We had a pretty noisy night last night. The floors are hard tiles so every noise in the surrounding vicinity is amplified. We had young girls staying next door and being a Saturday night they were out to party. Unfortunately they came home early hours and yelled and screamed and banged around their furniture making a terrible racket. Well that's apparently what happened. I wouldn't know because I had ear plugs in but boy did I hear about it.
We were up and ready for our tour at 9am. We were the only ones on board so we rode up front for our trip to Valletta. Phillip our tour guide gave us a great commentary on the trip over and our first stop was Upper Barrakka Gardens on St James Bastion. It had great views over grand harbour and is a very tranquil place. The kind of place you could just sit and ponder about life and while away the time.
From there it was back town to Valletta markets for an hour or so. It was much like markets back in oz so we wandered amongst the stores before sitting by the bus depot watching the beautiful old machines come and go.
Then it was back up to the gardens where we relieved Phillip of his duties as we wanted to spend some time in Valletta. They have a ceremonial firing of a canon at 12pm every day at the gardens so we grabbed a great position and got settled in for the show. Nothing can prepare you for how loud the canon is and as hard as we tried the whole crowd jumped when it was fired.
From there headed into the city centre for a look around at the shops and buildings. We came across an art gallery so got all cultural and enjoyed paintings of music and movie stars from days gone by. Then onto the shopping strip which was packed with everyone preparing for Christmas.
After a good look around we found a Marks & Spencers and picked out some sandwiches and headed down for a picnic lunch on one of the walls by the ocean. We enjoyed the feed with our pigeon friends but the wind started to pick up as it does every afternoon in Malta so back up to the bus depot and off to Sliema.
We hopped off and wandered back along the harbour stopping every now and again for some window shopping. After quite a few k's we were back near home and stopped at an Internet cafe where we had an hours credit to use. With that out of the way we were back in the apartment where Jac cooked a lovely dinner as we try to use up our food we bought.
Valletta was a beautiful city but we are very happy we are staying in St Julians. It has a great feel with heaps to do and plenty of nightlife. Think we'll stay in tonight.