I've come to Malta for a week. It's a bit of a random choice of holiday destination, I booked it on impulse at the start of the year. I didn't go abroad at all last year due to struggling with my mental health / eating disorder, so I was determined to go away in 2018. At the point of booking it I'd lost my travelling confidence so I did something I've never done before- booked a package holiday, simply for the ease of not having to deal with booking all the separate components, which at the time felt unmanageable. Malta was on a drop down list of destinations. A quick google showed hilly terrain, blue sea & crumbling old stuff. I love crumbling old stuff & climbing high for panoramic views, I always go for culture / sightseeing over beaches, so I figured I could do worse than spend a week in Malta.

I'm staying in Bugibba, in the northeast of the island. Bugibba itself is not my favourite place ever, it's incredibly touristy & set up for tourists, lots of Irish / English pubs, shops selling cheap tat and hundreds of English people. Its fine though, this is just my base. It's conveniently located for going north to Gozo and south to the rest of the island.

All over Malta there are lots of Brits! Tourists, ex pats & Brits living and working here. I guess because it's part of the commonwealth? It's interesting to see that it really is a melting pot of several different cultural influences. Maltese language sounds like Arabic, some of the architecture looks middle-eastern (like Afghanistan or Iran or somewhere) but the city streets look quite Italian.

I was expecting it to be hot but was not expecting this humidity. 32C at midday, but "feels like" 39; step into the sun and I am running in sweat within minutes. What I find strange is the contrast between the landscape and the climate. It feels very humid, but the terrain is parched and dry- dry stony ground, pale white buildings under blue sky, and cacti. Malta is basically a big rock in the middle of a salty sea. The shoreline is rocky (people swim from the rocks in the sea). The island is very hilly, with steep windy roads (& crazy fast drivers), haring up inclined to fantastic sweeping vistas over glittering sea before plunging down another steep ravine.

There's not much agriculture on Malta (the Maltese grow less than 20% of their own food). I found the evidence of this when I went grocery shopping omg fresh fruit & veg were SO expensive, and really poor quality. I paid £2.30 for a bag of lettuce leaves, which smelt bad as soon as I opened them so I had to throw them away. I paid £2 for a slice of watermelon, which was also already past its best. I paid £1.75 for a cucumber, which was definitely the most expensive cucumber I have ever bought. What made matters worse was none of the produce had prices on, so I didn't know how much it cost til after it was wieghed. The only reasonably priced veg were carrots (so I bought lots). Tinned / dried goods weren't too bad. Still more expensive than in the UK but not extortionate. So I guess i'll just have to live off couscous and tinned chickpeas for a week. I miss fresh crunchy fruit & veg already! Honestly our fruit/veg in the UK is so much nicer than most European countries I've been to, with a few exceptions. It's fresher and crunchier and tastier and cheaper. I wonder what Brexit will do to this :/

My first day I got the windy hilly bus through dry stony landscape to the capital Valletta. I wanted to do as much as possible outside before it got too hot. I started with the splendid panoramic views from Upper Barakka Gardens, over the battery and harbour. Evidence of Malta's naval / military important defensive position are everywhere in the fortifications all over the island. Stone arches framing white battlements against blue sky and even bluer sea. Some of the white stone buildings with low dark entrances hollowed out of the rock remind me of the landscapes from Star Wars. I sort of followed the walking tour in my lonely planet guide, but also not as I kept getting distracted by views / interesting looking alleyways. Valletta is as hilly as the rest of Malta! Streets plunge then soar from one side of the city peninsula to the other, many streets end in glittering sea. The buildings are an eclectic mix of really quite posh refurbished high spec apartments, crumbling townhouses and building sites. There does seem to be a lot of demolition / building work going on. Many half finished buildings, stone shells with empty windows and piles of rubble inside. Builders strolling around atop multi storey half built buildings with not a safety harness or scaffold, or safety rope in sight.

St Johns Co-Cathedral (€10) was ok, I do like a Caravaggio and the audio guide was very interesting but there was a bit too much gold leaf for me and I actually preferred the church of St Paul the Shipwrecked (free), which was more gloomy inside, the frescos were much clearer, it was more atmospheric and it had the actual wristbone of St Paul and also part of the column he was beheaded on!

There were noticeably fewer tourists in Valetta than there have been the last few times I went to Italy. I guess because it's not such a tourist hotspot as Rome? It was nice anyway, not having to queue to get in anywhere, not shuffling three abreast like in some Italian churches. I found some raw vegan cacao ice cream :)

I had a lovely walk around the city wall, right around the old city of Valletta, then spent a great hour in the St James Cavalier arts centre, where there was a really fantastic couple of pieces looking at the subterranean tunnels that run beneath Malta. In the Second World War, Malta was became the most bombed place on earth and the Maltese sheltered in these tunnels, sometimes for many weeks at a time without seeing daylight. One amazing installation allowed me to use a hand held games controller to navigate through the tunnels, which have been digitally scanned, to explore them as has never before been possible, it was so real, so evocative of how it might have been to live in these network of tunnels. It was so utterly captivating I hope to return to Valletta later in the week, to visit the War Rooms and do a tour of the HQ tunnels, which held Britains top secret command in WWII.

Back to the hotel by 8pm. Tomorrow I plan to go to Gozo, a small island north of Malta, reachable by a bus then a boat.