Pisa's airport is pretty small, though not as small as Florence's, so it didn't take long to make it through the lines and security. For an incredible description of our flight and the rest of the trip you should read Sarah's blog (if you haven't already) which has a link on the left. We tried our best to make this a pirate themed weekend (for no good reason, as Malta is not known for its pirate history), and Sarah's recounting follows the theme. I won't be writing with a pirate accent because I jut can't pull it off, but here are some pictures of the proceedings.
This shot from the plane is not of Malta but a spot along the west coast of Italy. I found it on the map. It is Punta Ala, which is close to nothing. It is almost 20 miles west of Grosseto which is almost 90 miles west of Spoleto, which is about 50 miles north of Rome and was once the seat of a Lombard duke. Moving on...
I took the middle seat on the plane, with Sarah takng the window seat. I watched the other passengers file in, wondering who would take the spot next to me. A couple of decent applicants walked by but took other seats. One tiny person even teased me by puting her bag in the compartment above my head then sitting somewhere else. Then, of all the seats, in all the Pisa to Malta planes in the sky, he had to sit next to me. His name was Jimmy. He was from Scotland but now lives in Malta. He is a truckdriver on the continent, spending his free time at his island home. He is very friendly, very loud, he spits when he talks, and he seemed to like me. A lot. So we chatted for most of the trip. He ate and drank. The more he drank, the more he spit. The more he ate, the larger the chunks that were flying onto my arm. I suppressed my disgust and denied my urges to jerk my arm out of the way. I was pleasant and talkative, but the first thing I did when we got into the terminal was wash my arm. So...that was fun.
Jimmy was right about the cabs though. But we had no choice. We had no idea how else to get to our hotel, so we took one. Two actually, because they wouldn't stuff us into one. It wasn't cheap, but it wasn't as bad as Jimmy's third or fourth predicted price.
We didn't do much that day. We kind of explored the area, ate dinner, shopped, and of course we checked out the water. Above is one of the rocky "beaches" that was cool but actually kind of dangerous. People were not following the rules of "keep clean the pool". There was trash everywhere. Quite unfortunate. It reminded me of Daytona Beach right after all the spring breakers leave.
On Sunday we decided to spend the day on Malta's second island of Gozo. We got to experience the Maltese buses, which will be shown in later pictures, and just missed a ferry to Gozo. So we had to wait around for a while before we could get on the next one. Above is a picture of the interior of one of the ferries. People and cars were herded into the same entrance. Luckily the people were allowed to go above to the upper decks. The poor cars had to stay below like common animals.
Our first view of Gozo. It's really not the far. We weren't far from Malta when I took this.
I think that the box-like building on the right (on the island of Comino, between Malta and Gozo) might be a watchtower. Or not. I didn't study enough before we left for this trip.
GOZO! A hub of transportation!
We are entering Mgarr Harbour. This name provided us with hours of fun. First of all, some of the grad students (Sarah included) enjoy using the term "magar" which is close to the Italian word for perhaps. So when they found out that we would be going to a city with this name they were estatic. Especially because, due to the pirate theme, they would pronounce it as Mgarrrrr. You had to be there.
We were going to explore this tiny town for a bit, but Joey the cab driver told us that there was nothing to see here and that even the church was closed. He then told us where he would take us. We were powerless to resist.
Here is my only shot of the elusive Joey. He drove us up here for the view and for Calypso's Cave. He then told us that it was pointless to go down into the cave because it was too dark to see anything. Then he herded us back into the cab and off to the next location.
Sarah and Lara overlook the beautiful Mediterranean.
The Gozitan countryside.
Here's Calypso's Cave. Gozo's nicknam is the Isle of Calypso because it is rumored to be the island controlled by Calypso in the Odyssey. But we will never know because Joey wouldn't let us.
Ancient stuctures were not built for those six foot tall and above. Especially when they have poofy hair.
Malta and Gozo are home to a number of ancient structures. We explored the most famous one called the Ggantija Temples, purported to be the oldest free-standing structure in the world. The temples were built over 5500 years ago. Apparently to be called free-standing they neglected to mention the structure on the right of the picture.
They are also supposed to be the oldest religious structures in the world. Here are the remains of an altar.
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