The Maltese Falcon

I saw the movie years ago with headliner Humphrey Bogart ... the Maltese Falcon. So I was fairly excited to get the actual chance to visit Malta. I did a bit or fesearch and was hoping to see things such as 16th century forts:






Catacombs from the time of St. Paul:

Or neolithic temples:

I became suspicious about things in general when we taxied past the sign that pointed to Valletta. You see, our exec asst who is supposed to handle overseas travel is leaving our group and sat on my conference registration until the conference hotel was booked out. I had to use corporate travel to find a hotel in the accepted price range and I ended up in the Intercontinental, not a bad hotel, not in Valletta, but in St. Juliens, about 10 km away by street driving.

Not to be deterred, I arrived and settled in around 4 PM and then struck out "zum fuss" to explore my corner of Malta. The short walk started with a quick right hand turn at the end of the hotel and up the stairs for a few hundred yards past mostly small pub-style bars and light eating establishments. I headed toward the waterfront where I was told there was a "boardwalk" that rings the city. The view was nice, but the walkway was cut off by construction. I doubled back a bit and worked through a main street that had shops and housing, all in a state of disrepair. It looked pathetic in many ways, especially with the number of buildings missing walls or with peeling plaster or rust stains all over the railings. It could have been pretty. After awhile I thought that a lot of the general decay could look much better with just a coat of paint, as attested to by the occasional dwelling that had been painted.

As I turned one corner, there was a very modern shopping mall, not of the type we see in the burbs, but one more suited to a city without much space. Moving on, there was a fantastically beautiful private condo surrounding a small harbor with a sea wall. There were many really upscale restaurants there.

Continuing my journey around the edge of the water, the "boardwalk" came and went as some portions were blocked by private property and other parts ran out of space due to streets. A second harbor contained a lot of private boats, many for pleasure or fishing. The fishing boats are brightly painted with intricate designs. One peculiar feature, that I must find the origin of, is the fishing boats all have human eyes on the port and starboard sides of the bow. These boats look at you.

I went on a bit further and decided that the path I travelled looked seedy enough that I should return before dark. Hunger finally hit and I decided to try the fancy condo area as the restaurants have outside seating overlooking the small harbor. It was the right choice for one dining alone. There were 8 restaurants on four levels, split by the wide stairs that decended to the harbor. The choices were: Japanese, Mediterranean, Italian, Chinese, steakhouse, Brazilian churrascaria, Italian fusion, and a second Mediterranean. Most of the menus looked too heavy for me. I light to eat light on the first day of adapting to time zone blitz. The Chinese place was very upscale so that is where I went. Awsome hot and sour soup, really nice chicken and beef satay, and a wonderful spicy shrimp dish loaded with fresh vegetables.

So, it was now about 9:30 PM, clearly dark and I had to walk the seedy path. Surprisingly, there were many walkers about and this gave me some solace. As I turned down the final street toward my hotel, about two blocks ahead of the stairs, I found out that I was in the middle of the club district (which had looked so seedy at 5 PM when everything was closed). Lots of music and young people and water pipes set up outside. Now I could also see that very near my hotel were two very lit up casinos. Now I know why people come here.

Back to the hotel to catch up on a few e-mails and get some sleep.

This morning I awoke to what I thought was watering of the many palms outside my hotel room, but it turned out to be a heavy rain shower. Great, I had only yesterday afternoon and this morning to do any sightseeing ... hope the rain abates, my conference starts in 5 hours.