October 2025, Rolex Middle Sea Race
I didn’t want to go to Malta.
I mean, I did want to go at some point, I just didn’t want to go that weekend.
I’ve heard a lot about it. My husband has worked there during the run up to the Middle Sea Race for the past few years and it’s somewhere I would love to explore. When he describes it, it seems like somewhere he has been but not really seen, a hazard of working on boats and never actually getting to leave the marina, so I was hopeful that one day we’d go together, hire a car and really take some time to see Malta. That’s why, when I was asked if I wanted to come along when he was planning his trip, I didn’t want to go.
Another reason for saying no was that life is busy at the moment. I had a weekend full of life admin to catch up on, so, when I got the call on Friday lunch time that he desperately needed a part and please could I fetch it and personally deliver it to him on the next flight from Heathrow, I was a grumpy woman.
Rushing around to pack, achieve some of my chores, pick up the part in question and then drive the four hours to the airport was stressful. Terminal 4 was packed and when he picked me up at 1am I was hungry, tired and completely obnoxious that my weekend had been hijacked by a sun, sea and a city break.
First impressions
It was hard to suss what the area was like driving back from the airport in the early hours, but Saturday morning presented me with blue skies and vitamin D and as he went to work and I decided what to do with my unplanned fate for the weekend.
The apartment was in Gzira, on the opposite side of the water to the capital city of Valletta. It was a nice apartment, clean, good facilities and balconies on both sides to follow the sun or the shade. A couple of streets back from the waterfront, the view on the 6th floor showed a reflective glimpse of sea between the modern high rises that framed it, and the dome of a cathedral on the horizon invited you to cross the harbour and investigate.
I wasn’t fond of the sound of the city, building work, horns, the buzz of a scooter. There were no voices, no nature. It felt soulless and stagnant and I was compelled to hide away and stay inside with the comfort of my current read, (Slags, Emma Jane Unsworth – reading this on planes will get you funny looks), but I knew that would have been a wasted opportunity now that I was there.
On the streets outside the atmosphere was completely different. Suddenly there was music, laughter, kids playing, dogs barking. Locals chatted outside busy shops whilst tourists wheeled suitcases to destinations unknown. What minutes earlier had seemed so lifeless now felt vibrant and finally, I started to feel excited about being somewhere new.
Gzira and Valletta
I decided to explore the waterfront around Gzira first, mostly with the aim of getting to the air conditioned mall and out of the midday sun. The area is very built up and when you walk between districts it is hard to tell where one finishes and the next begins.
The view across the water is beautiful and on the main road there’s a mix of shops, bars, restaurants and hotels, but without said view you could mistake the town for any European tourist hotspot. It was an easy walk from our apartment to The Point to buy him a birthday present, then I took the 10 minute ferry ride from Sliema to Valletta.
As the crowd of alighting passengers thinned, the entrance to the historic city became a lot closer to the vision of Malta I had in my mind. High, honey coloured stone walls and hilled streets that wound round and bought new sights as you turned each corner, it was gorgeous.
My first point of call was The Grand Hotel Excelsior Malta and it’s marina to see the working man and get something to eat. I followed the coast road taking in the views of Manoel Island and the town I had just departed from. There were kids having fun in pico looking dinghies and I was disappointed after excitedly pointing them out and thinking I could impress him with my knowledge, to get told it wasn’t a pico, or a laser, or a topper but actually some another small dinghy that I hadn’t heard of and can now no longer remember. Still, lunch at the hotel’s Tiki Bar was actually really good for a hotel pool bar, and provided the energy needed to carry on up the hill of Great Siege Road whilst he went back to work.
Walking from Floriana and reaching the City Gate is another impressive entrance into the city. The pleasant boulevard of Vjal Ir-Re Dwardu VII leads you to the mighty Tritons’ Fountain before funneling you across the bridge as the beautiful blonde stone swallows you again, taking you into Valetta city and her layers of history. Modern glass fronts mixed with ruins, and shops selling the same souvenirs from buildings that echo the islands colonial past, I wandered around and took it all in. Every property seemed to have a plaque celebrating it’s history, ranging from Samuel Taylor Coleridge to Napoleon to King George VI, and I found it fascinating that this small city on this little island had been the setting for so many turning points of the past.
