his wine business. Outside the bleating goat and trotting peacock are trying to get attention.

Their leaflet says, 'Every Saturday, weather permitting, we do a tour of the estate followed by a wine and traditional food tasting session. Pre-booking is recommended.'

Airport - Last Chance!
At the airport we had a last chance to look at the wine, now with greater knowledge, recognising the grape varieties and wine makers. We did not want any more wine, having already bought enough, not just the cost but the weight, both carrying it and not being overweight with luggage restrictions on Ryanair. However, how could we resist the tempting bottles.

Emmanuel Delicata Winemaker

The red bottle has the red wine and the white bottle has the white wine. These wines are not too alcoholic, only 11.5% for the white and 12.5% for the red, so you can drink more of the white without getting too tipsy. As the back of the bottle tells you the wine is produced and bottled for the Nuance Group by Emmanuel Delicata winemaker at the Winery on the Waterfront at Paolo. 

I thought the red and white bottles were rather jolly, to display when talking about my travels or Maltese wine to a group such as Toastmasters International Speakers clubs. Afterwards when the wine has been drunk, you have a rather jolly pair of bottles to display or use as flower vases.

Wine Festivals
EVENTS
Wine Festivals are held every year on both Malta and Gozo.
Marsovin summer wine festival.
The Marsovin tour guide told us they hold a wine festival in the second week in July with wine, pop up restaurants or food stalls, Maltese food, pasta, sushi, and entertainers, four or five bands, from 7 pm until sunset, in a public garden in Valletta. Contact them if you are interested. You can see pictures of the last event on their website.
....................................
Aug 6-9 2015, 7 pm to midnight
Upper Barrakka Gardens, Valletta, Malta.
Buy a souvenir glass and wristband and get tastings.
Maltese grapes are Girgentina and Gezlewza.

More details from delicate.com/nadur-gozo-2015
Local food specialities likely to be available include fried rabbit.
www.visitmalta.com

trabuxu wine bar, 1 Strait Street Valletta
www.trabuxu.com.mt
tel 2122 3036.
run bearded Kris Fenech Soler.
Tues-Sat 7.30 til late,
email info@trabuxu.com.mt

Look for the What's on in .January / February / ... December   (whichever month you are visiting) which may contain discount coupons as well as handy maps.

See my post on hotels for restaurants with good food, notably Grand Hotel Excelsior in Valletta, Malta, and on the smaller island of Gozo, The Kempinsky Hotel.

I've seen advertisements for but not yet tried:
De Robertis Rooftop Restaurant, entrance through Castille Hotel, Castille Square, Valletta, Malta.
Tel:21243678, 21220173.
www.hotelcastillemalta.com
email: info@hotelcastillemalta.com
Highest point in Valletta. Near Upper Barrakka Gardens. In February their advertisement offered a free bottle of local wine for 2 persons booking lunch or dinner on presentation of the advertisement.

Malta and Gozo - My Trip and Future Plans

Malta is the European capital of Culture in 2018 and many areas are being refurbished with signs saying that the projects are jointly funded by local sponsors and the European Union. How do you get there from the UK?

Flying to Malta
Stansted airport has a short term car park beside the terminal or you can take a shuttle bus to the long-term car park. My family found you did less walking and dragging luggage by taking the shuttle bus, rather than walking to the far end of the short-term car park. Also the short term car park is so expensive that a few hours delay bumps up your parking charge which is by the hour.

Flight on Ryanair.
The flight of just over three hours went quickly. Seats, three across, were very squashed. More room sitting in the toilet! But we slept on the journey out. Great price flights for a last minute bargain break long weekend.

We had our own healthy salad. Cheese and biscuits, two small crackers and only one small morsel of cheese in foil seemed poor value . It would be cheaper to buy one of those circular boxes of processed cream cheese which gives you about six small portions. Also invest in a pack of crackers. Olives were good value, several for each of two of us.

Let's Go magazine has travel articles and food and drink and gift illustrations and prices. The small bottle of Prosecco at 6.50 Euros seemed fun. The gifts included lip balms tasting of Coca Cola, six of them for 13 Euros. The biggest delay was queuing to collect our hire car.

Malta - Introduction
Once we arrived it was delightfully easy. The two main languages are English and Maltese, which is an Arabic base with words from Italy and other countries. The religion is Roman Catholic, with many statues of madonnas and saints on the outsides of buildings and numerous churches and cathedrals and chapels. The only word I learned or needed was Triq which means street. Once you've worked out that San is saint, Triq San Anna is Saint Anne's Street. Foreign words are most the same, just spelled funny. The Maltese ones are all translated by your maps and guide books. A tourist office in the airport has lots of brochures. Hotels also have leaflets.

Population 400,000 approx.
Size - small, 316 square kilometres.
Weather: www.maltaweather.com

Saturday Flight Stansted-Malta on Ryanair
Hertz hire car from airport, an automatic which are apparently less in demand than manual cars. Very good value, about £10 a day, but more if you buy insurance.
Excelsior Grand Hotel Room overlooking front garden, lovely. (Sea view cost extra but you can see that from the hotel's rooms downstairs.)
Snack supper of cheese plate in bar with live music.

Photo by Angela Sharot from Valletta's Great Siege road looking over to the three cities which have two harbours between them, one for the cruise ships.

Sunday
First view of the yellow historic UNESCO heritage city by daylight. Walked around Grand Excelsior hotel, whose outdoor pool was shut, as was the tiny beach, the only one in Valletta and looked at the harbours opposite.
Breakfast in the hotel with great view of the harbours and cruise ships.

Walked along Great Siege Road, where a plaque tells you about the Great Siege of 1565, past impressive bastions, overlooking the three cities.
Saw statue of Vallette who defended the fortress and said the Turks would come back. He built a wall big enough to protect thousands of people. The city was named in his honour.
around Valletta.
We swam in the Excelsior Grand hotel indoor pool.
Dinner in Valletta at the Legligin (meaning glug-glug) restaurant.

Monday
MALTA - main island - Drove through St Julian's.
Over-developed skyscraper seaside.

GOZO - island of Calypso, where Ulysses delayed, according to Greek legend.
Ferry
to Gozo. Very simple. Just drive on. No ticket needed. Like driving into Wales over the Severn bridge, going there is free - you pay on the way back. Passed the midway island of Comino which has a blue bay, and side trips.

Gozo Sights:
1 Capital city Victoria, small, originally called Rabat but renamed for Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee in 1897. Everything was closed on an off-season lunchtime Monday last February.
2 Lunch at the wonderful elegant hotel Kempinski.
3 Drove to Azure window, a see-through arch out over the sea (a picture you see at the airport , the tourist office, restaurants and many places), and another arched cave in a cliff face above a blue pool, overlooked by the clifftop opposite where a cafe/lunch place offers a great view.
4 Craft village. Watch the crafts people at work.
5 Winery shop.
6 Ferry back - you pay on the way back - confusing slip roads, this one for the ferry, no that's for lorries, take the other one for cars, but, oops, the third one to buy tickets. The ferry heaved and rocked sideways a lot so I sat in the middle. Before we had time for a drink it was time to land. First I looked out of the window to see Comino as we passed, uninhabited except for a hotel and tourists there for the day, so no major building, then I looked around the handy shop. I bought two Guidebooks, one on Malta, one on Gozo.

Valletta, capital of Malta.
Monday night we drove back into narrow Strait Street to see Chris at the glut-glug restaurant.
Evening meal in Excelsior Grand hotel, which has buffet starters and desserts. You order your main course from the a la carte menu.

Tuesday
Winery tour. Wines include Franc named after founder.
Back to our hotel for our luggage where I bought from the hotel shop the magnetic notepad holder we'd had in the bedroom.
Drove to the Three Cities.
Mdina, hilltop 'silent city, used to be the capital until Valletta was built. Outside the walls is a cafe with view over the plain.
Mosta Dome Rotunda interior with magnificent exterior, interior, and replica of the bomb which nearly destroyed it in WWII (see separate post). Cake shop.

Rabat - another tiny town where you drive into the tiny central square, look for a parking place take the road out and in twenty minutes, unless you've stopped at the main attraction, connected here with St Paul, you've driven around the place three times. 

For us the main attraction is the small Parruccan confectionary kiosk, Publius Cutajar Parruccan Confectionary where a jolly man beckons you to the kiosk and offers you a free taste of something, nuts and sugar, okay.  If you don't immediately buy he offers you another . Then another, answers all your questions, his late father started the business. He lets you try the home made traditional confectionary he makes, including macaroons with Gozitan bitter almonds, Maltese honey rings, nougat, dried figs and orange marmalade in fruit tarts. Some of them are quite dry but my family loved them. The owner is smiling and chatty. 

