Malta. Why Malta?

We wanted to go somewhere for the long Easter weekend that met a few simple criteria:

1. Warmer than London
2. No longer than 3 hours on a plane
3. Warmer than London
4. No obligation to do anything "touristy" or see any sites
5. Warmer than London
6. Someplace we wouldn't normally go, or wouldn't go someday from the States
7. Warmer than London

Research on Expedia presented us with a few options...we ruled out Turkey and Morocco (violated Rule #4) and Dubai (Rule #2) and ultimately ruled out the Canary Islands just because I couldn't bring myself to go back to Tenerife. So we settled on Malta, found that a new Starwood hotel had just been opened in one of the little bays near the main city, and booked our holiday.

A quick synopsis (illustrated):

Thursday:

Go to the airport ridiculously early so I can do one last conference call in the relative "quiet" of Heathrow Terminal 4 the day before a four-day weekend.

Buy "Julie and Julia" in the bookshop on the way to our gate and proceed to devour it uninterrupted from the time we sit down to wait for the flight until we arrive in our hotel room in Malta, where I finish the last 10 pages before we go to bed at about 3am (late plane, hour time difference). (Yeah, it was a decent enough read; it inspired me to make Julia's Potage Parmentier (potato and leek soup) for dinner tonight.)

Friday:

Drag ourselves out of bed at 11 and head out to explore. Walk approximately 10 minutes, find a restaurant overlooking St. Julien's bay, park ourselves and have lunch in the sun.

Walk back to the hotel. Nap.

Wake up to go into Valetta to see the Good Friday processions. Ride one of the really cool busses (picture later).

Take a lot of cool pictures, but can't seem to quite figure out the "action" setting on the camera so many of them are blurry.

Watch a veritable parade of scenes from the death of Christ, and people dressed as Christ, his disciples, various soldiers, Pontius Pilate, a random Pharaoh, characters from the Old Testament, a few marching bands, lots of cute kids in costumes, hooded penitents, priests, nuns, various devout churchgoers, and about 100 men dressed in black suits at various intervals who had to be the Maltese Mafia. Listened to the story of the resurrection in Malti.

Take the bus back to the hotel, eat dinner, sit in the bar until after midnight drinking Brandy Alexanders and Frenet Branca.

Saturday:

Wake up at about 11 again. Walk along the coastline into Silema.

Try (and fail) to find lunch in Silema. Take a pretty picture of Valetta across the bay.

Ride one of the cool busses back to the hotel.

Eat lunch. Nap. Go for a shockingly good dinner at a restaurant called "The Kitchen" that I had spotted out the window of the bus earlier. Return to bar, drink Brandy Alexanders and Frenet Branca until past midnight again.

Sunday:

Wake up at 10 (shock!). Stay in bed until 11 reading and drinking crappy instant coffee. Go for massages in the fancy new spa. Have lunch in the bar, drink fruity drinks, finally make our way outside for a walk at about 3:30. Walk along the coast the other way to the Paceville area. Look at boats. Find a cannon.

Have a drink. Walk back. Nap. Go to dinner. Go back to bar.

Go to bed and get all of 3 hours sleep. Thanks, Expedia, for making the cheapest flight out of Malta on Monday the earliest as well. Get back to London. Unpack. Nap.

Sadly, no Brandy Alexanders.

Cheers!