TRAVEL COLUMN

After a nice meal, we decided to wander. Parts of the street were blocked to traffic for pedestrian use but did allow delivery vehicles. There were several souvenir shops along the way, so we browsed. We also found a proper grocery store and picked up a couple more breakfast items

Properly exhausted by now, we planned for an early night to be well rested for our tour the next morning. Well the best laid plans

At 8 pm the music started booming. Thinking it was another guest, we complained to the booking agent via email and they sent their maintenance fellow to tell us we were directly above a bar, with live music 7 days a week! This was totally unacceptable. After major back and forth, they offered us a room on the fourth floor which we checked out the next morning

Now a little bit smarter, we looked out the window to see two other bars cross the street. We opted to stay where we were They do have strict noise bylaws here, so the booming had to stop at 11 pm, but based on our jet lag, it was not a pleasant time.

The tour we booked for Saturday turned out to be excellent. It was a 7-8 hour tour of the Golden Circle area including the Gullfoss waterfall, geysers, Þingvallavatn National Park which includes Iceland's largest lake of the same name. The tour guide provided excellent narration throughout and there were ample stops along the way Sunday was a bit of a day to relax as we had a 7:45 am departure for England on Monday.

Instead of dragging our suitcases down the hill at 4 am for our trip to the airport, we booked a taxi This picked us up a few feet from our accommodation. Much easier for us to manoeuvre. However, it was much more expensive, $187 for the two of us, compared to $45 for the Flybus. Given our level of exhaustion, money well spent.

From Iceland we were off to an overnight at Gatwick Airport, Travelodge. Travelodge Hotels were a recommendation of my cousin Liz in England and we were more than pleased with this place While it was a little difficult to find the shuttle bus to the hotel, once we decided a cab was in order, things went very smoothly. The price was £19 for the cab.

After a great night's sleep, we were finally on our way to Malta! Friends met us at the airport and drove us to the condo Ahh it felt like coming home for me!

As I’ve been to Malta several times now, along with the ‘must sees,’ I’d decided to try different things with Marie. She is a big history buff so that would be our focus. Along with the rich history of the Knights of St. John, Malta and Gozo have many megalithic temples which predate the Egyptian pyramids. These include the Ġgantija (pronounced Ji-gantia) temples on Gozo The Ta' Ħaġrat temple in Mġarr, the Skorba temple, Ħaġar Qim temple, Mnajdra temples which lie in a hollow 500 metres from Ħaġar Qim and the Tarxien temple complex which is found some 400 metres to the east of the Hypogeum of Ħal-Saflieni.

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