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I woke up way before the alarm, even before 3 AM. At 3:45, I leave as discreetly as possible the dorm and the hostel of Tas-Sliema [Sliema]. I have about an hour of walk to reach the ferry terminal in Il-Marsa [Marsa, Malta], where the check-in closes at 5:30. Maps being very bad at pedestrian GPS in Malta, I preferred to set up way early for eventual detours.

It turns out to be quite straightforward, figuratively and literaly, and I was already aboard the MV Saint John Paul II again by 5 AM.

With an hour and a half before we leave, and now fully awake, I thought about buying the bus ticket to Siracusa [Syracuse, Sicily], that I had forgotten all about. The problem is… there are no buses on Sunday. Oh shit! I have already booked a 24 € hostel there, and I can’t cancel it anymore. But there seem to be no way of going there (it’s over 100 km from the ferry port in Pozzallo). The cheapest accomodation in Pozzallo is a whopping 52 €. Should I pay, or sleep outside? I don’t think things through, and I just go for it. That’s the single most expensive accomodation I booked, and with the Siracusa hostel, the total is a painful 76 € for the night… Oh shit, that’s more than all my expenses in an average day (around 62 €, not including the Interrail passes). Bah, it better be good.

Finally, with the rising sun, we live the wonderful tiny islands of Malta. I’ll miss it! Despite being overly built-up and overrun by tourists, and quite chaotic to navigate, I loved my time here!

Ciao Italia!

For the billionth but last time!

I take a coffee near the sea then climb to the B&B to see if I can at least put my bag away. No answer. Back to the sea after a long up- and down-hill walk. Wow! The beach is amazing here! Perfect fine sand, beautiful clean water, shallow, sunny… But nowhere to put my bags. So I can just watch people having fun under Sicily’s lux æterna.

It’ll be a few more hours, after finally checking in, that I could enjoy the sea. It’s very shallow, so I had to walk a good 30 m to have water up my hips. I swam a bit, laid down a lot, but also took long strolls walking at the crashing point of the waves. It was a super relaxing moment overall.

Here’s the video from last week: