A Sunday Walk

After a little shower this morning we went to 'town'.....our destination is to walk the south side of Marsascala Bay. The sun is in and out behind big black clouds. I took an umbrella for insurance. That usually means it won't rain....and it didn't.

Being Sunday even our produce trucks weren't open today. Sunday is a day of rest for most Maltese. A lot of them work half days on Saturday or close early if they have a shop. The cafes and restaurants are always open.

We walked the promenade along with other Sunday strollers, looking across to the other side of the Bay that we walked last Sunday. There are salt pans all along the water's edge. Remnants of times past. Even this road is called Triq Salini...the Salt Road...this a natural stone arch over tha pans.

 

The contrasts between the blues of the sky and the greens of the water are always stunning. Throw in dark thundery rain clouds and it is a breathtaking backdrop to the village of Zonqor, neighbour to Marsascala.

Another of the towers built in the early 17th century. St Thomas Tower, built to give warning against Turkish invasions. Today it is only invaded by teenage boys using it as a climbing tower. They laughed at the 'touristas' taking their pictures.

I was talking to a woman that runs a newspaper, souvenir and small postal outlet store along the Bay. She said there used to be three big hotels in Marsascala. They are all closed down and now Marsascala does not have a 'tourist destination' designation. We came across the ruins of what must have been a beautiful hotel location right on the point looking out over the open Mediterranean Sea.

It reminds me of many of the hotel complexes, abandoned or incomplete, in Mexico. It shows one of the few signs of graffiti we have seen in Malta.

It has been a good walk. We make our hill climb home and spend the remaining afternoon sunshine on our back patio. Our neighbour Martin is again in his fields harvesting what may be the last of his cauliflower and broccoli. Ready for Monday's market.

While I stand looking over our wonderful vista with the sun heating my back, I try to capture some of the things I see every day.

Despite the fact that we had said we could enjoy a quieter time once we moved to Marsascala, I am having a hard time slowing down. Each day we have to decide where we will go based on the weather. It doesn't look like we will be able to count on a lot of sunny, dry days for our remaining time. We will take it one day at a time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Happy Valentines Day.

It is overcast and drizzly. Went for a little walk this morning down to the vegetable truck. Bought fresh strawberries and tomatoes. It's like Saturday morning everywhere....people out doing their grocery shopping. There is much laughter and chatter, none of which I understand. But it still makes me smile as I wait my turn. It is a happy place to be.

I wish I could walk down to the 'Bay' at home to get all my fresh produce every morning. It is such a wonderful way to plan your dinner. These trucks carry all varieties of fruits and vegetables and even fresh herbs. A stop at the bakery and then the butcher and you have all you need. In larger centres there are big grocery stores like Lidl, Scott's and our St. Paul's Bay store, Piscopo's, but I prefer the individual shops. It becomes a matter of time and as a retired person I have lots of it.

We spend another day around home. The last of our prawns for Valentines dinner, some strawberries for dessert and February 14, 2015 is over.

 

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Friday the 13th

We played it safe today and stayed home. Only 'bad' thing was running out of propane again. It always seems to happen on a cool and windy day. George's other apartment next door has been occupied for a week and he is coming to pick the couple up at noon to take them to the airport. He is bringing another propane bottle then. It wasn't a really pleasant morning. Stripped the bed and washed the bedding. It is a perfect day for drying. Only problem is keeping the sheets from blowing off the rack. Had to move the drying rack to the other patio and clothes peg the sheets to it. But even flannelette sheets were dry in a few hours.

The weather is not looking promising for our Sunday outing to Bahria with George and family. Will have a decision by late tomorrow. It is also Carnival weekend in Valletta. We are of mixed minds about trying to see some of it. We are told by most people that it will be a bit crazy. We are not big crowd crazy people anymore.

We remind each other again today that it is OK to have a quiet day. We can't be on holiday everyday for three months.

We have orange chicken in the oven. Fresh cauliflower in parmigiana cheese baking.

 

I did a couple of journal pages. I was making myself a cup of chamomile tea and put a little shot of Baileys in it. Sherry suggested it could be a sketch opportunity:).....