Bought red and white bottles of Maltese wine from duty free shop:
The Winery on the Waterfront
Paola
Malta
www.delicata.com

***********************
My next trip:
WHAT to see in Malta
Valletta
Malta 5D show with shaking seats, water spray and scents.
Mdina Dungeons Museum. Looks gruesome. www.dungeonsmalta.com 10 am-4pm
St Paul's Catacombs, Rabat.
Marine world Malta national Aquarium complex in Qawra, has La Nave Bistrot and cafe del Mar.
Siggiewi - limestone heritage, in a quarry, diorama museum and 30 ft waterfall.

WHAT to see on GOZO
Megalithic monument - two Gjantija Temples, buy ticket.
Windmill.

COMINO
Blue Bay.
Second optional excursion to a cave.

TOUR OPTIONS
Hire a car from the airport.
Get collected by your hotel's car and then travel by chauffeur driven car tours; hotel Transport office direct line(00356) 2319 2229. or within the hotel extension 2229..
Take local buses.
Open top bus hop on hop off (see Tripadvisor).
Captain Morgan Cruises. www.captainmorgan.com.mt
Jeep Safari.
Underwater Safari.
Dragonara Casino. wptdeepstacks.com
dragonaracasino.com

EVENTS
Malta Wine Festivals are held every year
....................................
Aug 6-9 2015, 7 pm to midnight
Upper Barrakka Gardens, Valletta
Buy a souvenir glass and wristband and get tastings.
Maltese grapes are Girgentina and Gezlewza.
details from delicate.com/nadur-gozo-2015
Local specialities likely to be available include fried rabbit.
www.visitmalta.com
Marsovin summer wine festival.

Malta is only 93 km South of Sicily and tours go to Sicily.
Media photos from viewingmalta.com

Planning Your Trip To Malta - weather, wine festivals and events

The capital city of Valletta is a UNESCO World Heritage site.
Wikipedia has interesting information.
Benjamin Disraeli, future British Prime Minister, visited the city in 1830, he described it as "a city of palaces built by gentlemen for gentlemen," and remarked that "Valletta equals in its noble architecture, if it does not excel, any capital in Europe," and in other letters called it "comparable to Venice ..."

When to go? Malta has warm wet winters and hot dry summers. February temperature was 13 degrees Centigrade;  55 F.

A local person told me August is too hot and rowed with families with children but other months are good. You might want to time your visit to coincide with the February carnival or later in the year catch the wine festival. In February some of the restaurants were closed on Sunday, Monday or Tuesday so you need to plan ahead.

Wine Festivals
Aug 9-12 wine festival in Baraka gardens in the capital, Valletta, on the main island of Malta.
Other wine festivals elsewhere.

A very detailed list of events is on the visitmalta site.
http://www.visitmalta.com/en/event
http://www.whatson.com.mt/en/events/events/10633/delicata-classic-wine-festival-2015.htm

Tourist Information Offices
Malta International Airport Arrivals Lounge
Tel:23696073/4
The arrivals and departure lounges merge into one.
More tourist Information offices in the capital, Valletta, Valletta Waterfront, Mdina, and Victoria on Gozo.

www.maltaand gozo.com
www.visitMALTA.com
www.britishresidentsinmalta.org

New Destinations For Spring breaks: Malta and Iceland

I have two friends on spring breaks in Iceland and another asked me to research somewhere new, but warmer, so I have selected Malta.

Malta has three islands. Gozo is the second largest. Teeny Comino is between them.

You can get a glimpse of the major sights on the internationally known hop on hop off buses but the reviews I read on Tripadvisor were very mixed. This often happens, but it's useful to see whether the issues will affect you. I read reports of problems with timing, waiting for buses which run half hourly whilst the local buses are every fifteen minutes. If you still prefer a bus with a commentary, which I do, it might still be worthwhile for me and others like me to take the tour buses. Some complained they missed a bus or two because buses were cancelled or stopped. Worthwhile having a phone which operates in Malta (check roaming costs) to call back to base.

Others said commentary could be out of sync with buses taking off before you hear the commentary, so you don't get off at a place which sounds interesting. That's when you are relying on the bus tour commentary to tell you what to see. You need to know in advance when to get off.

Another reported a bus stopping at attractions which turn out to be closed in the afternoon. That can happen when you drive your own car. Check opening times of attractions. Another said buses stopped at shops/sales outlets where the tourist thought the 'franchise operator' or driver had commissions.

If you are a keen shopper, like window shopper, and enjoy factory tours, then I think you might be quite happy, providing you get to stop at the main attractions.

Back to research. Yes, it's worthwhile listing what you want to see and checking opening hours.

I shall continue researching over the next 48 hours and continue in another post. Researching a new destination, people, places, food, history, restaurants, hotels, language, is part of the joy of travel.

Angela Lansbury
Travel Writer and photographer