Marsascala (Marsascala ~ Malta)

10 October 2022

Malta, less than 400 km from Tunisia, but feels like it's more than a million miles. Think it's safe to say this will definitely be the last time we travel in an arabic country. 

We're here for ten days and plan is to spend three days based in the south-east part of Malta, three days on Gozo and the last four days somewhere around Valletta. First port of call was Marsascala and it's a beautiful little place.

Surprisingly good dinner the first night we were there - surprising as felt like were in the middle of an episode of Falwty Towers with manager rushing off in middle of taking our order to sort out a shouty argument in the kitchen and Manuel being replaced with a young chinese trainee.

Anyway dinner was two Maltese dishes. Stuffed Squid (stuffed with shellfish, squid bits and mussels) in a rich red wine sauces and Bragioli aka Beef Olives also in rich red wine sauce but very different from the squid dish.

Both seriously yummy (even if they do look like a scene from Alien).

Went for a drive around the south coast the next day and there lots of little forts all over the place, both modern and not so modern. 

This particular tower, Ta' Xutu, was built in 1647 and severed as prototype for 13 other towers around the island. Having said that there are lots and lots of small square towers all over the place - some for coastal defence and some simply as a watchtower over crops.

From there we headed to one of the big stops around Malta - "Ħaġar Qim".  Ħaġar Qim is a megalithic temple dating back some 5,500 years. Temples were aligned either for the sun rising on the equinox (based alignment of various doors and holes in walls) or the rising of the six brightest stars of the Pleiades Constellation (again based alignment of various doors and holes in walls and various rows of dots in the walls that corresponding to the rising of those stars).

Just round the coast from where we are staying are some quite cool salt pans. These pans are all over the island and are still in use from May to September. A large part of what makes them viable I assume is a combination of lots of clear sunny hot days, very flat coastal outcroppings and the fact that the tidal range is about 200mm (for the poms out there that's about 8 inches).

Just past the salt pans is a half built hotel  complex that had been abandoned for a good few years. Making it a target for taggers and graffiti.  Some of the two very impressive images were Abe (about 3 meters tall) and Gandalf (about 8 metres tall).

The entry ticket to Ħaġar Qim gave us free entry to a couple of other pre historic sites, one of which was the Ghar Dalam cave system. The caves when excavated yielded a lot, and I do mean a lot, of bones and teeth (mainly hippopotamus teeth). Interesting to learn that while most of the world experienced an Ice Age, Malta experienced a Rain Age - thousands of years of rain was responsible for the shaping of the islands, which means gorges and caves.

Small caper bush out sideof the museum - just in case you have ever wondered where capers come from.

A bit further round the coast is Marsaxlokk. Which, and over the years, has become a tourist hot spot with it's weekly market encroaching into the rest of the week. Still a very pretty

 harbour filled with traditional Maltese boats.

Another big stop is the Mdina. Mdina is a fortified (very well fortified) city that was founded in about 800 AD and sirs on a local high point.

Quite pleasant just to wander around in as no traffic is allowed and the alleyways are all nice, narrow and shady (it was a stinking hot day).  Main Cathedral is very impressive, but must admit didn't have the energy or enthusiasm to go inside (plus the 10 euro entrace fee was a bit steep and have seen lots of Cathedrals etc in Portugal and Spain.

Next door to the Mdina is Rabat which is home to catacombs of St. Paul and of St. Agatha. These catacombs were used in Roman times to bury the dead as, according to Roman culture, it was unhygienic to bury the dead in the city. If time/energy allows will need to check out at least one of them. However Rabat is also famous for the Crystal Palace Pastizzi shop. Pastizzi and Qassatat are delicious little puff pastry pastries (that are really cheap and quite large). Typically filled with either cottage cheese, chicken, tuna or anchovy paste. These we did have time and energy for.

For the ten days that we are here we opted to hire a car for a couple of reasons. Mainly because the daily rates are cheap (about $50/day) and while getting round by bus is quite doable it is very time consuming. When it comes to choosing to drive on back roads or main roads it's a bit of a case of damned if you do damned if you don't. Back roads tend to be slow driving, narrow and windy but the main roads tend to be chocker with cars and large trucks and quite stressful especially when trying to navigate some v confusing junctions

Around a section of the island you will see various signs warning of hedgehogs. These exist as it appears that the Algerian Hedgehog is one of the most beloved species on Malta.

Haven't actually seen any hedgehogs yet as they are nocturnal but apparently this is what they look like.

The other road signs we have seen relate to cats. Whilst the hedgehog signs are legit it would appear that the local cat lovers did a bit of crowd funding to get these signs put up. 

As you drive around pretty much every hilltop has some sort of structure on it. Either a little square fortress or a church.

On our last night in Marsascala we decided to have a little bit of a splurge for dinner and went to an upmarketish restaurant called Taj-Familja.  For bottle of wine, bread, appetisers, starters, mains, deserts and espressos for two the bill came to $115. Really good value for money and very, very tasty Maltesian food.

Nibbles - butter beans in garlic dressing and broad bean pate.

First course tortellini and fish soup.

Second course Sea Breem and Rabbit

Desert - date pastries with ice cream.

En-route to Gozo we took a small detour to check out one of the odder attractions here. The Popeye Village. Apparently in 1980s Popeye (with Robin Williams as Popeye) was filmed here and the set was retained at the end of filming and turned into a small theme park and 40+ years later is till going strong - which is more than can be said of the movie which I seem to recall bombed.

From  here we catch a ferry to Gozo (all of thirty minutes away).