Plus I wanted to paint the picture we took walking behind three young women along the Vittoriosa Harbour walk. There are so many beautiful people, male and female, in Malta. They have beautiful hair, dark skin and long thick lashes. All the young women wear their hair long and nearly all of them dye it in a rainbow of reds, purples, magentas.....these young women were truly representative of the styles here. Black tights, high boots, oversized bags and each with a different colour of hair. We couldn't help but take a picture as we walked behind them.

I have nothing more to write about. Just going to enjoy dinner.

 

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Senglea Point on the Grand Harbour

This morning we confirmed there really is a bus #124 that goes by near our apartment. It was due at 9:41am. We were their before 9:30. Good job because it came early, as is often the case....more so than late. It took us directly to Isla which is between Vittoriosa and Senglea. We never know where or when these routes end. If the bus stops and everyone remaining gets off so do we. It really doesn't matter where we are we have a €1.50 all day bus pass so we can always get back on if we don't want to be where we are. This is a "somewhat convoluted, poor grammar" sentence. It hasn't happened yet. Every place is interesting in some way. We head off up the street and then work our way down to the waterfront. Every place on Malta is either on the water or goes down to the water. The exceptions are a few places inland like Mosta, Birkirkara, Mdina and Rabat. But if you poured a bucket of water out it would still run down to the sea. It might just get absorbed into some of the tiered fields on the way.

 

Like yesterday we have found a "sea walk", but on the other side from Vittoriosa. There is something about the docks and the water that attracts men. Maybe they are old fishermen, dock workers or they just like to be near the water. We encounter many of them sitting and/or strolling along the walks and they are more than willing to show us places to go, stairways to climb and stories to tell of people they know in Canada.

This is a tower built into a huge stone fortification that faces out to the sea. It has an eye and an ear carved into the sides. I think they are symbolic of keeping watch against the many Mediterranean invaders of centuries ago. Again I have a few moments to sketch as Bob takes pictures.

Yesterday was so warm when walked into this harbour. Today is the opposite. It has become windy with the clouds covering the sun more than not. We are looking for somewhere to sit and have a cappuccino but can't find a place out of the wind. The bus that will take us back to Marsascala has just gone by so we have and hour and a half til the next one. The weather wins and we have to stop inside. The 'special' is a cappuccino and a sweet of your choice for €3.50. I have strawberry cheesecake and Bob opts for a chocolate cream eclair. They don't use the word 'pastry' for sweets because I think it sounds too close to pastie, which is the English 'mushy peas' in flakey pastry.

We are watching the propane cylinder delivery guys hauling the tanks up the steep steps. They honk their unique horns to announce their arrival....then call out to the various apartment dwellers. It's heavy work but they make it look easy. A lot of practice I guess.

After our coffees we decide we will take any bus that comes along. It is overcast and looks like it could rain so the safest place to be is on a bus. We get one of our around the world of Malta tours and end up at the Qormi Park and Ride. We have an hour to wait for the Marsascala bus but there is a Lidl grocery store across the road. It is very busy. Like a Costco. People seem to be doing big shops. A young woman in front of us in line said this wasn't the busy time. Later in the day when people are on their way home from work it "gets crazy".

After our shop we wait for about twenty minutes for our X5 bus that takes us around the world again. I thought the 'X' buses were the fast, direct buses. Not nescessarily so. We are almost back to the Marsascala bus terminus when we come to a halt, there is an accident and both cars are sitting in the middle of the road. Our bus can't get past. The driver indicates we might as well get out and walk down the hill to the terminal. From there we make our regular walk up the hill to home.

Bob takes a picture as we walk by the accident sight. One of the women involved takes offence waving her arms. Our bus continues to sit and wait ....how long, we won't know.

Our walk home is just a little longer than usual. I do think we are getting stronger. The hill doesn't seem nearly as bad as we first experienced. We are home in time to cook a proper dinner and then we run out of propane in our heater again. George had said it should last two weeks, we are finding it only lasts one week. Are we 'wooses' not being used to the Maltese weather?? He will bring another tank tomorrow. We will survive.

Observations:

Very rare to see a traffic light at an intersection. Europeans are masters of the roundabouts. Maybe they work better with right hand driving?

We have GST, Malta has VAT, value added tax. When you see the cost of something that is what you pay. The VAT is already included in the price.

