Malta Continued

Since I didn't debrief from one trip before going on the next and I don't have any upcoming vacations planned I figured I better get some Malta photos up here to do some quick recaps. Malta was a really great island and here are a few more snapshots with captions. 

 This is St. Agatha's tower and it dates to 1649. It was a watch tower and mostly defended by 4 men although it has a much greater capacity of 50 according to the plaque. From below it looks much more impressive but somehow I love it's imperfect coloring and weedy surroundings.

View from the hillside by the tower of the ocean and the hotel we almost booked, not a bad location but much more isolated from the rest of the island than where we actually stayed.

The best part about this photo is that it was taken by an Ed Hardy family (the dad) who made a snide comment about the fact that I had an actual camera. He prefers to use his iPhone but ironically walked up to us and offered to take a photo so he could not feel guilty asking us to take one of his family. We got a good laugh out of them.

This one ominous wall was further along the path towards the sea. It somehow represents Malta well in that it appears to be the start of something great that was abandoned all to soon. Malta is a small island with great potential but somehow lacks follow through. 

I just liked this abandoned cluster of buildings. Not sure what they ever were or how old they are. Thought they looked eerie and destitute against the sky and cement.

I wish I was on that sail boat in the middle of such beautiful blue ocean.

One of my favorite things about Malta was the color of the ocean...too bad it was too cold for swimming on our Easter visit.

This is Popeye's Village a left over set from the movie (I've never heard of or seen said movie) which has been turned into an amusement park of sorts. 

After  our return from Gozo (next post) we watched the waves crash on Popeye's village and took some photos as we waited for the sunset.

I'm a sucker for a sunset over the ocean.

One of the many ornate and well kept churches on the island. This photo was taken from our Kia while driving up a super windy road.

The Malta bus. These guys are an interesting part of the island culture and as I learned will be extinct by now. All of the buses on Malta were privately owned. We were told by this summer that would change and a private company would bring in new buses and take over the service while retaining some drivers and putting others out of work. However, we experienced the privately owned/operated buses which means some buses are much cleaner/newer/quieter than others. There are a lot of buses and I have no idea how they determine who runs which route but the bus schedule means very little in reality as buses just seem to turn up at bus stops. Bus fare is super cheap, we paid 60 EUR cents for a 30 minute ride to Valetta. Knowing that the bus drivers are essentially businessmen I was surprised to see them turn people away when the bus was not yet at capacity. If anything, I would have expected over crowded buses. I'm not sure if the buses actually changed but it would be nice to have cleaner running buses although there are hundreds of these and junking them all at once is not really so great for the environment either. I'm also curious to know what will become of the million souvenirs with buses on them.

Next up, our day on the island of Gozo.