Our address is 15 Marian Flats, Triq Depiro.  Marian is the name of the building (named after the Virgin Mary) and we are flat number 15 (the flats are numbered 8-15 so we are the last one!).   Triq means street and Depiro is the street name.  So, our building does not have a street number, but rather a name, as do many homes in Malta.  We’ve found houses that are named Sylvia and Lily, too!  The middle window in the top row is ours.

Welcome to Marian Flats!

First, you must walk up 4 flights of stairs, or 60 steps. Ready?  The building is made of limestone and the flats all have high ceilings – both are ways to keep it cool in the summer.  Incidentally, those same features keep it cool in the winter as well. 😦

You made it! Welcome to Flat 15!

When you first walk in our door and turn left, you will find yourself in our home school room/spare bedroom.  We love this room because it is spacious with lots of natural light.

If you turn right, you will see this long hallway (all the way back to our bedroom).  All the rooms are off to the right of the hall.

The first stop down the hallway is the dining room. This is also our living room/hangout room. Our flat is furnished and some of the furniture is family heirlooms – we try to be really careful!  🙂

Continuing down the hall a bit, we come to our small but functional kitchen.  The girls are making me lunch!   And yes, the kitchen is too small for the refrigerator so you’ll find it in the hall.  However, the washing machine does fit nicely in the kitchen, right behind me.

After the kitchen is the bathroom and then Lily and Sylvia’s room.  The girls wanted their bed pushed together so they could sleep next to each other like at home.

Finally at the end the hall is our room. Another nice, spacious room with good natural light.

And here, standing in our bedroom door, I can look all the way down the hall to the home school room and the front of the flat.  The doors on the left are the girls’ bedroom, bathroom, kitchen and then the dining room through the wood doorway.  See the fridge in the hallway?

Last but not least, the roof. Where we hang our clothes (always), read and eat (sometimes) and run around (whenever possible). We love the roof and are happy to only have to walk up one flight of stairs to get there.

We wandered the streets of Rabat when we first arrived to get a sense of the celebration.  We could tell the band had walked around once already since there was shredded paper all over the street.  Like the festival in Valletta, people throw paper off their balconies when the band marches by.

Flags, banners and lights were hung up all along the main street as well as many side streets.

Everything is so colorful!

St. Joseph’s Church, the hub of the celebration.

We found a park, of course.

We also explored Mdina, the old capital. The city has a giant wall all around it that would definitely deter me if I were coming to attack.  🙂

Walking through the front gates into Mdina.

I love all the limestone! Mdina is a lovely little city – very medieval feeling with narrow streets, churches and fancy houses.

Apparently, many wealthy people live in Mdina and some of the homes have been in the families for generations.  I love the purple!

I’m always surprised to see the sea from other parts of the island. You can see Sliema in the middle of the horizon with the tall buildings.

We skipped this vendor – we were looking for something more Maltese-ish to eat.

We went back to St. Joseph’s in the evening to watch the procession. We watched some of the church service and then waited outside the church to watch the procession. We waited quite a while, but we were happy to have a good spot – there were loads of people all trying to catch a glimpse of the statue.

St. Joseph. It was Sylvia and Lily who pointed out that this is the Joseph that raised Jesus. I just figured it was some random saint, but the girls recognized the baby as Jesus.  Makes sense!

There he goes…8 men carry the statue around the streets with people cheering and singing as the statue goes by. It was really quite a sight.

It was so crazy trying to leave. I don’t think I’ve ever been that crowded. It was like Walmart on Black Friday. I kept asking Lily if she could breath! At least Jon and I were taller than most everyone around us so we could see each other through the crowd. We stopped to let the crowd dissipate and had a delicious supper at a cafe.

The only way to get to Gozo is by ferry. The huge ferry carries vehicles as well as people on a 25 minute cruise. The ferries run quite regularly and the fare was less than 5 euro.  Lily is watching our approach into the harbor on Gozo.

We stayed at a monastery in Rabat (Victoria), the largest city on Gozo. We had time to wander around before our tour started. I loved the narrow, car-free, winding streets. We didn’t exactly know where we were going, but the city was small enough we eventually found our way back home.

Our first stop of the afternoon tour was the Ggantija Temples, part of which was constructed as early as 3600 BC. The temples were used for about 1,000 years, most likely for rituals about life and fertility.

What a beautiful view!

We saw Ramla beach, one of Gozo’s finest, from high above. We were at Calypso’s Cave, which was mentioned in Homer’s The Odyssey.

The Azure Window, near Dwejra. Not only is the rock formation incredible (328 ft!), but the water was such a deep rich blue – quite unusual. It was a stunning place.  The Maltese islands are made of 3 different kinds of limestone and 2 different kinds of clay. It’s the soft limestone that allows formations like these to be created with the help of the common northwesterly winds and the power of the sea.  The Azure Window was featured in the show Game of Thrones.

Our last stop for the afternoon was back to the capital, Rabat. We went to the Citadel, the original walled city perched high on a hill. The city was built to offer protection to the Gozitans, and even as Rabat grew outside of the walls, the people were required to sleep inside the walls until the late 1600s.

Rabat is an Arabic word for knot or closely tied together. Rabat in modern lingo means suburb. Rabat grew up around the Citadel. Today, only 4 people still live in the Citadel while the rest live in Rabat.

On Sunday morning, we explored on our own and found this gorgeous little valley right in Rabat. It was fun to see so much green and lots of garden plots with spring vegetables.

