08.42 Roberth is in the shower, Christer is sleeping and I am on the side of my bed writing this. Soon we will have breakfast.

09.43 The breakfast was alright today as well. Right now a platform is being towed into Grand Harbour. Is it for oil or?
Whatever it is for, Roberth is up on the roof filming it.

This morning started with a visit from this.....thing!?

Our man on the roof

10.33 We are once more on a bus, number 45 this time. We are on our way to a ferry port to go to the neighbouring island of Gozo. The busride is expected to last for an hour. There are short distances but long journeys here on Malta. Almost all the bus rides are through towns.

12.00 The bus stopped in Cirkewwa and we got out. We bought a return ticket to Gozo and have boarded the car ferry MV Gaudos.

Meeting a ferry on our way to Gozo.

Street in Victoria, Gozo. Actually it´s just outside our lunch restaurant.

12.55 We got out of the ferry in Mgarr and took the bus to Victoria, main town on Gozo. It is also known as Rabat. The buses on Gozo are gray. We are now sitting on a stone bench in a park near the bus station. Gozo seems greener and more fertile than the main island of Malta. The inhabitants are called Gozitans and there are around 30 000 of them.

13.33 We have walked and taken pictures on our way through Victoria. We have looked at narrow alleys and people selling stuff. We´ve just sat down at Cittadella Garden Restaurant. We have ordered food and everything seems so peaceful. Victoria is a calm and beautiful town.

15.10 We had to wait for a long time for the bill. Now we are seated high up in the town´s citadel. The view is unbelievable. We can see green hills, lots of small towns and the glistening Mediterranean. In the handicap parking space outside the cathedral we found a police car. Who will write the ticket?

The Gozo landscape reminded us of Ireland. Do you agree?

Roberth after eating a pink icecream.

16.32 We have strolled through Victoria and made a short visit into neighbouring Fontana (about an inch). Now we are close to the bus station again and about to have some coffee at Café Molinari.

Victoria

16.52 I have just posted my postcards at the post office and we are about to start our journey home. The bus from Victoria to Mgarr is almost full. In the trees around the bus station there are hundreds of birds making a lot of noise.

17.26 We are seated on the ferry MV Gaudos once more. The dawn is coming and the water is splashing. Right now we are meeting another ferry.

18.38 We took another bus and bus line back home. We caught line 645 to Sliema. Now we are benchresting near the waterfront here.

This sign in Sliema shows what the Maltese language is like.

20.41 We checked the internet before we paraded down to the waterline. Now we have ordered dinner at Pomodoro. We are having oriental chicken, Parma pizza and ribs.

21.36 It was really delicious, three thumbs up. Now we are waiting for a bus that will go to Valletta.

22.08 I had hardly written the last thing before the bus came. Now we are back in the room for evening snacks.

Saturday 5th of January

07.41 We have woken up and outside the sun is out of bed. We are about to do the same. After that will follow shower and breakfast before we search for more views for us all and a pharmacy for poor Roberth. He started to feel ill yesterday and had a fever during the night. He seems to be recovering.

09.22 Roberth has bought some nose spray. Lets see if he has any use of it. He just tried it and claims it is strong stuff.

Roberth taking his medicine. Peter taking notes. Christer is the photographer.

09.46 We are sitting on bus 84 heading for Rabat. Roberth paid 50 cent and got 53 cent and a ticket in return, I wonder how they count here! The correct price is 47 cent. Malta switched from lira to Euro on the 1st of January and the ticket price on 0.20 lira suddenly became 0,47 Euro with new problems to follow, problems that left the passengers with loads of small change in return. When will the price be 50 cent? It would be a lot more easy.

10.38 We have reached Mdina ”the silent city” which is next to Rabat where the bus took us. We have among other things seen St Paul’s Cathedral and now we are resting by the city wall with an amazing view over northern Malta.

On our way to Mdina, the silent city

A view from Mdina. You can see the big church in Mosta and lots more too.

11.03 We walked around in Mdina and looked at a monastery for nuns and lots of narrow and cosy streets. Now we just sat down by a table at Fontanella Tea Garden. Here we have ordered pieces of cake and cappuccino. The view is as I mentioned amazing. This is the right way to spend a Saturday in January!

11.51 We are back by the main gate thinking about where we will go after this. Shall we catch a bus for more views, rest here or do something else?

12.26 We have walked over to Rabat and here we are looking at a church, St Paul´s Church.

12.55 I am sitting on a road railing looking up at Mdina. We are on the move by foot to watch a game of soccer that starts at 14.00. We can without any problems see the National Stadium in Ta´qali but how will we get there?

Maltese countryside in January.

13.36 We are inside the National Stadium. The man in the ticket counter asked if we had any ladies with us. They would have paid less for the ticket. After the tickets had been bought it followed some frisking and they took the cap of Roberth´s waterbottle. We are seated on the western side, section O, row 17 and seats 34-36. There will be a game between Sliema Wanderers and Floriana FC. Malta has few soccer grounds so there will be two games in a row here this afternoon. We will watch the first one.

