Corinne CrawfordI arose that morning ready to see some sights and walked myself to the bus stop. Malta has an app for their bus system that shows you the best routes with bus numbers and stops to get you to your desired destination. I was heading to the megalithic monuments today and to Valletta, the next town over from Sliema, to see St. John’s Co-Cathedral. I have no idea why it is called “Co-Cathedral “. The bus from Sliema to Valletta was direct and when I arrived, I walked about 10 minutes to the main part of Valletta to the cathedral. There was not much of a line, but once I entered, it was very crowded. They offered a free audio guide with the entrance ticket and I listened along as I made my way around the various areas of the church. It is an elaborate Baroque style cathedral with impressive art and architecture. They were even doing some restoration work that I watched for a while as a man in a boom bucket was painstakingly cleaning some of the sculptured wood work around the top of the nave.
I figured I would come back to Valletta another day to explore around some more and see some other historical sites so I made my way back to the same bus station where I was dropped off earlier in the day to catch the bus indicated on the app that would take me to the monuments. There appeared to be a direct bus from Valletta to the Ħaġar Qim temples. I found the correct bus bay for that bus and waited for the arrival. Well, the time came and went for that bus number and the app was not showing that bus number arriving again for another 30 minutes. So I looked to see if I could finagle another option to get there rather than wait the 30 minutes with no guarantee that the next bus would show up either. There was another option leaving from the bays around the corner that would connect me in a neighboring town to another bus that would take me to the monuments. One thing that takes a bit of concentration is making sure that you are on the correct side of the road for the bus that is going in the direction you want. Malta is a drive on the left country because it was a British colony so often I had to watch the flow of traffic to remember what side of the street to stand on for the bus. In any event, I got on the bus and made the connection and when I got to the monument site, I saw that the other people that had also been waiting on the same original bus I was going to take, had apparently just arrived as well. Seems as if my route did not save me any time.
At this one site, there were actually two temples to visit, both dating back before Stonehenge. They also had a free audio guide that you downloaded to your phone and I was glad I had brought my earbuds to listen along as I walked through the sites. The entire area was picturesque and magical. Situated right on the coast, with one temple set up just a little higher than the other about 200 meters apart. In between and around the two temples were nature trails criss crossing the surrounding area and wildflowers were everywhere, from yellow flowers to wild snap dragons and purple lupine. It made for a very beautiful scene.
After spending some time at the site, I took a bus to Dingli with the purpose of watching the sunset from the west coast of the island, with an unobstructed view of the sun going down into the ocean. I had a bit of time to kill and I had not eaten yet that day so I was planning on going into the small town of Dingli to perhaps find a bite to eat before then catching the bus back to the cliffs outside of town to watch the sunset. One thing to note about the buses on Malta. They do not automatically stop at each bus stop. If you are on the bus and want to get off at a stop, you have to push the stop button located throughout the bus. You have to time it just so to push the button after the last stop but before your desired stop. And if you are waiting at a bus stop, you actually have to waive the correct bus down to get them to stop, so you have to pay close attention to the number of the bus because up to 10 buses may use the same bus stop. Well, in Dingli, I missed my opportunity to get to my correct stop in the town and ended up about 10 minutes past the town. Oh well. I was the only one to get off at the stop. I just simply walked back to Dingli but the town was so small, there were barely any stores and I could find no restaurants or cafés. I finally found a small market with a bakery so I bought two large homemade fig newton type things and a water and then I decided to just keep walking to the cliffs, which was only another 15 minutes down the road.
It was windy that day and I was glad I brought my small backpack with different layers as I found myself warm at times in the sun but in other areas where the wind picked up, I was very glad to have both my sweater and a jacket. By the time the sun was going down at the cliffs, the wind was packing quite the chill and I was pretty frigid after watching the orange sun dip silently below the blue ocean. I happened to be spitting on a bench with a memorial quote seemingly just for me. I caught the bus, with one transfer, back to Sliema and ate some leftover soup after taking a hot shower to try to warm up a bit.
