Day 574, 7 Jan '16, Malta Pass Day 3, Must. Keep. Going. We have been sightseeing like crazy and have made it to Day 3. Mdina, Ta'Qali, Naxxar, Mellieha, Qawra and FlatTyre. The on-the-ball among you might notice that last place name looks a bit funny - can assure you the incident wasn't though. (Also Days 564 and 565 were doing the time warp... and weren't to be published til 2016... has been amended!)

1. (9.00 am) Domus Romana - Roman House in Rabat, just outside Mdina. There is Roman history scattered about in Malta - but a bit of it is in private hands and other parts are still getting dug up. The ruins of this wealthy family's town house were found... but not until a road was ploughed right through and a significant amount and its contextual surrounds were lost. Nevertheless a well thought out small museum with pieces from the site and also other Roman sites in Malta - also three rooms with their mosaic floors intact and some wonderful marble statues. We were first in the door and first out 30 minutes later.

2. (9.30 am) Across the road and into the walled city of Mdina, next stop was the Natural History Museum. We like these on general principle - especially the truly amazing ones like Dublin and Berlin - where 2 Tasmanian Tigers can be found. We are happy to report no Tassie Tigers in Malta (or, for that matter, Tasmania these days as they are long extinct.) Pretty poor excuse for a museum - but an excellent mineral exhibit on the second floor. We hightailed it at 9.55 am to get to the Mdina Experience which opened at 10 am.

3. (10 am) Mdina Experience. This is another of those audio visual movie-type shows about the history of Mdina in particular and Malta in general. Utter rubbish. Dreadful woman in costume at the door was quick to try and flog us tickets to their wax works and what not and then said the show wasn't til 10.45 am. But you're open at 10! So James asked for the Malta Pass numbers back (essentially a refund). 'Lo and behold, they decided to run the show just for us (that is without waiting for other folks to arrive). They did OK out of it as a family of 5 turned up and joined the viewing. We think they even paid which is sad. It was fawlty-towers-esque as the staff were put out at having to do a show on demand and they opened and shut doors and wandered in and out of the theatre through the screening. But that is what Tripadvisor is for...

4. (10.40 am) At this point we should have headed off to St Paul's catacombs. Seriously busy bloke the Apostle Paul. After converting Cyprus to Christianity he was arrested and was getting sailed back to Rome to be dealt with. There was a shipwreck and he came ashore at St Paul's Island or "That rock just over there" as it was once known - we even saw the small island from St Paul's Bay near Mellieha. Anyway - he washed up, spent 3 months converting the Maltese and had a miracle. He was bitten by a viper, didn't die and so the story goes, there haven't been snakes on the island ever since. Me. I reckon it was a mosquito and there might never have been snakes here... or is that being a teensy bit uncharitable. Anyway - we've been to catacombs in Rome and they were very nice... but we decided to give them a miss and instead headed to the Malta Aviation Museum in Ta'Qali - that's the airfield that now houses the Craft Village in the old Nissen huts. Great museum - helicopters, planes, history, history everywhere. Not heaters mind you - but hey, who needs to heat a hangar. And still 16 odd degrees.

5. (11.30 am) After the air museum it was back in the car and off to Naxxar (pron: Nashar). Purpose? The Palazzo Paraiso & Gardens. Wow. Wow. Wow. Aside from anything else, seriously.... €12 for a visit? Thank heavens for the Malta Pass. We did the whole self guided tour of the house, gardens and cellars in less than an hour. Simply couldn't pay that much for anything. Was lovely and luxurious and is a very popular posh wedding venue. Once was owned by one of the Grand Masters of the Order of St John and was used as a country house. His townhouse is in the centre of Valletta and is now used by a government ministry - serious money was about along with tonnes of Italian marble and 24 carat gold leaf (see ballroom - pictured) Next stop... car-time.

6. (12.45 pm) Back into Bluey and we drove north to Mellieha. Very popular with ex-pats and the bucket & spade holiday brigade as one of Malta's few beaches is up there. We visited the Torre I-Ahmar or the Red Tower. This was one of the defensive watch towers that could signal the next tower etc so that a warning could get back to Valletta super-fast in the event of enemy sightings or invasion. And face it, there's been a few of those. There was a race on Dr Who who made it their business to be subservient and were thus always under the thumb of someone else. Their slogan was "Occupy us! And you'd be home by now." That's certainly what Malta's history looks like sometimes...

7. (2.30 pm) Driving back to the last stop of the day and, for that matter, the last sightseeing event of the trip. The Malta Classic Car Museum is in Qawra. James was looking forward to it, me not so much - we both envisaged a row of cars just lined up looking shiny. It was so much more - vintage clothing on mannequins, old TVs, juke-boxes, vespas, a really cool place to visit and some rare cars that were doing small/smart/cute and run on the smell of an oily rag years ago!

8. (4.00 pm) Car had a massive flat tyre. What a jolly nuisance. Can't wait to see what Budget tries to charge us for the repair of a tyre that was on its last legs - but that's just one of the joys of car rental and the only issue we've ever had. Finally motored slowly home on the spare tyre and had an early, early night in preparation for (sounds of doom...) Packing and Cleaning Day tomorrow.

Final €€€ - €43 in entrance fees today... in addition to €117 on Days 1 & 2. So €160 each if we'd actually paid for all the things we saw and did. Vs. €49 each for the Malta Pass. Success!