Ruins and Beaches (Tunis ~ Tunisia)

1 October 2022

Arrived in Tunis at the lovely hour of 30 minutes past midnight and was thankful for having organised a pickup and transfer us 11km to our hotel - even if it cost us 35 euros..

Must admit to some small trepidation as three years ago on our last trip we spent a month in Egypt and at the end of it pretty much swore we'd never go back to a North African/Arabic culture country - and yet here we are. First day was spent chilling by the pool, sorting out a SIM card and just getting the lay of the land. 

One of the downsides of Tunisia is finding concrete information about tours, prices etc... As an example the Lonely Planet has a whole 6 pages dedicated to Tunisia (and one of those is blank). Anyway we took a punt and arranged for a driver to take us out to Dougga, about a two hour drive, wait for three hours while wandered around the site and drive us back (definitely getting soft as ten years ago we would had done it using public transport). Plan was to get a guide on sight once we arrived, however no guides and pretty much no other tourists.

Luckily we had done some preparation and found a website that gave details and pretty much a guide to the ruins. That combined with the ruins marked on Maps.me app was enough for us to have a good look.

It's not until you hit the Capitol building that you suddenly realise why Dougga is highly regarded and a UNESCO world heritage site. The scope of the ruins is amazing. 

All in all we spent a solid three hours walking, a large chunk of which were on roman roads that haven't changed in 2,000 years.

Amphitheatre (restored) and capable of seating about 3,500 people.

Next was the uninspiring Church of Victoria - only Christian remains dating back to 4th century AD, some very snarly dogs and then the Cisterns of Ain Mizeb. The city’s main water supply, they were fed by a spring a few hundred metres away.

Downhill to the Cisterns of Ain El Hammam, added during the reign of Commodus about 180 AD to meet the city’s growing demand for water.

Arch of Alexander Severus (entrance to the city) dedicated to the emperor Severus.

Temple of Juno-Caelestis

Capitole, built in AD 166. No restoration just reinforcing. The massive walls are the finest known example of a construction technique called opus africanum, which uses large stones to strengthen walls built of small stones and rubble.

The scope of the ruins is very impressive. 

Licinian Baths. You enter the complex through the vaulted passage, about 20m long and very dark, originally built for the slaves who kept the baths operating. These baths were reserved for the elite.

House of Trifolium - whoever owned this house was seriously wealthy. 

Ain Doura Baths complete with (restored) loos.

Libyco-Punic Mausoleum rebuilt by French archaeologists is 1912 after the British destroyed the monument in order to take an inscribed chunk of it to the British Museum. 

A 2,000 year old drainage manhole and a very cute small tortoise.

To give an indication of the site here a screen shoot from Maps.me of points of interest.

The next day we did a cycle tour round Carthage. V interesting but the ruins are nowhere as impressive as Dougga. The two impressive pieces are the restored amphitheatre,  used regularly for concerts, and the massive bath house.

The cycle ride was on quiet streets, partly due to it being a Sunday and partly due to there being a running race on.

Lots of very loud thump-thump music coming from the stage and huge mass of men dancing.

It's not hard to see why there is so little in the way of ruins when you look at what the port of Carthage once looked like.

And then compare pretty much the same view as today - small island in picture below is the same one as the picture above. Urbanisation and redevelopment everywhere. 

Plan was then to use Bolt (sort of like Uber) to get a taxi to Hammamet. This was scuppered when taxi driver said in v broken english - no, taxi cooperative no and police will stop. Luckily we had the phone number of the driver who took us to Dougga. A call to him and a bit of wait and we were off to Hammamet. 

Our plan in Hammamet is basically to chill for 6 days or so. Staying at a nice-ish resort. Bit odd as most of the guests were on an all inclusive deal and are mostly french. 

The brown liberal at the high tide mark ain't seaweed, its camel poo. Camel rides being the thing to do.

Sadly if you're not all inclusive the dining options are limited and very expensive so we ended up getting a taxi for 5 dinar to the local Marina where there are lots of restaurants. Negotiating the taxi fare is a very relaxed affair and tends to be "7 dinar", our counter offer off "ha 4", and then - "ok 5". 

Walked to the Marina once during the day - really do not want to walk it at night. Danger is not so much of being mugged but the lack of footpaths and the Inshallah attitude of some drivers.

Opted for dinner one night at a very local restaurant just up the road from the hotel. Dinner was Couscous Royal (couscous with goat, chicken and merguez sausage) and Spaghetti Bolognese. Huge portions and very tasty. 

We have found that meals typically come with a few side dishes, i.e. salad, olives, soup, bread which are free - whereas in Portugal various unrequested side dishes will be put on your table and if you eat them, then you pay for them.

One thing we have found is that pasta and pizza are pretty much on every menu, which surprised us a bit until we figured out that the distance between Tunisia and Italy is less than the distance between Wellington and Auckland. 

Could not leave Tunisia without trying a drop of the local vintage. Though have to say grog shops are few and far between. Opted for the most expensive bottle in the store 31 Tunisian Dinar's - quite tasty though very tannic initially. 

From here we fly to Malta. Now travelling east from Spain to Tunisia we put our watches back an hour, however when we travel east from Tunisia to Malta we put our watches forward an hour - v odd. Can only assume Tunisia is on daylight saving and the others aren't or vice versa. 

At the airport we learnt a lesson. When changing the local currency back to your home currency make sure you have the reciept from the ATM from when you withdrew the money in the first place - otherwise the money changers will only change it for a "special" rate. Lost about $5 on the exchange, not a huge amount but still annoying.

Learnt a similar lesson a few years ago and that is if the currency you have is non-tradable i.e Egyptian Pounds then make sure you change them before you go through passport control because once you're on the other side they're worthless.