Side note, if it’s your thing, I encourage you to take a moment of remembrance at the Great Siege Monument opposite the Law Courts in Republic Street. In recent years it has also acted as a tribute to the assassinated journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, who was killed in a car bomb attack for reporting on alleged corruption within the island. If you’d like to know more I recommend the podcast series Who Killed Daphne? or Crooks Everywhere.
The sun began to set creating stunning gold tinted pastel shades across the harbour and I waited for him to call me on a bench by the Tritons’ Fountain. One thing that I absolutely love to do in that in between time of me being ready to go back to the hotel whilst waiting for him to finish work, is people watch in the city we’re in and here was no exception. A wedding party dressed in their best posed for a professional photographer, a singer with a tape recorder bellowed out Creep by Radiohead, tourists took selfies on their phones, a couple sat nearby sharing a drink as a group of teen girls in different versions of the same outfit giggled past a group of boys. Just as I was starting to get cold, he rang.
Saturday night
Being a tourist location, the choice of cuisine in Gzira is actually pretty good. There’s something for everyone from pizza to curry and we decided to go for Korean barbecue. Just off the main waterfront strip is a restaurant called Doma. If you chose the barbeque option on the menu then you are taken to a separate room and they provide you with a little gas stove before bringing so much food- soup, salad, vegetables, rice, kimchi and meat, all of the meat. Ribeye steak, chicken, pork steak, pork belly and prawns, all wonderfully seasoned and then cooked to perfection by my favourite bbq chef, aka my husband. It was €60 for the meal plus a bit more for drinks which felt like great value for money given the amount of food we got and the staff were all really friendly.
After dinner we took a short walk back to the apartment via The Convenience Shop on Triq Sir Frederick C. Posonby, which sells the most amazing baclava for what is basically a Nisa, then an early night because he’s still on the clock.
His birthday!
A positive of ending up in Malta that weekend meant I would see him on his birthday. We woke up to a lightly overcast morning, had a coffee together, I gave him his freshly purchased birthday present, then he went to work and I was ready for a day of sight seeing.
Along the waterfront at Sliema, close to the ferry terminal, you will find plenty of stalls selling tickets for various excursions and boat trips throughout Malta. I personally love a hop on hop off bus and so that was what I opted for. I have done them all over the world and they have never let me down; circular route, regular, well marked, hop on, hop off and enjoy the place your visiting, often with a 48 hour ticket to use as transport in the city. I purchased a ticket from a stand because jobs for people not computers, but from then, it was all down hill.
I won’t go into the ins and outs of why this particular bus ride was so bad, but here’s a brief summary;
- The guy said he’d flag the bus for me rather than me having to walk to the bus stop, then he walked off and I missed the bus.
- They aren’t that regular, I had to wait an hour and half for the next one.
- Because the route is 3 hours and they aren’t very regular, missing the bus I wanted meant I couldn’t then hop off to see anything on the route.
- The audio was really sparse considering how much history is on the island, there were huge chunks of silence.
- At the stops enroute there were long queues, they had to put on a second bus to get everyone back to Valletta and many had to stand.
- The tour doesn’t tell you when it’s over and it’s not a circular route, which proved to be extremely concerning as I watched my location on Google Maps move further and further north away from Sliema….
Thank God for the Ozzies!
I text my husband and told him I thought I was going to be stranded in St Julian, I didn’t tell him that I actually ended up stranded in Qawra, 16km away from where I was supposed to be. Thankfully the people in front of me on the bus had found themselves in the same situation. An Australian couple visiting their daughter in France and doing some sightseeing on this side of the equator, also got to see more of Malta than they expected to on the tour, but turned out to be my absolute saviours, we shared an Uber back to Valetta and they refused any Euros from me which was so kind, I honestly can’t thank them enough.
I have to say of my little detour, I’m glad I did the south route and not the north. The towns were a lot more modern- man made beaches rather than quaint coves and bars and hotels as opposed to caves and ancient ruins. I’m not writing it off, if I go back to Malta I’ll still want to check it out properly, but the south definitely seemed more interesting, I just wish I could have gotten off the bus to actually explore it!
What are the rules?
