Our bus climbed up the final hill to the bus depot and we were deposited in a confusing moil of tourism that did not help my disorientation. Busses were everywhere, people were everywhere and I was just trying to get out of the tangle and toward the city itself without losing my wife in the process.

Finally, we reached the City Gate and I was able to get my bearings, calm down, take a couple of pictures, and figure out what the heck to do next. What we decided was to go through the City Gate and enter Valletta. On the whole, this should have been much more obvious at the time.

The problem here is that I knew nothing about Valletta, did not know my way around and wasn't even clear on what I was looking for. I knew of a couple of places, and that was about it. I had not studied by guidebook very well, which means that I was as lost as Chris, who was not in charge of planning any honeymoons. So we wandered down a side street that provided immediate and merciful relief from the crowds and we sat down for a mineral water and a Kinnie.

On Maltese Soft Drinks

During our travels, we had come across mineral water in a few places and we both discovered that it was actually pretty good. And during my reading about Malta, I read about Kinnie, which was described as a citrusy soda drink, which sounded weird enough that I needed to have some. This being the first opportunity for me to sip said concoction, I was eager to have a go. It reminded me of slightly diluted, carbonated grapefruit juice; supposing that the grapefruit juice was diluted with lemonade and orange juice. On the whole, it was pretty good, if you don't mind citrusy drinks that taste nothing like Orange Crush.

Chris's opinion on this particular drink was... erm... less enthusiastic.

As we sat sipping our respective flavors of water, we reviewed our travel book and its recommendations on how to see the city. We were working with Lonely Planet's guide to Malta & Gozo and it proved to be a very good resource. Except for some of the maps, which sucked. Particularly those showing the Paceville area, which made it difficult to find the bus stop earlier in the day.

Valletta City Gate The second picture I took on the trip.	This view available only with a Kinnie. No, I don't know who that guy is.

Lonely Planet recommended that we begin at a set of smelly, disgusting stairs just inside the City Gate, head up to the top of the wall to see the view from the front of Valletta, then continue on around the city in a big circle back to where we started. We, however, wanted to see more of the city than just its circumference, so we put together a rough plan to start out along Lonely Planet's route, then work inwards to see the sights we wanted. And Valletta, being a small city by anyone's standards, should be fairly doable in a day.

The Adventure Begins

The travel guide was not exaggerating, the stairs were disgusting. I don't know if it was being used as an outhouse by the locals or if the stairwell was the exhaust stack for an underground sewage treatment plant, but the stench was making my eyes water. Chris was so disgusted she held her nose to keep out the fetid air and many of the tourists coming down the stairs were doing the same. I've smelled outhouses more wholesome than that pit. So it was not without great relief that we finally came out the top and into the fresh air.

Exiting the chamber pot of terror, we arrived at the top of the City Gate and looked out into the expanse of Malta spread out into the distance. The familiar beige rock and familiar beige buildings stretched into every beige distance and beige direction, punctuated by beige spires, beige towers and beige turrets that marked some beige church or beige castle or beige grand home from beige days gone by. But for all that beige, it was an impressive sight that hearkened to pictures I've seen of places like Casablanca, Algiers or Tunis. Or Tatooine for that matter.

Looking west from atop the city gate of Valletta. It looks much bigger in person.

Or was it really like a North African city? Malta is not an uncommon spot for filming movies, so it may very well be that I saw a movie whose setting was Casablanca, Algiers or Tunis, but the movie itself may have been filmed in Malta. Thus, I may be thinking of a movie set in Malta that looks a whole hell of a lot better than the actual city it's supposed to be.

Taking in the Sights

From our panoramic view of the city, I and my wife admired the walltop garden on offer and strolled through the olive trees and, erm, other plants that were there. I assume that it was a good design, but I think Chris can shed a little more light on its elements. But I do remember that it had olive trees. Definitely olive trees. And it was definitely the most green we saw in Valletta.

Probably the Church of Saint Something-or-Another

We continued our tour of the outer extent of Valletta until we had gotten about a quarter of the way around the outer rim of the city (in about 15-20 minutes of slow walking, I might add) when Chris pointed out that we had yet to get into the interior of the city and actually see the stuff we were supposed to see. Realizing that my wife was correct in this, we turned our tracks into the city itself.

We quickly located a rather attractive, roundish church whose name I'm still not clear on, and we provided the padre at the door a donation for our admittance. It was quite different from some of the churches we would visit later, but we were not the least bit aware of this at the time. Instead, we were happy to walk around the circumference of a church located almost entirely under one large dome and enjoy the open, airy feel of its brightly lit interior details. It was not singularly remarkable, but it was pleasant and entirely enjoyable. Then, after the brief exploration to be had there, we completed our walk around its walls and exited to find other sights.