Malta shrinks at night, the lack of traffic shortening journey times. There’s nothing to see, dimly lit streets and the frequent churches, towers lit from the outside, sometimes a red light on top. The minibus had arrived early, a call from reception telling me they’d gone without me, would be back in five minutes. I […]

I woke up, eyelids heavy, forced them open. An angled glance at my watch suggested a good sleep, my latest start of the trip. I braved the hotel shower, its hot tap a binary switch cunningly disguised as a dial. When hot it overpowers the cold flow so a shower needs to be quick, starting […]

Tuesdays in Bugibba is “Refresh your gas cannisters day”. Every bar and restaurant in the square and around my hotel uses several of them, and it takes several hours to pull new ones off the truck, take them to the various customers, return the old ones. I know this because they started at around 7am. […]

Malta is weird. Half the people living here speak broken English. The other half apparently are English. Chatted to a man this morning, his skin an advert for a melanoma charity. He said he was born in Malta but I knew he hadn’t always lived here. Raw Brummie can’t be faked. Who would want to? […]

When I booked my flight to Malta I went hunting online for hotels and found a nice cheap one nowhere near the airport. Being a seasoned traveller I checked the transport options. Malta doesn’t have a railway but does have plentiful bus services, so I decided I’d be fine. Sure, it’d be an hour’s ride, […]