After a quick catch up with him at the marina it was clear he wouldn’t be finished anytime soon and with a dangerously low phone battery from all the Google mapping, we agreed old school to meet at a certain time and place. I wondered back around Valletta taking in the views towards the Grand Harbour, but thanks to my detour I was too late for any museums and not welcome in the churches or cathedrals unless I wanted to attend mass. This did make me sad as it meant I didn’t get to see the inside of St Johns Co Cathedral, it looks incredible online but I suppose just gives me another reason to come back to Malta.
As the prearranged meeting time came to, I wondered through the The Mall, a beautiful strip of curated gardens behind the Independence Monument, and enjoyed the statues whilst also observing the bats flying around in the twilight. He was 45 minutes late, and as I waited at the benches beside the Balzunetta Restaurant, I enjoyed that time as usual to do some more people watching, that day, a bunch of twenty somethings playing a game I did not understand on the restaurants dedicated pitch.
I learnt later that the game is called bocci, a kind of kubb/ petanque / bowls cross over. I still don’t fully comprehend the rules but I do wish I had joined in their fun. My understanding is there are two teams, one small ball (the jack) and some larger balls, and the aim is to be closest to the jack, very petanque so far however there are also some mid size balls that get thrown and I couldn’t figure out their purpose. The scoring also confused me as the group I was watching said it was 19-1 and I couldn’t figure out how they came to those numbers or which number represented the winning team, still it was so enjoyable to watch, and they took it very seriously- there was a tape measure and everything!
When he picked me up it was a quick turn around to meet some friends (more Ozzies) in a restaurant. Another meat heavy meal but this time at The Smokehouse, a sharing meat platter with two sides, plus an extra steak and chips for good measure, four of us ate and one just had drinks and it was approx €150 for all of us so again great value but also really great food plus excellent service.
Despite my fears that our Australian friends would lead the birthday boy astray, (they only made him down one pint), they were first to leave for the night, and as I had an early flight on Monday morning we weren’t far behind.
The icing on the cake
One last treat for the weekend, some birthday cake I had bought from The Cake Box in Valletta. Their cakes looked incredible in the window and when I walked past them the day before I knew they’d be perfect to celebrate his big day. I bought one slice of chocolate fudge cake, and one slice of red velvet and they were delicious.
The next morning we were up early to beat the tow zone (everywhere in Malta has a tow zone poster up that changes daily with zero explanation), and get me to the airport.
Final thoughts
Despite my reservations, I enjoyed my impromptu weekend in Malta, but I feel a little like my husband does after a work trip somewhere, I’ve been to Malta, but I haven’t seen Malta.
It was nice to visit and wander round, but generally I do my research before I go somewhere and I could tell I hadn’t done it before this trip and it really hampered my enjoyment. I didn’t know opening hours of places I wanted to go, I got stuck on a tour bus and I didn’t go to a single museum so I left the island with more questions than answers on it’s history and culture. I was also really surprised by the amount of derelict buildings and deprivation so I think I’m about to go down a little rabbit hole to find out more about why that is.
As for him, of the boats he was working on, in the Yachting Malta Coastal Race 2025, in various classes he got a first, a third and a forth. At the time of writing he’s currently still out there and I’m just hoping he doesn’t end up crew for someone on the Rolex Middle Sea Race and miss his flight on Saturday!
Details
Accommodation
Marina Suites & Apartments by Tritoni Hotels (Self Catering), Triq Manoel De Vilhena, Il-Gzira, Malta (via Booking.com)
Dined
Tiki Bar & Restaurant at Grand Hotel Excelsior, Great Siege Road, Floriana, Malta
Doma, Triq Parisio, Tas-Sliema, Malta
The Smokehouse, 136 Triq Ix – Xatt, Il-Gzira, Malta
The Convenience Shop, 98 Triq Sir Frederick C.Ponsonby, Il Gzira, Malta
The Cake Box, Republic Street, Valletta, Malta
Activities
The Point Shopping Mall, Tigne Point Tas-Sliema TP, Tas-Sliema, Malta
Sliema – Valetta ferry, from The Strand, Sliema. (€2.50 single, €4.50 return, runs approximately every 30mins)
City Sightseeing bus tour, http://www.city-sightseeing.com, (€25 for South Island tour.)
(Prices and details correct as of October 2025)
The Tagalong Traveller 
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