Notes from Malta

Notes from Malta, 30 years on, from the travelguru.tv blog:

As a child, Malta was our regular family holiday destination. My parents invested in a holiday apartment on the south of the island, well away from the main tourist resorts and we would spend a fortnight or more there every summer. Revisiting some 30 years later for a travelguru location shoot, I was curious to see how the island had changed…

My memories of the island are of boiling summer heat, swimming in crystal clear blue sea, chips with everything and, my annual holiday highlight, knickerbocker glories at the Wimpy in Sliema. As it happened on this trip, Sliema was to be our base. As we drove in from Luqa airport I barely recognised the place. This always was the main tourist hub and it still is but now it seems there is hardly a square inch of land left in between the tightly packed and chaotic jumble of buildings spilling down the hill onto the seafront promenade.

And alongside development comes more people, more cars, more noise. The development in fact extends right the way up the east coast of the island – St Julians, St Pauls Bay, Bugibba and Mellieha are now what brochures would refer to as ‘popular and lively’ resorts. All this development of course means much more choice when it comes to hotels, restaurants, bars, clubs and casinos but picturesque it is not!

But there again Malta always has been one of those places where you need to look beyond face values. There are some pretty spots to visit – the ancient city of Mdina for instance, the Upper Baracca gardens with its splendid views of Valletta harbour and the scenic tourist haunts like the Blue Grotto - but by and large people don’t come here for the scenery...