Big 50 birthday trip- Day 4 Mon Sept 21st 2015

Happy birthday to me! We were all up bright and early as it was a normal work/school day for everyone else.

We grabbed some breakfast and then I had the chore of opening cards and presents :-)

My mum had found the tag from when I was born.

My sister had some cards made with photos on from when I was probably about 9 years old and some taken earlier this summer.

We drove the back roads to Gatwick airport and dropped off the hire car in time to have a coffee and wait for the Air Malta flight.

I'd not heard anyone speak Maltese and discovered that the flight crew spoke it very fast! It has some Arabic sounding words, and some Italian in there somewhere- probably Sicilian too but it's an impossible language to try and guess. The flight seemed to go quite quickly (2 hrs 40 minutes) and before we knew it we were walking off the plane to the terminal.

Hotel entrance

We were met by a driver from the hotel which makes the transfer so simple. He was a young man driving a BMW which we later discovered took some nerve in the tiny streets as it was a relatively big car. The drive took us out of the busier roads up to the center of the island to the ancient town of Medina. You are not allowed to drive into the city unless you have special permission and it was quite surreal to drive across the old city moat past all the tourists wondering who we were to be able to be driven in.

The hotel is the kind of place where they sit you down to have a refreshing drink while they check you on and take your bags up to the room... The drink was a local soda called 'Kinnie'- a bitter sweet soft drink made from orange flavouring & aromatic herbs which apparently you love or hate. I really liked it.

We were led to our room which was not exactly a room either- more like a fabulous antique laden apartment on two floors, with a seating area downstairs and spiral staircase leading to a loft upstairs to sleep with a en-suite bathroom.

Downstairs looking from the spiral staircase

The upstairs loft sleeping area and bathroom.

The City of Medina is a walled city with narrow passageways built in the limestone that is all over Malta and I couldn't wait to take a look, so after unpacking we headed out to explore.

Medina Cathedral

That night we had at the roof top restaurant in the hotel. Originally we had an outdoor table with fabulous views but were then asked to move due to a mix up in the bookings- there was an outdoor event that was booked before us. However the staff more than made up for it with free drinks and excellent service. It was a great end to the day.

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