There are 'cherry blossoms' in bloom here too:)

Fresh sliced 'streaky' bacon....as opposed to back bacon. Cost...Cad$5.20/lb

 

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Vittoriosa, across Grand Harbour from Valletta

Destinations looks so easy on a map. They might be quite simple when you are driving. But when you have to catch a bus and make connections the art of travel becomes a little more complicated. Today I think we spent more time waiting for buses than we did travelling on them. Whenever we stand at a bus stop looking at all the bus numbers, their routes and their expected arrival times there is always someone who asks " where you want to go". Often it is hard to explain to them that we don't really care, that we are just going wherever a bus takes us. For those that use the buses it is hard to understand because bus travel is their life line.

We are headed for the 'Three Cities' of Vittoriosa, Conspicua and Senglea. We ride the bus as far as it goes and when it starts its return trip we get off. We are in Il Kalkara, the first of four small bays on the east side of Grand Harbour. It is sunny, peaceful and quiet. Bob walks out to look at boats and see where the walkway takes him. I sit on a bench and try a sketch of the old stone ramparts across the bay.

 

We buy a couple of pastries in the square and sit looking at the church above us. It is getting warm. We continued around the bay until we reached a point where we had to decide whether to go up the hill to the road or try our luck around the waterfront. We watched a couple walk down to the waterfront walk with a map in hand. They must know where they are going so we follow after them. An enquiry to a woman walking in the opposite direction confirms that we can get all the way around to Grand Harbour and Vittoriosa.

An old English vessel that has seen its last days. It will not sail again.

There are many boats on shore in various stages of repair and maintenance. This one had beautiful carvings on it.

As we look across the bay we can see the place we had been in Valletta a few weeks ago looking over the Bell Tower and out beyond the breakwaters to the open sea.

Fencing built into old rock wall, beautiful silhouette.

There are a series of apartments along the waterside, many of which are under renovations. So much of this area around Valletta is built on top of ancient rock structure. There are new square stone block walls set in between the old rock walls of 400 years ago.

We turn the corner from the shade to brilliant sunshine and "boats" the size one can only imagine. The first one I see is called "Plan B". For us "plan B" means a different bus route. Different strokes.....

The whole bay is filled with huge multi million dollar yachts. I've never seen this many mega yachts at one time, in one place before. It is fairly quiet compared to across the harbour in Valletta. We can look across through all the masts and up the narrow steep roadways to the streets of the main shopping areas of Valletta.

 

Observations for today:

 

The young women love their red dyed hair and boots of all kinds.

Today really reminded me that I am in the Mediterranean. The affluence, that is not Malta, but all of the other people that can afford to cruise here.

When you have had enough for the day you find a cafe next to the bus stop for a beer and a wine. It makes waiting so much easier. Unfortunately Bob almost missed the bus taking pictures.

 

McSims is not McDonalds...yucky pizza!!

Another cauliflower from our neighbour farmer. I insisted on paying this time ....he would only take €2.

It was such a blue sky day. I know the skies in Arizona can be very blue against the colours of the desert but the blues of the sea and the sky against the limestone colours of all the rock is incredible here.

A lot of pictures and not much sketching today. I'm posting my blog tonight with the 8:00 bells ringing in the background.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Birzebbugia on St Paul's Day

We spent the morning puttering around the apartment waiting to see if the weather forcast was accurate and the wind would die down. It looks good and there is heat in the sun.

As we are walking down to the Bay we stopped to speak with a man that was laying out astro turf carpeting around what looks like a small tiled swimming pool. I asked him if it was for people or fish. He laughed and said it was originally for 'the kids', but they are all grown up and now it is for the old people in the heat of the summer. Through conversation about our travels he told us that he and his wife had been in New York City on 9/11. They were on a tour bus going to the twin towers when the bus driver advised that a plane had crashed into the tower. He stopped the bus and told them that they would have to get out and find their own way back to their hotel, where they watched the events of that memorable day unfold. We agreed that this was an indication that it had not been 'their time'. They were scheduled to be at the towers in half an hour. Amazing the things you find out stopping to chat on the road.

