This morning I woke up in another country, the small island of Malta, which is in the Mediterranean Sea between Sicily and the African coast of Tunisia. I'm pleased to report that the weather is georgous, about 80 F (27 C).
Yesterday was the typical long travel day. I woke up Monday morning at 6:30 am at home, packed and then worked in Needham, MA until about 1:00. For once, my trip into Logan Airport was smooth, as the traffic was light and parking in the central lot near the international terminal E was available. Out flight left at about 5:00 pm, via Lufthansa to Frankfurt. I was pretty pleased with the service onboard. Dinner was served with real metal tableware (unlike any US flights), the food was not bad and the drinks (wine and cognac) were available at no charge and of good quality. Best of all, I had 2 open seats next to me and was able to lie down and relax in a state somewhere between wakefulness and dreamland during much of the flight. Consequently, I was a bit more rested than usual as we hit the ground in Frankfurt.
The Frankfurt airport is efficient, but lacks charm. Much to my surprise, smoking is permitted throughout the airport, which had a real negative effect on the air quality. My small party from Cantata, my company, quickly realized that waiting at the gate for 5 hours was not a great idea, so we repaired to a small cafe / bar called Goethe upstairs in the main terminal area. Here, at least, we were able to order breakfast. I had a Cafe Latte and croissant, which were both of reasonably good quality. We told stories to pass the time and the time passed by quickly.
On the flight to Malta, I was going on about 30 hours with limited sleep, so I quickly dozed off in my seat, only waking to take in a strictly average vegetarian lunch. After eating, I again slept, using an inflatable air pillow to make things a bit more comfortable.
My first impression of Malta was of heat and light. The temperature was at least 80 F and the light was very bright in mid-afternoon. My colleagues and I were taken via a shuttle bus through about 25 minutes of the Maltese cityside toward our hotel. The island is roughly 100 square miles, but somehow is home for about 450,000 people. Not surprisingly, it seemed as though every square inch is covered by apartments and row houses, most interconnected in a continuing mass of one to four story buildings. The color was mostly off white, reminding me more than a bit of the sandstone colored cities of Israel. Bear in mind that Malta is at a similar latitude as Israel and is much further south than the French Riviera; in this light, the dry warm desert style air is not too much of a surprise.
Malta has been settled for 7000 years, so there were many reminders as well of its ancient origins, as many of the walls and white brick edifi appeared to be hundreds of years old and in some cases, no doubt dates back even to Roman times. Our hotel is the Intercontinental in the city of St. Julien, which is a modern luxury hotel, that is parked amidst a busy area that includes a 4 story shopping mall, Hard Rock Cafe and the so-called "Sin City", a staircase which has a busy array of bars and cafes. Happily, we are also right by the water. The hotel maintains a beach and bar right by the water, so a group of us sat and sipped beers, while taking in the scenes that were about us. A picture of the beach follows here.
So, our afternoon was most pleasant, though I was still pretty tired from some 4500 miles of travel. Day moved into evening and our group had a rotating set of people who were in various stages of arrival to the island. Finally, at about 8:00, a group of us moved on and went looking for a good restaurant. Fortunately, a few of us had already been here for a couple days. They led us up the staircases of "Sin City", past the throng of cafes, and we continued on about 1/2 mile until we got to an area that had a series of restaurants that were built at multiple levels above yet another harbor. We walked down about three flghts of ancient stone steps until we reached the harbor level, which was paved with large cobblestones. We went literally through a couple of enticing restaurants, but finally found our destination at the last of them, which was sitting about 30 feet away from the nearest fishing boat. This harbor, St. Juliens was a real one, not just a beach, as there were many fishing boats tied up along the water. Across the water, we could see apartments, hotels and other restaurants on the far side of the water, about 100 yards away. The architecture here had a medieval feel to it. It was easy to imagine that the look and feel of the harbor had not changed much in the last 10 or even 20 centuries.
Our restaurant, Andante Allegro, had an outdoor eating area, set directly on the stones of the harborside, but protected by a bamboo canopy overhead. The menu was Italian in style, featuring a variety of pasta and seafood dishes. The service was leisurely but friendly.
A local Cabernet was suggested as our wine of the evening. I did the tasting and it was OK, but very young; nonetheless, it was a good complement for the food which followed. The meal began with a serving of Bruschetta, which was a good blend of fresh tomatoes and basil on toasted bread. Next, I had a spaghetti Puttanesca, which was nicely prepared with the requisite mix of olives, tomato and garlic, along with a hint of anchovy, over the spaghetti. This sated my appetite for a while, which was good, since I did not see my next course for at least an hour. By this time, I was in the strange state that one often feels when jet-lagged in a strange city; it was late, I was tired but still awake, I really wanted to move on, but the final dish had still not appeared. Finally, the last course did arrive, as several of us partook of the local seafood. In my case, I had a red snapper, which was delicately prepared and very good. The food had been worth the wait.
On the walk back, we re-traced our steps. In the late night, it was not always obvious which narrow road we should take, but we wound our way back to the cobblestones stairways that approached our hotel. The nightlife was loud but the passageways were not too busy. I returned to my room at about 11:45 and was soon fast asleep. My long day had finally come to a relaxing end.