05/17/2022: Sliema (3)

Today we decided to wander around what one could call the big hotel district. The water we see out our balcony is St. Julian’s Bay. To the left of us are smaller bays, Balluta, Spinola, St. George’s. The Sliema promenade goes along the water’s edge to Spinola, which is in the town of St. Julian’s, and then the area known as Paceville is up the hill and goes down to St. Geoge’s Bay. Paceville is the party district where all the young people hang out. It gets very rowdy at night. We definitely avoid that area. The nice, big hotels are out towards the Dragonara Casino and around the swanky Portomaso community. That’s where we headed.

Little Balluta Bay is picturesque with the big church there. Also, there is a very famous, big apartment building that had its heyday in the 1920s and 30s.

Along the promenade are many restaurants and a very nice swimming pool. As we passed by we watched a swimming lessons for about 10 squealing little girls. They were having so much fun kicking and blowing bubbles.

Spinola Bay has a small active boatyard and there are lots of boats moored here. It’s especially beautiful at night as there are many restaurants with lights reflecting in the water. And you see luzzus.

We were happy to see that we could enter a small garden area in front of the previously blocked off Spinola Palace. The original building was built by one of the Knights of Malta in 1688. There was nothing around it when built and it served as a summer retreat and a hunting lodge. The building was turned into a military hospital and continued in service until the early 1900s. The government has some plans for the building and so there has been some renovation done. It is one of the few historic building still standing in this section of St. Julian’s and Paceville.

While we were walking an old Malta bus went by. When we were here in 1985, this was the only bus around. They are quite nostalgic and there are some still around but now only used as specialty buses.

We walked over to the Hilton. On our way we were taking some photos of the building next to the Portomaso Tower that I think looks like the back of a ship. A nice lady asked if we wanted our picture taken, so here it is.

We had a cappuccino at the Hilton sitting on a terrace overlooking the pool. It was so quiet there! We agreed that maybe we should give up our little, noisy Airbnb and stay at the Hilton. They have several nice pools, but the downside is they don’t seem to have very good access to swimming in the sea.

We then wandered around the Portomaso marina and walked out to and around the sea wall. Poromaso is a very nice facility, definitely the high rent district. After paying a gazillion dollars to buy a condo there, the yacht club probably charges you a gazillion dollars to take care of your yacht. I guess if you have both the condo and the yacht, money is no object.

We then walked out to the Dragonara Casino. It’s on a little peninsula sticking out into the bay. The palace was built in 1870 as a summer residence for the Scicluna family. It opened as a casino in 1964. When we were here in 2016 we actually got players cards entitling entry and wandered around inside. Once was enough in the casino, a dark, dreary place that had red velvet everything. It does have a lovely restaurant that is just inside the rows of columns down the right side, so that is bright and airy.

We then walked over to the Westin for a drink. The Westin has doubled in size since 2016. It’s a nice property, too, with a pool. The good thing about the Westin is that it does have a deck access to the sea and a nice area for sea swimming.

Our final trek was to St. George’s Bay. I think Christine really wanted to get to the Corinthia Hotel, but I didn’t have it in me to do that. We did walk past the end of St. George’s Bay where there is a beach. The beach clubs catering to youngsters blare loud music and everyone has a drink in their hands.

That was a lot of walking and by now, I was ready to go back to the apartment. We hopped on a bus and were back home in short order. I took a nap. And for dinner we walked back over to Spinola Bay and had dinner at Raffael’s, one of our favorite Maltese restaurants. Christine had timpana, a baked macaroni dish her mother made so she was happy. I ate kind of light because I’m not 100% yet.

So a day of exploring and seeing familiar things and finding some new things.

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