After our initial couple of days exploring Malta we headed towards the north of the island where we had been reliably informed it would be more relaxed and quieter. We had booked acommodation in a place called Xemxija. The place names here are really difficult to pronounce, so far we can tell you that the X is pronounced as the sound “sh” but there will be a lot more learning before we can ask where we are going without showing someone a map. Xemxija is just north of a place called St. Paul’s Bay (much easier to remember and pronounce) which is quite the holiday destination, it was busy when we were there at the end of March so goodness knows how it gets in summer.
We had booked an apartment with a view over the bay and we weren’t disappointed. There were very few boats on all the mooring buoys as it is really out of season and still very windy here. It was a peaceful place to spend a few days with a nice cafe just below the apartments. We are starting to adjust to the fact that most places offer the Full English Breakfast – alongside Italian coffee menus, so Skipper Nigel’s spanish “cortado” is an “espresso macciato” here and I am working my way through the various cappucino and latte options which are generally delicious.
After a relaxing evening enjoying the views it was time for us to start exploring the north of Malta, which is beautiful. We headed out for coffee and found a beautiful bay with a single yacht moored up, it was very picturesque but really made us miss Gemini J. We were thinking how amazing it would be to bring her over here and have some more adventures. At the same cafe we also found a furry friend, which made us miss Bandit too – but as we see cats everywhere here I think we will make more friends along the way. There are street cat shelters all over and people feed them, we haven’t seen any unhealthy looking cats, or any unfriendly ones so far. We drove over to the headland at the far north of Malta with views over the islands of Comino and Gozo – it was really windy on the top of the cliffs.
As we looked out over the Gozo channel we decided that the next day (although the weather forecast wasn’t great) we would head over the water to the smaller island of Gozo. There is also another uninhabited island between the two called Comino – where the famous blue lagoon is, as we are out of season there is very little boat traffic to see but we can imagine it would get busier as the summer arrives.
That afternoon I wandered out for a walk, it turns out that right behind out apartment block is a heritage trail which took me up onto the hillside and along a roman road. The romans had quite a history here on Malta and I saw a roman age apiary which was really well preserved, there are also bath houses here and of course the road itself cutting a straight path through the farmland. I also came across an incredibly old carob tree which was spectacularly beautiful, it was wonderful way to spend an afternoon.
The next morning we worked our way through the roadworks which there seem to be everywhere here and made our way down to the ferry port at another tricky to pronounce place – Cirkewwa (we haven’t learnt the pronunciation yet). We were really excited to get aboard the car ferry and take the 20 minute journey between the islands. It was a little confusing as there was no need to buy a ticket, we just got in a queue and about 3 minutes later drove onto the ferry (it turns out the tickets are paid for only on the Gozo side on your way back to Malta). The weather was really quite windy and there were a few white topped waves about as we went out into the channel.
We were both really excited to be on the water again, even if it was on a roll on roll off ferry. As soon as we arrived in Gozo we headed for the marina of course and had a coffee overlooking the harbour entrance, it was still very windy and it was good to see how the boats were moored and what the conditions were like inside the marina in such weather. We headed off and started to explore the island and almost immediately said it seemed like somewhere we might like to live. Nearly everywhere you go you can see the sea barring the very central “capital” of Victoria (also known as Rabat). All roads lead through and out of the town, since the island only has 38,000 inhabitants it seems that this is also where people come to do their shopping (there are 2 multi-story shopping centres), have a coffee and go about business like banking etc. We had a great day exploring the island and decided that we would extend our trip and come back to stay here when our accomodation booking in Xemxija finished. We visited a beautiful little place called Xlendi bay (not knowing at the time that this would be where we would be living a few weeks later). We had a lovely coffee and sat by the water chatting about our options and if we could live in a place like this.
All too soon it was time to head back to Malta – once again we were ridiculously excited to be back on the water. We vowed we would come back and stay on the island and do more exploring so when we got back to our apartment that night out came AirBnB and a new booking for more adventures ……but they are for another blog.
The Adventures of Gemini J 