May 20, 2022- Last Day in Malta

Luckily, I was able to move my tour to 10 this morning.  Of course in my independent walk yesterday I’d missed all kinds of amazing views and knew little of the history.  My guide, Mario, was a wealth of information, especially on all the Christian symbolism in the buildings and sculptures.  We walked and talked for 3 hours.

The floats, the guide informed me, were for Carnival, which was postponed a couple of months due to COVID concerns.  I missed since it started the day after I left.

The walls were massive- the work to quarry the stones and build the walls was mind-boggling.  Note the rounded edge, so that cannonballs would bounce off and not endanger the structure.

One of the three gardens in the Old City.

Another view showing the thickness of the walls.

Door knocker with Maltese cross.

An unfortunate "re-build" of the Opera House, which was bombed in World War II.  The architect stuck plastic seats in the middle.  It was meant to be an outdoor theatre and was used very little because the weather isn't always perfect, so the "roof" was added.  It's still rarely used.

Napoleon was here.

Memorial to the British soldiers who defended Malta during the War.

My attempts to check in for my flight back to Munich had been unsuccessful.  Air Malta’s web site is full of bugs.  I had gotten an e-mail telling me I could check in the day before but every time I tried I got a message that it was too late to check in on-line.  I was finally able to get checked in at around 1 PM for my 3:45 PM flight.  I provided an e-mail address so my boarding pass could be sent.  It didn’t arrive.  And they don’t even have an app.

Still. I was airside soon after arriving at the airport and having an agent print my boarding pass (no kiosks for that, either).  No one seemed excited about my skinny passport.  What a relief!

 A word on Bolt after a dozen rides with them:  maybe it was the geography of Malta but I never had more than a 4-minute wait.  Some drivers were quiet but the talkers were fun.  I had two trips with the same Serbian driver, one with an Englishman married to a Maltese woman and one with a young African man.  They all had their own unique views on the world and I learned a lot, especially from the Serbian.

The flight to Munich was uneventful.  I was glad we just had to walk form the terminal to the plane- no crowded bus.

Flying over the Alps.