The days are getting warmer. Today there is no wind as we set out to Golden Bay again. Mosta Road is such a busy street. It is a shopping and business center for locals with a few tourists thrown in. It is where we do our shopping, catch our bus and get off the bus for the 6/7 block walk home. Pastizzerias are in every street in every town and village. For less than a €1 you can get a huge slice of pizza, a sausage roll or a pastizzi which is usually flakey pastry around ricotta cheese or mashed potatoes and mushy peas( British leftover) yuk! €1.8 will buy you a lasagna or tortellini big enough for two people easy. It's a great stop gap meal but after a few times you say ...That's enough....it is their fast food equivalent.
Our typical blue 'King Long' bus stopping at our stop when we come home.
Shadows of Bob and Karen waiting for the bus to Golden Bay in the morning sunshine. I think it is hard for people reading my blog to understand how much this country runs on buses. Despite the fact that a lot of the passengers are tourists or expats without cars, a lot of Maltese use them too. When we set out for a day to somewhere we may up being on 5/6, maybe even 7 buses before we get home. Today we ended up on a bus that took a bypass road past Mellieha where we were going. We ended up almost at Cirkewwa and the Gozo ferry before we could get off. So we crossed the street and waited for the next bus back. Even as you sit on a rock wall and wait, the scenery is fantastic to look at when you are rural and the people watching is great when you are in more urban centres.
When we were on the beach in Golden Bay last week we could see people high up on the cliffs, so this is where we went today. There was nobody around at the time so we sat on the steps going down to the beach and I sketched and Bob just enjoyed the view. I just wish I would slow down and make sure my spelling was accurate in my journal.
I'm running out of words to describe this place. We don't always get very far and sometimes we spend a lot of time on buses, but it's all about our journies not always the destinations.
Along this headland was a walking trail planted with olive trees that had been developed to record some of the most famous figures in history that fought and died for peace. From Nelson Mandala, Ghandi, the Dalai Lama, Martin Luther King, to the Kennedys, a few Popes, and even John Lennon and Bob Marley. It was a very peaceful walk reading all the biographies of these historic personalities with the added bonus of the information on the growing, production and nutritional value of the olive fruit. Nobody but us did this walk. We spent probably an hour wandering through this small olive grove situated on the side of the cliff overlooking Golden Bay.
It took a couple of buses back and forth and a steep uphill climb to get to St. Agatha's or The Red Tower. Another 16th century fortress built as a defensive position manned by the Knights of St John against invading forces. There are so many of these towers all over Malta, some larger than others. This one is unique because of the colour of the stone which was painted red and maintained during restoration.
This tower certainly marred the view but I had to take a picture because it is the only one I've seen on Malta.
Stone walls again, everywhere...no cement filler just smaller rocks to fill in the cracks and crannies.
We ended the day in Xemxija, pronounced Shemshia, where we finally had some lunch, and a bathroom break. There was a produce truck parked across the road where we picked up what we needed for dinner. We got home by 4:00 and put together an oven dinner of chicken cooked with a recipe Bob found in the Malta Times. It was delicious and again we have leftovers. I love left overs because it means I don't have to think about dinner tomorrow as we are going to Gozo again and don't plan to be back much before dark.
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