Paris woman returns to Malta to explore the history and beauty of the small country

By Karon Sinning

Last summer, Paris resident Karon Sinning explored the beauty of Malta. It is one of the world's smallest nations and occupies an area of only 316 sq. km. It sits in the Mediterranean Sea, just off the toe of Italy By plane it’s about an hour and a half flight time from Rome The country is a cluster of small islands With so much to see and do, Karon is back again – sharing her travel experience with you. Sit back and enjoy Malta, from her point of view.

Returning to Malta in the winter (February/March) won’t appeal to everyone. But having witnessed from this side of the pond the repeated winter storms in Paris, I’m quite happy with my decision.

The temperature here now is very far from the blistering heat of last summer and incredibly more humid. The thermometer hovers between 8C overnight and 18C daytime, recently reaching 20C. Which is a preview of spring temperatures to come.

The first part of this trip included two long-time friends, Freda and Bev. It was a pleasure to revisit some of the historical sites around the island nation and explore new ones with my friends There is never a lack of places to go here in Malta We revisited the Hypogeum, the ancient underground burial chambers dating back to 3600 BC, the Blue Grotto with its orange coral, turquoise waters and jellyfish and of course Mdina and Valletta.

Early morning of February 4 had me up alone as I’m a very early riser. Sitting on the couch catching up on events through Facebook, I felt the couch move. I looked up and the tv was jiggling and just as quickly it all stopped. Also, just as quickly, texts started arriving from my Maltese friend Sandra about the earthquake. Later she sent the Times of Malta article with the headline, Tremor felt across Malta following offshore magnitude 4.9 quake.

Paris woman, and Travel Columnist Karon Sinning (middle) along with her friends Bev & Freda at Blue Grotto. Karon travelled to Malta last summer, visit our online archive (July) to view her past columns!

This was just two days before the devastating quake that hit Turkey and Syria. Along with some of my favourite sites in Malta, we planned some new excursions One of those was a visit to St John’s Co-Cathedral in Valletta. This was closed during my last visit and was something very high on my “to do” list.

The Knights of St. John constructed this amazing church.