June 2003 This must be Valletta (Valletta)

Member Name: isvikthere

Product:	Valletta
Date:	04/07/03 (71 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: history wherever you look, relatively cheap

Disadvantages: Could do with a facelift, No sandy beaches

For your information just an account of our visit to Malta and Valletta in the beginning of June 2003.


OUR HOTEL
We were lodged for some ten days in hotel Osborne, a smaller hotel with some 60 rooms situated in South street, right in the centre of town maybe 1/2km away from the bus terminal. The hotel was an ideal starting point for various excursions throughout Malta and the neighbouring island Gozo. The hotel itself is a three star hotel and in my opinion if they want to hang on to their third star they'd better freshen up their rooms real soon. The ground floor with its reception, bar and restaurant has gonethrough a recent renovation and the difference really shows. The rooms however, especially for people being used to visit recently built resort hotels around the Mediterranean, aren't too brilliant. They are aircondtionned through big hideous modules suspended from the ceiling which make quite a racket. Finishing of the rooms leaves to be desired with stained fixed carpet (never good if you suffer from allergies) which I'd advise tochange as soon as possible for some quality tiles. The bathroom as well was in a rather poor shape withcracked tiles and a liberal use of silicon for the joints on bathtub and toilet which you'd have to see to believe. Luckily we had one of the few (6) rooms with a seaview which helped us to take our minds of the poor finish.

THE TOWN
Valletta is only 6 kms away from Malta's one and only (modern) airport, it takes you a good 20-25 minutes per taxi or minibus to reach the capital. As described in the other review here Valletta has one main street, called Republic street, which is luckily turned into a pedestrians only zone.
The other, neighbouring streets, running up from or down to the harbour, are open to traffic, be it mostly one way, and on foot you'd better watch out as cars zoom up and down
rather swiftly. Parking in the town centre is a problem just like in any ot
her capital of Europe. There is however a huge underground carpark situated near the bus terminal. Overall and except for the market days the town was remarkably quiet in this month of June, especially in the evenings. On republic square there are three big outdoor terraces and only one was open in the evenings and even this one only had about a dozen people sitting on it. So not quite really the high nightlife. Nightclubbers need to go a bit more outside the city itself to the neigbouring communities in the northwest like St. Julians,
where lots of trendy bars are regrouped.

If you like shopping Valletta will suit you as it has numerous clothes, antiques and jewellery stores. During the daytime there are plenty of bars and restaurants to choose from, this goes from the likes of BurgerKing and McDonald's in the centre to more cosy litle places near the harbour offering you fresh fish menus. And all this at very affordable prices, especially compared to other destinations around the Mediterranean (e.g. South of France, Italy).

As a whole, just like our hotel room, the old Lady Valletta could really do with a facelift, work is already been undertaken or planned for some monuments but there is still lots to do to give the whole of the city a more clean and fresh outlook. Because it is without a shadow of a doubt a city which offers lots to see and to visit in the form of churches, museums and
historical remains. Remarkable here is, and although I am all for progress, the fact that if you wanted to learn a bit more on special monuments your are expected to use your mobile phone and call a specific number where you obtain more explanations on its history. This is really pushing it a bit I think, I think that only the local mobile phone provdier sponsoring this service benefits from this. Having my own (foreign) provider I had no idea of what costs would be involved so I refrained from using the service. Therefore I can not comment on the q
uality of the information given, but surely in this case a simple sign with some text would be more handy (*).

However - if you don't mind the exercise - a nice and free excursion is to do the tour of the whole Valletta seafront on foot, which at certain points involves some minor rockclimbing but which offers you access to all kinds of hidden corners. We, involuntarily, did this by night and at a certain point I doubted seriously if we would make it back if ever a high tide should set in because we were in areas that were sometimes covered by the sea. Especially because at that part of the seafront the spotlights were broken. Although from time to time on the tour we did startle some local lovebirds who clearly didn't expect to see tourists turn up then and there, it was fun all the same.

Located at the seafront Valletta itself has no sandy beaches whatsoever, only some miles to the north towards St-Julian's there is one small sandy beach which about hundred metres long and only a few metres deep. People do swim in the sea at at certain points there are metallic ladders installed to help you get in and out of the water but at these places the shore is rocks only.

THE PEOPLE
At first contact and quite contrary to what is said in other reviews on the net I find the Maltese not really that warm and friendly, at least not those dealing with tourism in the cities. Busdrivers in particular are very blunt. An illustration of this is that I never even got round to learning the Maltese word for Hello, or good morning and so on as I never heard it used. People off the beaten tracks, and especially the old folk tend to be more open.
However it is my conviction once you get to know them a bit more and you gain their confidence and you can look behind that cold exterior you'll find some warmhearted souls. Also, now almost 40 years after Malta became independant it is my impression that the knowledge of the English language is d
egrading. To my surprise several of the Maltese I met didn't speak English all that well.

Also waitors need to go back to school as all of them, be it in the hotel or elsewhere, systematically started clearing the table even if not everyone had quite finished their meals or drinks. Very disturbing indeed.

Other omnipresent inhabitants of Valletta are the streetcats and the pigeons. Both species seem to get along rather well, proven by the fact that the cats are all quite thin which shows they didn't grow fat on an overdose of poultry.

THE BUSSES
Well known is the fact that on Malta and Gozo the public transport is assured by (English) busses that are several decades old, and which were referred to by the local newspaper as 'boneshakers'. But, in spite of their age, almost none of the busses crashed out clouds of black exhaust gasses, or suffered from breakdowns, which makes me suspect that underneath their beaten exterior at least some new parts most lurk.


The Valetta bus terminal, the biggest on the Island, has the shape of a horseshoe and at first and without a paper guide you are dazzled by all the coming and going of these yellow relics. But in the information booths they readily hand you over a leaflet explaining the numbers on the busses and where you can find them, something, which when you get the hang of it, makes choosing the right bus quite feasible.
Their average speed is rather low and it takes them about an hour to take you from one side of the island to the other. However they are very cheap and don't be tempted to buy the multidaypasses advertised as it would force you to do more than six busrides a day to break even compared to a normal fare per ride which is between 15 and 20 maltese cents.

CONCLUSION
Another reviewer here spoke of Malta and its capital Valletta in the terms of love and hate. Personally I find both terms too strong to use in this r
espect and may
be I can just summarize it by saying that I liked it but found there was room for (further) improvement.

Cheers,
Vik

(*) "handy" is the term used in Germany for mobile phone (or cellphone if you prefer)

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