We also found a fun little park!

On Sunday, our guide was a student at the University who is a Gozo native (well, technically, he was born in Detroit, but has lived on Gozo since he was 3).  He took us to some of his favorite places and our requests.  Our first stop was the salt pans.  These squares fill up with saltwater which evaporates.  The salt is then collected and sold as, you guessed it – sea salt!

We climbed up to this lighthouse for beautiful views of the island.

The view. 🙂

We stopped at Ta’ Pinu Basilica in Gharb. The church was beautiful and the carved limestone was quite impressive.

Another natural arch carved out of stone by the forces of wind and water.

Mgarr, the port town where we arrived and departed by ferry. Goodbye, Gozo! We will return.

This time we got a white car. A bit newer, still small and still a manual transmission. I haven’t noticed many automatics around here – I’m not sure why.  We actually kind of like the small cars – they are pretty cozy! 

Our first stop was Mosta, to visit the Mosta Rotunda. You can see the dome in the background. This is a Catholic Church that was built right around the existing smaller church, starting in 1833.

Much of the construction was done voluntarily by the people of Mosta.  After nearly 30 years, the older church (inside!) was dismantled in one week and this new church became the official Mosta Parish Church on 11 March 1860.

The church was modeled after the Pantheon of Rome. The dome is amazing.

The church was really beautiful with ornate carvings, paintings, sculptures and woodwork.

The most fascinating story about the dome took place on 9 April 1942. A German bomb like this replica penetrated the dome  and landed right in the middle of the church. It did not explode and no one was hurt. If you look at the dome photo again, you can see the place where the done was repaired after this incident.

We took some back roads to try to avoid the traffic in Mosta. This is indeed a street. We were happy we didn’t meet any oncoming traffic.

We drove west again to the other side of the island, north of Dingli. The beach was gorgeous but chilly.

These housesare built into the side of the hill. I don’t know if they are year round residences. I did not see any boats, but there were docks in front of the houses, so it may be a fishing village with everyone out for the day.

There are towers like this one all around the perimeter of the island. They were used as lookouts for enemy ships.

Despite the wind and clouds, the girls set up their towels and sat down for some reading time.

We took more back roads to see more coastline and found ourselves driving through farmland and along narrow country roads like this one. This is a two way road, but two cars could never fit side by side, so there were pull-outs now and then.

More beautiful coastline.  We really enjoyed exploring less traveled areas today.

We got the cutest little car. The girls were so excited to hop in, buckle up and head out!

First stop, back to the National Park and Farmer’s Market. This observation area is at the park.

The girls love an adventure!

Walking through the enchanted forest.

After lunch at the Farmer’s Market, we headed to the other side of the Island to the Dingli Cliffs.

They were breathtaking.

Below the cliffs were little farms interspersed with wild areas. I’m not sure if people live there year around or just have their farms there, but Sylvia and I agreed we would love to live in that valley next to the ocean!

The top of the cliffs were quite rocky and made walking a little difficult. Apparently, goats used to graze along here and depleted the top soil leaving a rocky, weedy area.

From here, we could see the sea on the other side of the Island! The tall white buildings in the middle of the photo are in Sliema and you can see a lot of development around there.   The population of Malta is concentrated on that side of the Island.

It was a beautiful place and so far, unspoiled. No hotels, one small restaurant and a new sidewalk along the road for easy walking.

We were so impressed by everything! The floats were amazing – huge, detailed, brightly colored and with moveable parts.

The costumes were so elaborate and colorful, too.  Not only were the dancers all dressed up but so were most of the children, also in elaborate costumes.  It’s their chance to dress up like Halloween, but for five days!

I found some information about how they make these floats here: http://www.valletta2018.org/about/v18-news-overview/v18-news/Carnival-float-making

We went to Valletta again on Sunday morning with Jon. We saw more huge floats, beautiful costumes and tons of people.  Everybody was having a great time- the whole city was filled with exuberance!

We ate lunch from one of the many food vendors in the area. The girls had hotdogs (surprise!) and once again they were served with baked beans right in the bun. It’s actually pretty good!

In addition to gorging on meat before Lent, many people devour sweets during Carnival. There were many stands and this one sold traditional Maltese cake which they sliced off this chunk. It was kind of like dry cookie dough with candied citrus and chocolate chips.

We found King Carnival on one of the side streets. I like how his ring says DAD. 🙂

We followed the king around for a while. It was fun watching the driver navigate the huge float on the narrow streets.

In the 1920s and 30s the caricature of political figures often led to tense situations that induced the Government to ban such customs from future editions of Carnival. This ban lasted until this year when it was realized that there were no such laws in the Maltese Legislature that restricted carnival floats depicting political satire.  So this year, after a long hiatus, floats were allowed to show political satire. Many of the floats featured prominent members of the government with symbols that were generally beyond our limited knowledge of Malta politics.

Taking a back road to the bus terminal to avoid the crowds and loud music.

We went back one last time on Monday night to see the floats in the dark.

We watched some of the float competition. Each float and its associated dancers would pull up to the arena.  There were dancers on the ground and on the float dancing to very loud music. The floats were judged on the theme, the float itself and the dancers.

Okay, one more sweet treat! I liked the treats at the other stand (the one with the cake) better. Those sweets were Nutella based – yum! The treats at this stand were made with chestnut paste, candied citrus and spices – not as appealing to my palate.