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You are supposed to go to Malta for the history. Its location in the Mediterranean (south of Italy) led many countries to fight over it for centuries, all the way up to and including World War II. (Modern technology has made its location less important.) But for us, history has its limitations. So we didn't visit the temple ruins which are older than the Egyptian pyramids. We stuck around the capital, Valetta, which has a wonderful fortified harbor, visited its museums, took a boat tour around the island to check out the beaches, then took a hotel at one of the few sand beaches on the island.
Our hotel in Valetta was easy walking distance to the Grand Harbor (left and center). Valetta's streets are narrow and picturesque (right).
We took a tour around Malta to check out the beaches (not too many sand beaches). From the small beach shown on the left you can see the other islands that make up the nation of Malta (Comino and Gozo). Only Malta is inhabited year round and it is almost entirely apartments, homes, hotels, condos and restaurants supporting the tourist business. They have already run out of water --- they have built desalinization plants to extract fresh water from sea water --- and they are fast running out of land. And by the way, the Maltese falcon is extinct --- shooting birds is a favorite sport.
The high point of our excursion to Malta was actually a day trip to Sicily. We took a ferry in the morning, spent all day on a bus, and returned late in the evening. The bus tour stopped at Mt. Etna (left picture) and at Taormina (center and right).
