Our journey on this day would take us to Valletta, Malta. I was relatively unfamiliar with this small island nation prior to this trip and didn’t really have many expectations going into the day. Wow was I blown away.
The first part of our excursion was a boat ride on something known as a dghajsa, a traditional Maltese motorized boat. Our guide took us around the harbor and we even got a close up of our ship in the water. The ride lasted about 30 minutes and It was a very relaxing ride in the water, I really enjoyed it.
After the boat ride we then had a guided tour through what is known as the “Three Cities”. This is the collective description of three ancient fortified cities on the other side of the harbor from Valletta. The three individual cities are Cospicua, Vittoriosa, and Senglea. There is so much history in these buildings and these cities and our tour guide did a fantastic job teaching us all about it. One interesting fact is that the Three Cities were very heavily bombed during WWII by Italy and Germany and it severely damaged the buildings, but the cities were rebuilt in the 50s and 60s. There is a beautiful memorial on the side of one of the churches in the area that has the names of those who lost their lives in those bombings.
After this tour, we then hopped on a bus for a ride to a local fisherman’s village. There is a market set up right along the shore in the village with all kinds of goods, produce, crafts, etc. My dad and I picked up some Maltese alcohol and shot glasses to add to our collection.
With that our tour was over and we headed back to the ship, we still had a couple more hours before our ship would leave this port, so we decided to head up and explore the city of Valletta. This was higher up on the mountain side and it offered very good views of the harbor and the Three Cities.
We then headed back to the ship for dinner and to finish our night listening to some comedy and karaoke, which would become our typical ending to each evening. The next stop was Sicily!
It's a Magical Life 