14.24 Sliema just missed a penalty kick. The player slipped and ended up on his behind. This pleased the fans of Floriana. It is time for the first substitution.

15.41 After countless errors from both sides Floriana finally managed to score 1-0 through Ryan Darmanin. We are sitting among the Floriana fans so there is a lot of celebrating here.

Etienne Barbara missing a penalty for Sliema.

The second game, Marsaxlokk (blue) beat Birkirkara (yellow/red) 3-1.

Maltese soccer fans

15.55 Floriana won the game 1-0 and some parts of the crowd went home. The most of them remain seated and await the next match, Marsaxlokk vs Birkirkara. The scoreboard changed as the last match ended. We will not remain to see this match. We could have done that since our ticket that cost us 8 euros is valid for both games.

16.47 We had hardly left the stadium before Birkirkara scored 1-0. Now we are walking towards Mosta due to few buses in that direction. The big question is, where are we right now?

17.09 After walking along curved roads and streets passing a man who played with a radio transmitted car, we have reached Mosta and the big church, dome in town. It was hit by three bombs during the war. A bomb pierced the roof but failed to explode. It is a beautiful church built in limestone. Inside there is a mass. It is almost crowded. The flags in the town are at half-staff. We don’t know why.

The Mosta dome.

17.38 We´re sitting down at Pjazza Café overlooking the square with the church. We have ordered pizzas and kebab. Welldressed people are leaving the church. Some of them are entering the restaurant.

19.32 We finished our meals and went out to wait for a bus to Sliema. As the bus to Valletta came we took that instead. Now we are going with a new bus, number 64, on our way from Valletta to Paceville.

21.01 We got out of the bus in Paceville and have walked through neon and loud music. Quite a contrast to Mdina. This is the area for party and entertainment. We chose between another movie and bowling at Eden. We decided to walk through St Julians and now we´re resting on a bench in the beginning of Sliema. We are looking for a café.

21.39 We have stopped for beverages at Peppi’s in Sliema. On the TV they show the game in the FA cup between Ipswich and Portsmouth. It just turned 0-1 in this rerun. Soon we will start our final journey home to the hotel.

22.44 We have returned home. In the reception there was a little girl around 6-7 years old. We first thought that the receptionist had shrunk but the little one wondered if we could fetch our key on our own and so we did. The crime rate must be sky high since they use staff that´s hardly begun school. Malta sure has offered us some surprises. buses that lack or run with open doors, hordes of people queuing to the banks, banks with guards in bulletproof vests and other stuff. It is time to sleep.

Sunday 6th of January

07.11 We have slept. The time has come to start another journey home. Tomorrow we will be back at work. How will we be able to make it? The down side with travelling is the fact the ordinary days seems like a gray fog without and end.

08.30 Things are packed and we are ready to go. Now all we´ve got to do is check out and pay for the room before we head for the bus.

09.01 We are back on bus nr 8 again. The sun is shining and soon we will leave for the airport. The day of return is of course the sunniest and warmest.

09.59 We have reached the airport and checked in our luggage. The next to come is coffee and internet.

10.47 We, well Christer and I have had any early lunch. We had cheese- and ham sandwich and to drink the local soda Kinnie (http://www.kinnie.com). I wonder when we will be able to drink this delicious soda again.

11.20 We are in the line for gate 13. We just heard the first call. Will we be able to sit together?

11.36 We are sitting together on seats 22 D-F. We are leaving a sunny Malta to fly to, well we´ll see about that.

Ryanair is taking us away from Malta.

11.54 We have left Malta behind us but it remains in our memories and on our photos.

12.13 On our right we can see Etna on Sicily, the mountain that eluded us in 2004.

The southern coast of Sicily and the volcano Mount Etna.

15.31 We have touched down at Skavsta airport. The ground is covered in snow. We are currently rolling towards the terminal building. It is foggy, moist and some degrees above zero.

SWEDEN

16.34 We are on the airport bus that will take us to Stockholm. The train to Sundsvall leaves Stockholm in two hours. I hope we will onboard it then.

18.30 We have said good bye to Roberth who will catch the night train to Östersund. We are waiting for our train. The ordinary fast train X2000 has been replaced with a slower one that lacks a dining car and it is also delayed.

22.02 We are more than one hour behind of schedule. We are outside Söderhamn waiting for a meeting train. I am getting fed up with waiting.

23.40 We finally got to Sundsvall. Now all we got to do is to walk up to Christer´s place. He will get home and will have a car ride on one and a half hours ahead of me. Our friend Roberth will arrive in Östersund around 07.00 tomorrow morning. He will go straight to work. The three of us will be back as travellers on the 20 of March to visit Georgia and Armenia. We hope that you will be with us, as readers then, or will you join us?