Valletta

Malta is a little like my mother’s old chihuahua. He was the size of a grapefruit but would attack creatures the size of refrigerators. He adored my mother, liked me well enough (within limits), and was absolutely livid at everyone else all the time, biting them with his tiny teeth at the slightest provocation.

Similarly, Malta is a cluster of tiny islands almost a hundred kilometres from any other landmass, but its capital, Valletta, is surrounded by fortifications with canon placements and ten metres thick walls. Where other cities sound their church bells at noon, Valletta sets off an old air raid siren… which is quite alarming if you’re not expecting it. For a second I thought that Donald Trump had started WWIII at a very inconvenient time for me.

It’s as if some guy said, “Let’s build an impregnable island fortress!”, and then his wife chimed in, “Ooh, with cute shops!”

Due to its heritage as a subject of the British Empire, Malta wears a cloak of Englishness. All street signs are in English only, the cars are right hand drive and they drive on the left. There’s a Marks & Spencer on St George’s Square, and the cathedrals are named for St John and St Paul. However the police cars are emblazoned with ‘Polizja’, and away from the tourist areas store signage starts to incorporate Maltese.

Every building in the old town is built from local limestone the colour of whipped caramel, and most feature the iconic enclosed balconies that are the symbol of Malta. The whole of the old city has a romantic Moorish feel, especially in the narrower streets where the balconies nearly touch overhead. It’s exactly the right sort of backdrop for daring pirate adventures, and Pirate Pete swore that he would liberate the city from its stifling government overlords!

But first… gelato!

The gelato was “Maltese” flavour, which apparently involves strawberries, ginger and almonds. I was not disappointed, and it seemed to calm Pete’s bloodlust.

The only downside to the day was that it was warm and sunny, and I’d forgotten to pack a hat. Never mind, I thought, the European sun is milder than the Australian sun. However I was forgetting that Malta is only barely in Europe – it’s actually further south than Algiers and Tunis – and once I was back on the ship I discovered that I was becoming redder than a MAGA picnic.

So since then I’ve been slathering on the moisturiser like I’m icing a head-shaped cake. We’ll see if it does any good.