'Amazing and laid back'

Big Papi from Ottawa, Canada, has kicked off his European tour by visiting Malta:

So I got a bit of vacation time, on top of my normal 4 days so I went to the tiny country of Malta....i'll wait while most of you go look for it on a map. (hint: it's south of Sicily) Anyway, I've met a few people working at the hostel who either were from there, or raved about their trip there. It has a little bit of everything, unique culture and history (they've been ruled by the Turks, English, Italians, French and Spanish), great climate (i ended up with a sunburn, how you guys doing in Canada? lol!), historical ruins, and beautiful natural sights. I wanted to go some place that wouldn't involve long hauls to check places out. Malta at it's widest point is like 13km....'nuff said!

Anyway, I was there for 6 days, most of the time I slept outside the capital city of Valletta, but I spent one night (a little cooler then I expected) under the stars by a beach in a pretty secluded area. I basically lost myself in the country. The homes and buildings for the most part looked a little like something you'd see in Morocco or Sicily, I suppose (but very well-kept). Tourism seems to be the biggest thing going, and some places are built up resort areas, which i tried to stay clear off.

I visted alot of the cities (Valletta, Midna, Rabat, Mostar, Naxxar, Silema, Paceville, etc) with beautiful Churches (and I thought Ireland was very Roman Catholic! Wow!!), incredible fortified cities, and just amazing landscape (Dingli Cliffs). The bus system was good, but often you'd have to wait a while and do all these crazy routes to get to a town only 3-4 km's away, so I walked alot, and hitch'd. Well, sorta. I'm not whether I was really lucky, but it seemed that whenever I would walk past a town limits, and along the highway, I wouldn't get very far before a car stopped offered me a lift to the next town. The people were amazing and laid-back.

I tried to take my time and see some off-beat things, one of which was the Island of Gozo, which I took a tour of. I guess I had something saying I was Canadian cause locals would come up and ask me about Canada, saying they had family there. Visited the salt pans (pools dug along the shore for sea water to gather, and then drying in the sun to get salt), the Azure Window - an incredible rock form in emerald coloured water, the beautiful town of Xlendi, which was in an incredible bay. Dunno what to say, I just loved the place - i don't think i could have picked a better place! I'll let the pics do the talking!