Malta: Mdina and Rabat

Our day started early with a thirty minute ride to Rabat in the middle of Malta. It was not too early, however for delicious pastries from Crystal Palace. Mark's serious "eating pastries" look.

I can't even tell you how I found out about this random place--probably some Malta TripAdvisor forum. But it has amazing cheap pastries! I think they were 25 cents each--two choices pea (tasted a bit like curry) or cheese. We had both kinds and they were both delicious!

Rabat and Mdina are two ancient cities across the street from each other. Mdina goes back 4000 years in history. This is also where Apostle Paul lived when he shipwrecked in Malta. Rabat was a very important town during the Roman period. Beautiful monasteries, churches, caves and burials--that's what makes Rabat culturally significant today.

The day we visited Rabat was the day when the great winter Carnaval started in Malta. Hundreds of children dressed up like we do for Halloween were dancing and singing in the main plaza in the middle of Rabat. 

We, however, made our way to the Catacombs. I think we went to St. Pauls' catacombs, now I am not sure!:) My mom chose not to go as she was scared she'd feel too claustrophobic. We were given a handset with audio guide and spent about 40 minutes inside listening to the narration. Kids enjoyed it as well. 

But I expected some dead bodies or something. It was eery nevertheless.

Walking down the streets of Rabat. 

Just for fun we decided to take a train around Mdina and Rabat with a recorded narration. Nothing special but something to give us a better picture of what these two cities are like. 

Typical looking street in Malta. Every building, it seems, is this color.

And typical landscape of Malta. Hilly, without abundant vegetation all around. 

The train gave us a very nice view of Mdina, former capital of Malta. It is beautiful indeed. 

Nowadays there are very few cars allowed inside Mdina and it's called "the Silent City". We could have wondered those streets for hours if it were warmer (not hotter though like it gets in the summer months).

Canon+children.

Mama and I in Mdina.

I remembered now why we had to leave from Mdina early--we were trying to go to the Craft Village for some shops and demonstration of some local crafts. We hopped on the bus to go just maybe ten minutes but asked the driver to let us know where the Crafts Village bus stop is. As we passed something that sort of looked like a Crafts Village, the bus didn't stop, we went a bit further and we saw a few more signs about the Crafts Village pointing in the opposite direction. I finally came up to the driver and reminded him about where we wanted to get off. He immediately stopped and apologized for forgetting to let us off. We had to walk maybe half a mile to the shops on a "sidewall". The kids liked that. 

Yeah, well, the Crafts Village turned out to be a complete disappointment with all glass blowing demonstrations already closed and very average souvenirs. So we spent maybe half an hour there and went back to the bus stop to wait for our bus home.

The end of Day 2. 

To Be Continued...