Saturday, and, as we had learned, the feast of the shipwreck of St.Paul. This was a fact from which it would become hard to escape anywhere in Valletta in the course of the day!

Once again the weather gods were smiling on us, although they did give us a little scare. We had decided to walk along the water's edge to Sliema, then get the ferry back to Valletta. All set, stepped out the door and there were a few drops of rain. After a momentary indecision we grabbed umbrellas and set off regardless. And that moment was the last sign of rain we saw that day - or up until now (Monday), in fact.

We walked out the new city entrance, past the scrubbed and cleaned Fountain of Triton, and diagonallly down to the water's edge, which we simply kept on our right for the walk from Valletta and Floriana through to Msida (with a pause for a coffee at the historic Busy Bee which we used to go to as a family during our failed attempt to settle here in the early sixties), on to Ta' Xbiex, Manoel Island, Gzira and Sliema- I guess about 90 minutes of walking. Sliema - and neighbouring St Julian's and Paceville are examples of the less attractive side of Malta's recent development. Always the hub for tourism, and slightly out of step with the rest of the country, the coastline along here is now home to some serious multi-storey developments, with heights of up to 40 storeys approved. They are totally out of character, and will feed what we understand are fairly crippling traffic conditions on the narrow roads in the area. Failing in an attempt to get something light and local, we opted for kebabs, eaten outside in a Piazza. A nice change.

A short ferry trip from Sliema took us under the western walls of Valletta, and we then crossed town back to the apartment. About an hour or so later, the unmistakeable sound of a brass band, with overenthusiastic blowing and muscular bass drum pierced the silence, and began to draw closer. This was the siren song of St Paul's feast, although I expect that, had he heard it, he would never have hit the rocks! We hastily gathered up our gear and headed up Melita Street to the intersection with St Paul Street where the band was parked. There must have been 60 members in the band, but in the half hour or so we were there, there were never more than a third playing at any one time, and some people seemed to be there to cut a good figure, because they never once lifted an instrument. mobile phones were the instruments of choice for some. That being said, the enthusiastic playing was reasonable tuneful, and kept well in time by the big bass drum.

Further down the hill people were gathered on their gallerias and were strewing paper confetti in an uninterrupted torrent over the band and its entourage. Underneath the paper blizzard, young guys engaged in some pretty enthusiastic crowd surfing, as you can see from the cover photo.

We had worked up a drink by then, and needed to pass a little time before mass in St John's co-Cathedral. We had aperitifs in a little place on the once infamous Strait Street, then hit the Church. After 6 weeks of unrelenting ecclesiastical splendour, you would think we would be inured to even the grandest of Baroque decoration. We had forgotten just how magnificent St John's gilded interior was. All the free time we gained by not understanding the sermon could be spent in rubber necking. One interesting event was the fact that the prayers of the faithful had to be halted to wait for the St Paul's fireworks to finish. The church of St Paul is only a few hundred metres away!

Marthese took us for a drive around the three cities - Birgu, Cospicua and Senglea then we went to dinner at a place called the Londoner at Smart City - a kind of Maltese Macquarie Park that uses renewable energy sources. It looked a bit dead when we arrived, but by the time we had survived the rudeness of our first (Russian?) waiter to move on to more pleasant staff and traditional English pub food, it had pretty well filled up. This was after 9. Marthese was good enough to drop us back. Another day we'll and truly filled! Plans for a drive with Marthese tomorrow.