Malta – day 5: Gozo | alison richards | graphic designer and artworker

Before this trip, I had booked a boat trip that went to the Blue Lagoon and Gozo, but because the weather was so bad this kept getting postponed and I was finally forced to cancel it. I was supposed to be on this fancy yacht today, but instead I was on a big clunking ferry!

The whole day started off badly. I bought a ticket for the Hop On, Hop Off bus (only the second time in my life I've used one of these, and definitely the worse of the two), and paid extra to be picked up from Valletta and taken to the ferry port for Gozo, about an hour away. I got to Valletta early and wandered around for a while, so I was standing waiting at the pickup site well before I was to be picked up. I stood there for about an hour, tried calling them, and finally, a cab turned up. He was going to drop me off at another point so that the bus could then pick me up. And so I stood around there for about 30 minutes waiting. I almost gave up but then a minivan pulled up.

I had already missed the early ferry that I wanted to go on but I was finally at the ferry port. The next ferry was just about to leave so I ran for it and made it on. What a mess of a morning.

We sailed across the very choppy seas to dock in Gozo, where I picked up the Hop On, Hop Off bus. I'd originally planned to visit a few different locations but because of my late arrival, I could now only visit 2 places, as the buses were not that often and the last one was at 3:45pm, quite early and definitely too early to manage visiting more than one or two places. I got on and went to the open top, and we were off.

Early morning in Valletta. This is the very nicely designed New Parliament building, just inside the city walls

The first stop I visited was Dwejra at the coast. It was a really amazing place, with biiiiig cliffs nearby and caves and rockpools galore. There were people on boats exploring caves, people scuba diving and lots of activity happening. I was just happy to be in the natural surroundings, climbing over rocks and exploring. It started pouring down so I quickly threw on my waterproof jacket and kept looking around!

Beach huts nearby as I stood under shelter. It was pouring!

We got back on the bus. It was packed so I had to go to the top and sit down on the wet seats. It wasn't that bad, just a bit uncomfortable! I was going to take the one bus route back then change for the other. The bus paused at Ta'Pinu, however, which was really good as it gave me time to go out and have a look.... not much time, mind you, I didn't get to go inside. But the church itself was quite impressive. And yes, it was still pouring!

The church isn’t particularly old, having been built in 1920, but the site has had churches on it for hundreds of years.

The courtyard of this church was really lovely. The figure to the right isn’t a person but a sculpture.

We had to leave after about 10-15 minutes there so no peeking inside. But I caught the bus to the crossover point with the other line, then changed buses. This one was going along the other side of the island, and I got off at Ramla Beach. I'm not sure why I got off there, but there wasn't much time left and it seemed like a short, quick visit - some of the others were visiting museums or towns, which would take longer. It was a good thing I stopped off there though, as there was a beautiful rainbow over the beach.

Some accidentally Wes Anderson vibes here

I can think of many places that the Hop On, Hop Off bus neglected, but going to a vineyard is definitely up there. There were several in Gozo and I’d have definitely gone for a wine tasting.

The bus came and we all got on - it was the last bus for the day so that was it. Considering that Gozo was only a small island and I had skipped lunch in favour of seeing more of the place, the whole Hop On Hop Off thing was a bit of a let down. Not only did I not catch the early ferry because they didn't pick me up, but I didn't get there until gone 11am, meaning there was less than 5 hours to explore. So, take it from me, if you go to Gozo, hire a car on the island itself. It'll be much better.

It was time for the ferry back home, as the weather closed in once again.

This is the island of Comino, where the Blue Lagoon is located. You could just see it from the ferry, but couldn’t pick it up on my camera.

I was supposed to be picked up by the Hop On people to go back to Valletta, but I decided I would catch the public bus instead as they were too unreliable. I got back to Valletta at 7pm-ish. I decided to have dinner at this food market that I had seen the other day. There were so many delicious-looking places, and it became my favourite place in Malta and I ordered some noodles that were cooked to perfection, and got myself a glass of wine. It was finally a nice evening after all the rain, and I walked home past the fountain, which actually turned out looking pretty fabulous on my phone!