There were three buses sitting in the terminal. We are opportunists and make our travel decisions on the spot, taking the bus that goes the least frequently. We are going back to Birzebbugia. It is St Paul's Day, a national holiday commemorating St. Paul being shipwrecked in 66BC on what is now known as St Paul's Island. It is said to have been the beginning of Christianity on Malta. The bus schedule runs like a Sunday. The #119 is once an hour. We ride it to the end of the run to Paci, which means 'peace' in Maltese. There is nothing remarkable beyond Birzebbugia. It is a conglomeration of container storage areas. It is also known for its holding area for illegal immigrants that come ashore from North Africa. This issue is something we know little about, but like many first world countries illegal immigration is a controversial challenge for both citizens and governments.

We rode the bus back to Pretty Bay, bought a slice of pizza from the local 'Sphinx' Pastizzeria, and took it with us to the promenade where we ate in the sun and then walked along watching all the container ships being loaded. Bob is taking pictures and I take the opportunity to do a quick sketch in my journal. We are so close to watch how the containers are moved from the dry docks onto the several waiting ships. Even as we watch, one that is fully loaded heads out to sea and another comes in to take it's place.

I love the bays full of all these little 'tenders' that carry the boaters and fishermen back and forth to their bigger boats .

I still feel somewhat in a flux between the places we have seen and experienced when we were in St Paul's Bay and those here in and nearby Marsascala. This area has the ancient history of the traditional Maltese but is more like the small villages on Gozo. I will always feel like I haven't seen all the things I want to see in Malta. The biggest problem now is that it seems we are counting down our remaining days, calculating the groceries and supplies we will need for our last two weeks.

As we ride our mini bus back Bob notices that St Thomas Market is open. We ask our driver to stop and let us out. We walk back and do a shop that could well last us till we leave.... except for bread and milk. He enquires about getting our groceries delivered. And the owner says of course. We put you and your groceries in the van and take you home:) ....and he does ....right to the door. So nice not to have to carry groceries up 'the hill'.

We have an easy dinner of cauliflower, broccoli and carrots, with fresh salami, parmigiana cheese and a little pesto dipping sauce. We are happy to be eating all things fresh and local. For the first time in two days it is quiet outside. No wind, no rain, no thunder or lightning. St Paul may have calmed things down a bit.

Bob has to share the table with all the art supplies:)

Observations:

I don't know what happens to the set up of my paragraphs sometimes. All of a sudden things go awry and I can't fix them. I guess that's what makes this blog mine, not perfect...I don't do perfect. But I can do smart sometimes. Rereading this I just figured out how to fix the margins. Now it could be considered perfect maybe.

Malta has wonderful public toilets, always clean, and even when they seem to be underground, they feel safe.

I have not once ever felt unsafe or intimidated by anyone or anything in Malta. If you say hello you are always met with a smile and a return hello.

More doors:)

Spring is starting to show its new growth. It must be beautiful here in Springtime before the heat of summer takes over.

 

 

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A Home Day

After a stormy night the day continues with showers this morning and high winds that have lasted all day. It is whistling non stop around our roof top apartment. We waited until noon to see if they would abate but here it is almost 4:30 and the wind is still going strong, maybe even stronger. Another home day. I don't remember if we have had two days in row at home since we've been in Malta, even with my cold.

Our plans to go with our landlord George and his family to their 'field' tomorrow for a BBQ have been put off until Sunday as the winds are supposed to continue through tomorrow, St Paul's Day, a national holiday. They have an eleven year old daughter and a three month old daughter. Not much fun to have a baby out in this kind of weather.

 

The wind is blowing from the north and if we were in St. Paul's Bay today it would be blowing right at our front windows and we would be cold. Here it is blowing against the bedroom windows and we have closed the door to keep the living area warm.

About 2:30 this afternoon I noticed the church doors open and people standing around outside. It caught my attention because it is so windy and cold to be outside. Then I realized that they were all in black. A funeral. Unlike the wedding last week the bells are somber in their ringing. We watched as the priest led the procession, followed by the casket, then everyone went inside and the doors closed on the cold wind.

 

It appears to be a small funeral. After the ceremony? the priest came out followed by the casket and we see the hearse drive away.

There is always something happening in this little seaside village and we seem to have an eye on it all.

I haven't been inspired to paint today but did do a couple of items for my journal. Our dishes:)....I'm journaling while Bob works on dinner.

The church bells are ringing like crazy....is it for St Paul's Eve?......we don't know.....but we haven't heard them this loud or for this long before. I love having them as a back drop to our time here in Marsascala.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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