Europe trip: Malta (1/2) - so tiny, yet so much to see! With farmor and farfar!!!

We left Italy behind us and took the ferry over to Malta. It was only 1h45min trip but a very expensive one (500EUR round trip!!). Anyways, it was a nice ride and we were all so excited to see Malta. And... farmor and farfar would join us!!! 

Some fun facts about Malta. It is the 8th dense country in the world. It is a tiny tiny country. The big island of Malta is twice as big as Fårö (where mormor and morfar live), and Gozo, the small island is half the size of Fårö. That means that Malta is 2,5 times bigger than Fårö. Population of Malta is almost 450.000 and Fårö is around 500.

The first week on Malta we spent on the small island, Gozo. Farmor and farfar would arrive two days after us. Our house was in one of the small towns called Il-Qala.

Day 57: Car ride and two ferries from Cecily, Italy to Gozo, Malta

On the ferry between Italy and Malta

 

Day 58: Work and School day - enjoying our house

The view from the living room/kitchen

Lego is one of the best toys for us to bring on a trip

"Our" house from the outside

 

Day 59: Sanap cliffs

Our first excursion on Gozo went to the Sanap cliffs. Sooooo amazing and a little scary :-) Driving there was half of the adventure. The road had a wall on each side and our car almost did not fit.

Driving to the Sanap cliffs...

A small wall kept cars from driving over the edge...

Can you see Alex and Rafael?

It is not as bad as it looks :-)

Bad weather is coming our way...

Family pic before the rain

 

Day 60: Farmor and farfar coming!!!

 

Day 61: Exploring the Citadel in Victoria and visiting Salt pans

At the citadel

View from the top

We found a baby sitter at the citadel! ;-)

Lunch at the citadel. It was a little chili but had a beautiful view!

Cathedral of the Assumption

After the citadel we headed to see some of the salt pans on the island. On the opposite side of the road from the salt pans were sand looking cliffs. In some places there are cave looking holes and some of them seems to be homes to people.

The salt pans. Some of them are still in use

Inside one of the "caves"

"Cave" from the outside

Day 62: Visited a Canadian couple in Xlendi

We had met a nice couple from Canada at a church in Malta and we went to see them in Xlendi, where they were staying. They took us for a nice walk.

In the bay by Xlendi. Unfortunately, we had not brought any swim wear :-(

A bridge built by the Knights of Malta in the 15-hundred (I think)

More salt pans

View from where our house was located

Marlee picked me some flowers while we went a sunset walk

Day 63: Marlee was sick and stayed home with me, the rest went exploring St John the Baptist's rotunda church (possible one of the churches with the longest name :-)

St John the Baptist's Rotunda Church

Day 64: Blue Hole, shopping and playground

Marlee was feeling better and we headed out to see the Blue hole and Azur window. Little did we know that the Azur window did not exist anymore...

<3

The rocks by the blue hole was really cool. Reminded me a little of the "rauks" on Fårö

We decided to take a boat trip to see the Azur window...

This is where the Azur window used to be, until a storm took it away in March 2017

Before it fell (Photo By Felix König - Own work, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=25984939)

The boat driver took us into some smaller caves in the cliffs

Back to the little harbor

Found a great playground in Victoria. After all playgrounds are what the boys love :-)

Day 65: Time to leave Gozo and move to the big island

Since we could not all fit in the car with all the bags some of us walked down to the ferry that would take us to the big island. It was a very nice walk with a beautiful view of the harbor in Mgarr.

Our last view of Gozo...

Bye Gozo Hello Malta island!!!