Our day started with some very torrential downpours in Sliema. It rained really hard, causing some minor flooding in our neighborhood.
Our building is at the corner of College Street and Tower Road. College St. is downhill to Tower Rd. and the water came whooshing downhill causing quite a flood across Tower Rd.
Fortunately, the rain subsided a bit just as our cab came. We were able to get ourselves and our luggage into the cab without getting soaked.
We are sad to be leaving our little flat in Sliema, but we know that we will be back in a couple of weeks.
Upon arriving at the airport and during check in, we learned that because we booked our tickets through Expedia, the “cheap” tickets company, we did not pay for luggage. We were shocked to learn that we owed 80 euros per bag. Yikes!! And apparently, we’ll possibly have to pay this again on the return leg to Malta from Athens. These airlines get you coming and going with all the extra fees.
Our flight to Catania, Sicily took all of 30 minutes and the trip was uneventful, except for a little boy who screamed nearly the entire time from boarding until getting out of the bus from the plane to the airport in Catania. We wondered what caused him to seem so terrified of being on the plane. And boy, did he ever shriek.
We landed at Catania airport, retrieved of costly luggage, and made our way to the taxi stand. Our hotel is outside of Catania up the coast a bit and it cost 40 euros to get there. Passing by some of the buildings in Catania, we both were quite interested to be touring in the old town of Catania. It looked really cool. And Mt. Etna looms over the whole area. Hopefully I’ll get some pictures of that. Mt. Etna is an enormous mountain.
Our hotel is the Grand Hotel Baia Verde, and it is quite the “posh” place, as its advertising description says. It sits on the edge of the rocks overlooking the sea. After checking in and unpacking, we wandered around the facility. There is some big conference of orthopedists and trauma physicians being held here at the moment and much of the facility is geared up for their events. This place is very big, spread out across four or five 4 story buildings. But what we liked the best was the swimming area down the steps to the sea. We’ll definitely be going swimming there tomorrow.
After wandering around the facility, we walked up the street in search of a place to either have dinner or buy some food. We found a tiny little market along the street and bought cold cuts, cheese and tomatoes and a bottle of wine. We had a lovely dinner in our room enjoying the view and watching the dusk come upon us.
I think we’ll have a wonderful adventure in Sicily.