Malta: The Plague Trip

So, this is a story of my ill-fated short holiday to Malta. The first question we have to consider is, why have a holiday in Malta? And in March? 

Well, I’ve never been to Malta and its one of the few countries on my list of places that my father visited while on military service that I have not yet visited. The only one left now is Pakistan, but I don’t see me making a trip up the Khyber pass to the Afghan border any time soon. My father served in the Second Battalion of the South Wales Borderers. While they were returning from their five years of garrison duty in India, they were diverted, remember that this was 1935 and they were travelling on a Troop Ship via the Suez Canal,  to Malta, as we were expecting a possible war with Mussolini’s Italy over their annexation of Ethiopia. 

So my father and his mates were stuck in Malta with nothing to do for the best part of a year. In the end the unpleasantness with the Italians came to nothing but rather than sending them home they ended up in Palestine, keeping the Jewish settlers and the Arab majority away from each other. Both the settlers and the Arabs were friendly and shared their meagre resources with the soldiers. However after dark either or both groups were capable of shooting at the British soldiers.

So that was one reason why felt it would be a good thing to visit Malta. And so, when my doctor gave me the okay to renew my restless wanderings and I need a place without language issues and without the bitingly cold weather that early March brings to many of the most attractive part of Europe, I decided that Malta was the place. When I discovered that weekly a plane travels from my local airfield-Cardiff Airport-I booked my flight. 

My dilemma then was travelling to the airport. Should I drive and park at £70 or should I travel by public transport-which for me is without charge. I decided that public transport was the way to go but the day before I was due to travel I buckled to my lazy inner self and booked a space in the Long Stay Car Park at the airport. 

At the best of times Cardiff airport is not busy. With the collapse of Flybe which generated 60% of the airport’s business, there was a somewhat desolate feel to the Long Stay Car Park. The mood did not change with entry to the terminal building. The café had two staff and three customers including myself. Security was proper but there were significantly more staff than punters. In my experience this often leads to me having a grumpy stand-off with a bored and miserable member of staff. However there were no problems and I was able to wait in some comfort without resorting to my magic lounge card. At that stage in the pandemic panic – it seems as I write at least a lifetime ago, social distancing was a sort of thing but nothing like the thing it has now become. So when the flight was called the 150 souls booked onto the plane were herded into a narrow passage and kept there for at least half an hour while we had to fill in health forms for the Maltese Government.

Arrival in Malta was quick and quiet, it was rather late in the evening and I rather expected to be tested to see if I had a temperature- but no, I wasn’t tested. A lady with the facemask and the thermometer was collecting the medical contact forms. Some of the passengers she tested but she merely waved me through. Perhaps it was because I look cool! I then had to find the driver from the limo service. There were a lot of drivers with name boards but no one had my name on it. So I rang the hotel was told nothing was booked for me-a good start. 

The Malta “taxi to hotel service” is brilliant and after paying the fixed fee by card in the arrivals area I was ushered to a taxi with no need to discuss price or face an almost certainty of being ripped off. And it was €10 cheaper than the limoservice. 

I had booked myself into a small hotel in the centre of Valletta, the capital of this EU affiliated island republic, whose horrible reputation for corruption I had decided to put to one side for the sake of warm weather in early March. The hotel calls itself a luxury boutique hotel. The Night Manager/Porter welcomed me and took me into the office to check in. A bottle of chilled prosecco was produced and my travel weariness was assuaged. He was a charming little man and spoke excellent English. He at first denied that I had booked the limo service until I showed him the email and he agreed to give me a whole bottle of prosecco to make me feel better about their mistake. However the thing which enthralled me about this gentleman was the fact that he was wearing a slightly ill-fitting toupee which was a strikingly intense black colour which instantly dispelled any idea that it might be anything other than a wig. For obvious reasons I have never given the slightest thought to treating my own lack of hair with an artificial substitute. This was a decision made easier by the memory of my uncle Fred who always, in my memory, and especially in his time as an undertaker wore a wig. Incidentally he came to a sticky end having had a fatal heart attack while having sex with his boyfriend while my aunt Emma was out at church. 

So here I am in a luxury boutique hotel with a man whose chosen hair substitution was calling up bizarre images from the late 1960s. The hotel and especially my room was delightful. I expected that the proximity of the lift in my room would be a distraction but not at all. The hotel is built in an old converted property around a central atrium, which was once a courtyard. My room actually had no windows opening onto the outside world which made it rather odd and a little claustrophobic but the comfortable bed and large and well equipped bathroom and breakfast included not to mention a bucket of the prosecco delivered to my door, I was able to unpack and relax into an early night’s sleep.