A few months ago Christine said she wanted to go back to Malta. While she was thinking of Malta, I was pouring over the Roads Scholar catalog reading about the many trips advertised. I don’t know why, but something about Seville, Spain caught my eye. After pondering over both our desires, we decided to do both, with a visit to Rome also added to the itinerary.
I spent quite a while researching and planning this winter and I put together what I think will be a wonderful trip. We’ll start in Malta, then go to Rome, then hop over to Madrid and then on to Seville for our Roads Scholar course. The trip will be four weeks. So come along on this, our next adventure!
My brother Grant picked us up the morning of April 17 and dropped us off at the bus station in Binghamton. We took the bus to Port Authority in New York City. We made our way to the 8th Ave./42nd Street subway entrance. This was not an easy 2 block hike. We managed to pack just a carry on suitcase each, but then proceeded to fill up a hand luggage bag that each weighed nearly 20 pounds. So we were loaded down. But, we did manage to get to the subway schlepping our luggage down the stairs to the subway platform. The next challenge was getting through the turnstile with the luggage. It was one of those metal circular cage things and the space wasn’t really enough for a body, a suitcase, and hand luggage. I burned up 4 swipes of our MetroCard to get through the turnstile. We got on the E subway, which was another challenge. The car was very full with no available seats. Several very nice people helped hold our suitcases from rolling down the car while we tried to keep from falling over. Eventually, two people got off and a nice man protected the vacant seats until we could get seated. We had help from a woman keeping our hand luggage from toppling off our suitcases. It was actually pretty funny – two old ladies heavy laden trying to deal with ourselves and our luggage. Everyone was very helpful, and quite cheery about helping, as well.
We got off the subway at Sutphin Ave. and walked a short distance to the JFK AirTrain, and then managed to get to Terminal 4 without much trouble. After all this, we needed a sit down, but finding chairs in the cavernous Departures terminal was challenging. Christine finally asked someone where there was a seating area and we were told where to look. Thankfully, we were able to sit down and rest for a while.
We boarded our flight to London Heathrow without difficulty. Departure was delayed about an hour and I was sweating bullets because we only had two-and-a-half hours in London to make our connection. So the later we were leaving JFK, the more I feared we’d miss our connection. The flight was uneventful, although, we didn’t sleep much. The pilot made up some time and we landed just a little later than the ETA. I thought we were going to take a train to transfer from Terminal 3 to Terminal 4, but after walking what seemed like 4 miles down very long hallways following signs to Connecting Flights, we found ourselves at a bus stop. This worked out great! There were only 4 people on the bus and we transferred to Terminal 4 in about 20 minutes, and so all my fretting about missing our connection was all for naught as we arrived at our gate about an hour early.
Our flight to Malta was uneventful, but we were delayed by about an hour departing from London. We were flying KM Malta Airlines, a new airline that started April 1, taking the place of Air Malta. I had read in the Times of Malta of a concern that the airline would not require their staff to speak Maltese, but all of the announcements were first in Maltese, and then in English. Maltese is a really interesting language, a smash up of Italian and Arabic.
We then landed in Malta and we were both very happy to be in lovely Malta again. Getting off the plane was a trial for me because as we were deplaning, Christine was having trouble getting herself and her luggage down the center aisle of the plane. When I passed by the crew at the doorway, I asked whether someone could help her. I went down the exterior steps (no jetway at Luqa Airport) and waited at the bottom. Several minutes later, Christine hadn’t come down the stairs yet. I went back up into the plane looking for her and the crew said that everyone had left the plane and that Christine had gone down the stairs. Well, she hadn’t, so I was concerned. Crew waved me into the terminal and I was waiting near the immigration desk. A staff person came over to ask if he could help me. I explained about Christine. He suggested that maybe she was coming in the wheelchair contingent of passengers. Before long, a lift vehicle arrived. This vehicle is one that has a platform that raises up to the level of the airplane and allows wheelchair passengers to get on and off the plane. And there was Christine getting off the vehicle. I was very happy to see her!
We then took a taxi into Sliema. Our Airbnb host said he’d be waiting for us. It was lovely to see so many familiar things driving from the airport into Sliema. The address of our Airbnb was listed as 240 Tower Road. The place we have always stayed was 264 Tower Road, so when we discovered that place wasn’t available, we looked for one in the same neighborhood. We were standing outside 240 for quite a while. Eventually, a young woman arrived and told us that we needed to go around the corner to a different building. Our building is Howard Flats and it’s not on Tower Road at all. But fortunately, the Airbnb photos were accurate. This is our view from our 7th floor balcony.
We settled in at our one bedroom apartment and then walked over to Peppi’s Restaurant (one of our favorites) to meet Christine’s 2nd cousin Carol Farrugia and her daughter Francesca. It was nice to catch up with Francesca because she and her husband are leaving for a motorbike tour of France and Italy so this was the only opportunity to see her. Like dumbbells, neither of us thought to get a photo, although we had planned to do so, but the conversations were so interesting, that we forgot. Carol and Francesca had drinks with us. After they left, Christine and I ordered dinner and enjoyed a salmon salad and a seafood starter that had great mussels, shrimp and clams.
So, by now, it’s 9:00 in the evening. Malta is 6 hours ahead of home, so that means that we had been traveling for more than 24 hours and had been awake for about 36 hours. I was absolutely exhausted and spent no time at all getting into bed. But, we did enjoy the view from our balcony for a few minutes.
Tomorrow will be a day of rest. The weather forecast is for high winds tomorrow so we aren’t planning anything.
I’ll be following along. It sounds like great planning as usual and a wonderful itinerary. Jeanne