Travelfood

Malta is a sunny Mediterranean island and its white soil and rocks make house facades shine in the daylight. The many cathedrals of capital Valletta make the city look devout and exotic but on the other hand, the English language make the island feel much closer than many other Mediterranean destinations. Although the island is small, Valletta is wide-spread and for example the hotel area St Julians is far from the old city center. The bus network is large and we travelled by public bus to inland Mdina, Rabat and the white Dingli Cliffs.

Maltese food is truly tasty. In October white-meat lampuki fish is common in restaurants and especially with lemon-butter sauce it is delicious. We also tasted rabbit in red wine-garlic sauce, bragoli meat rolls and a rustic pork sauce with peas. Timpana is a local macaroni casserole and that was delicious as well!

From Valletta it is easy to go on a day trip by hydrofoil to Sicily. We arrived to Pozzallo in southern Sicily from where we had organized bus transportation to incredibly beautiful Taormina on a steep mountainside. From there the bus climbed even higher, to the heights of volcano Etna, where the environment, temperature and vegetation was completely different compared to the other parts of the island.

It is apparent that Malta earns a lot from travel, but the island still feels very different from other typical Mediterranean travel destinations. As a tourist you feel welcome among the locals although the tourist has a very different role compared with the locals. Tourists are not centered to travel service concentrations as in other places. Malta could be a model for other tourist places where you want to build a society of locals, who receive their income from tourists without treating them as cash-cows for tourist money.

Europe, food, Italy, Malta, Sicily, travel, travel experiences