We started out early today and once again the sun was shimmering in the sky the heat here is quite different from home, it is not a suffocating humid but enough moisture in the air to make you feel damp. The rays of sun are not as piercing either.
We drove out to St Paul's Bay and stopped to look at Popeye Village on the way from a distance. The seaside colourful shacks were set back in a nice little cove and is a favourite tourist spot.
The landscape in and around St. Paul's bay was greener than anywhere we've been, with a lot more market gardens around the limestone foothills.
Mum showed me where she and her family were raised unfortunately their house was knocked down to make way for an appliance store. Mum spoke with the owner Charlie to show us a painting of what the place looked like before, you can see it in my pics. He said he will look through his documents as he was sure he had an actual photo, we were going back on Friday if time permits.
As you can see from our photos we have visited a lot of churches (Malta has over 360 churches) and today was no different. Our Lady of Victories in Mellieha was prayed to when the Maltese were invaded by the Germans and Italians on 15th August 1942 and the Saint is now known as the one who saved Malta.
We met up with my mums cousins Nonnu and his wife Doris ,Mary and her son Stefan, for lunch in Bugibba, it was nice to see mum happy when catching up with them.
After lunch mum and I went in for a dip it seems cold at first because of your body temperature but once your body climatised, the water is refreshing.
After a quick freshen up we left for Mqabba to see the fireworks which is the start of the Santa Maria Festa. The pyrotechnics company running these fireworks have won many competitions in Europe, so we were looking forward to them. They were spectacular but their budget was no where near what we see in Sydney on New Year's Eve. Unfortunately they dragged it out and standing for near 3 hours did put a damper on things. We put it down to they allowed as much time for taking collections in the crowd of thousands, as these are self funded by the parish and community.
This allowed me to test out my new camera, this is the first time I've used the manual settings to take pics. I was happy as every 3rd photo turned out good and after taking about 50 photos I have a few to show.
After today I think we will have a quiet one tomorrow it would be nice just to soak up some atmosphere and not be on the go.