To Malta

On Wednesday, June 21^st, we had breakfast, said some more goodbyes, then went out for a last look at Catania.  We went to Via Crocifero to look at the Benedictine Monastery complex, but though it was after 10:00, when it was supposed to be open, according to Lonely Planet and the sign on the door, it was not.

We then went to the opera house, the Teatro Massimo Bellini, to find the place, across the piazza, that Giorgio had recommended for granitas, Comis Ice Café.  The recommendation was correct!  We sat across from the spectacular façade of the opera house.  Unfortunately, I had neglected to bring my camera.

We got back to the hotel by our check-out time of 11:30, to discover that our taxi was already there, half-an-hour early.  Combined with the facts that: 1) we had left an hour to get to the airport, in case of heavy traffic, but it took less than fifteen minutes; 2) we went quickly through security; and 3) our flight, and everyone elses’s, was delayed by problems with the airports air traffic control radar; we ended up spending a lot more time at the Catania airport than we had expected or wished to.  We got there too early to check our bags with Ryanair, so we had to wait around with no seating available in the pre-security area.

But finally we got off the ground, arriving in Malta in the early evening.  We caught the X4 bus into the center of Valletta, and had no trouble, with the help of Google Maps, finding Lloyd House, where we had an apartment up on the second (U.S. third) floor, with one of the little Maltese enclosed balconies, tangentially overlooking the Grand Harbor, with an even more tangential view of the Upper Barakka Gardens and the Saluting Battery.

Mary Joy was very tired and not feeling well (the beginnings of a cold), but we found our way to the Harbour Club, in the open air by the waterfront, where we had to wait for a table more than half-an-hour with a glass of very good Maltese chardonnay.  The wait was well worthwhile.