{"id":12606,"date":"2018-08-04T11:22:00","date_gmt":"2018-08-04T11:22:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/michaelandpamstravels.com\/?p=12606"},"modified":"2019-05-27T16:52:52","modified_gmt":"2019-05-27T06:52:52","slug":"the-maltese-crossing-malta-2018","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/michaelandpamstravels.com\/?p=12606","title":{"rendered":"The Maltese Crossing, Malta 2018 \ud83c\uddf2\ud83c\uddf9"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Date:  3rd August 2018<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Travelled:  By Virtu Ferry from Pozzallo, Sicily to Valletta, Malta. \u20ac620 return (Hymer and 2 persons)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Visited:  The Marfa Peninsula (northern Malta)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stayed:  Camping Malta, \u20ac21.50 per day, all the services in a Maltese sort of way.  N35.99484, E14.36686<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

We enjoyed a quiet evening in the sosta in Pozzallo with one other motorhome, they are on the ferry to Malta tomorrow as well.  The proprietor seemed to be a bit moody, mind you he wanted \u20ac25 per night and I thought that was too much and I told him so.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anyway we service the Hymer and drive down to the port and go through the check-in process.  There is a huge military and police presents in Pozzallo, a couple of navy patrol boats are in the port.  We see many young men of African appearence wandering about, thinking perhaps Pozzallo is a processing place for immigrants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Departing Sicily, the ferry turns south past the breakwall and the Captain throttles up.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The Virtu ferry arrives and discharges it\u2019s cargo of trucks, cars and people, many more than is waiting on the dock to depart.  We roll on, apply the hand brake and lock up.  No one asks for the LPG system to be isolated, so we don\u2019t.  The ferry is a large catamaran and once we depart the throttles open and this ferry is fast.  Just less than 2 hours later we are slowing to enter Valletta harbour.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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We enter Valletta Harbour. On these big oceangoing catamarans there is no open deck on the front or sides, only the rear. So a decent photo is impossible. Drivers are called to their vehicles, so the adventure begins.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Malta is not normally a motorhome destination, but we spent a day in Valletta several years ago and loved the place.  Since then we have often thought of about visiting Malta again.  As we are touring nearby Sicily we thought let\u2019s look at the options.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Option 1.  Take the ferry, stay in a BB for a few days (it\u2019s peak season), hire a car and do some travelling about.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Option 2.  Take the ferry with the Hymer, find a campsite and use the scooter to get around.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We think we can do 8-9 days here in the Hymer for less than taking \u2018Option 1 for 3 days.  Mind you finding a place to park in Malta is a challange in itself.  There are no aires or sostas in Malta in fact there is only one campsite and that\u2019s on the Marfa Peninsula in north-west Malta.  Convenient for visiting the north-west and Gozo, but 45 minutes back to Valletta.  There are a couple of Scouting campsites in south-west Malta and we may try one of those if need be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So we roll out of the port…taking the signs for Gozo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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After 6 weeks driving on the right hand side of the road, where back on the left side again. Wasn\u2019t a shock as we knew from reading the Lonely Planet (an hour ago). Despite the roadworks here the main roads seem pretty good.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Valletta seems large but soon enough we are in the countryside. At first glance Malta makes Sicily look green.  Just an aside, fuel is significantly cheaper in Malta \u20ac1.23 for deisel !  Apparently the government set the fuel prices monthly.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n
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The ancient walled city of Mdina passes on our left, we will visit here later in the week.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n
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As we get closer to the coast, we see more development around the bays but mostly low rise apartments.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n
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The last kilometre down to Ahrax Point and Camping Malta this is possibly the worst road I have driven on.  I may be exaggerating, but it definitely in the top 3 worst.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Our parking spot outside Camping Malta.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Vince is the proprietor of Camping Malta.  We have emailed back and forth over a couple of weeks and when we arrive I introduce myself and refer to our emails.  He is something of a character it seems, he walks outside onto the street and tells me this is our spot.  Obviously I\u2019m a little dismayed.  He leans over and says \u2018it\u2019s much better out here, they are packed in like sardines and Maltese people are noisy, trust me\u2019.  There is a lovely english couple in the caravan behind us, they agree with Vince.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So we settle in, the electricity is connected, there is a tap a few metres away and we can use the facilities inside if we wish.  He gives us a tressle table to use.  It\u2019s the end of the road, so there is no real traffic.  Best to just go with the flow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The view from the other side of the Hymer. This rocky little cove is a great swimming spot with Comino Island and Gozo views across the bay.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n
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I have been replaced as Pam\u2019s best friend…<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Postscript: As I publish this blog we have been here a couple of days and we like it here, other than the road from hell which is no better on the scooter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Michael and Pam <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Edited with BlogPad Pro<\/span>
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Date:  3rd August 2018 Travelled:  By Virtu Ferry from Pozzallo, Sicily to Valletta, Malta. \u20ac620 return (Hymer and 2 persons) Visited:  The Marfa Peninsula (northern Malta) Stayed:  Camping Malta, \u20ac21.50 per day, all the services in a Maltese sort of way.  N35.99484, E14.36686 We enjoyed a quiet evening in the sosta in Pozzallo with one […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":12635,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[78],"class_list":{"0":"post-12606","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-malta","8":"tag-ferries-trains","9":"czr-hentry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelandpamstravels.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12606","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelandpamstravels.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelandpamstravels.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelandpamstravels.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelandpamstravels.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12606"}],"version-history":[{"count":23,"href":"https:\/\/michaelandpamstravels.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12606\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23016,"href":"https:\/\/michaelandpamstravels.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12606\/revisions\/23016"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelandpamstravels.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/12635"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelandpamstravels.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12606"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelandpamstravels.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12606"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelandpamstravels.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12606"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}