St. Paul's Bay. Sunsets, Aquariums and Old cars

Saturday 14 th

I think that me and Toni have little bit different idea about walking from place to place. We took an bus from Tarxien to St.Pauls Bay. I know that it’s a long way to walk but if I would have known that we would really walk, I would choose something closer. But we started talking when we looked for the next hotel and Toni talked about the bus, that we would take it and go here or there. Well I am stubborn so I could have stand my ground and said that we are going to walk, that’s what agreed on. But I opted that maybe its better this way, because we would use couple of days just to get here. There weren’t so much on the other side of the island. So St. Pauls Bay it is, via bus. Or actually via 2 bus, but with total amount of 5e/person and around 1,5 hours, its more than okay.

We arrived in St.Paul's Bay at 12AM and our check-in were 2PM so across the street we go to the nearest pub. Which name was Munchies the Snack Bar. From the name you could think that they have some sort of menu but they only sold crisps. Quite misleading name.

We didn’t look into the selection of the hotels deep enough I think because the one we chose, even if it is an cheap, wasn’t exactly what we were looking for. We are quite easy to please, we just need clean bed, AC, shower and toilet. Well our room is clean, I can say that much. Now I have listened Toni complaining how hot is it a LOT, obviously our AC is not working.

First I did some laundry when Toni was in the shower and our mutual effort get the result of ending the cold water. All there came was scalding hot. So I was sweaty and hot after my laundry session and in the desperate need of shower but no-can-do. Everytime when you turned the nub on colder side the water just stops. I waited quite while before I quit and just wet the towel in the hot water before I did quick washup. Still I thought that its just some fluke and it will go away in time so we left the hotel to do some roaming.

We ended up in the Aquarium which was really nice. They had made it to their agenda to make people aware of the pollution. I specially liked the jellyfish. Couldn’t decide which of the photos are best so I put all the three below.

_{Jellyfish number one}

_{At the aquarium}

On the way back we stopped for some beers in really nice beach pub. There were Spanish music playing and really relaxed atmosphere. I loved it, I hope that we will go there again. We are here for 3 days afterall.

Back to the hotel we noticed that the AC still isn’t working and the water is still only hot.
In the reception they just said that they will send someone. Nothing else. But after we came back from dinner the water was fixed and I could finally take an shower.
At dinner I wanted to try something traditional maltese food so I opted an stew made of snails, carrots and peas, really good!

For tomorrow we set two goals. Get breakfast and look the sunset in that cool bar.

Sunday 15 th

Yei, we made our goals of the day!
Breakfast was disappointing, there were variety to choose from but nothing was exactly very good. Yes, you could eat it, it’s not that bad but for the rest of the hotel being so not good, you would think that they would get something right.
After that we just did lot of relaxing, reading a book, sleeping, planning what to do next. I read little bit more about Popeyes village and I think that it might not be for us. I am not huge fan of waterparks and neither of has seen the movie. I just wanted to see the village but it seems silly to pay just for it.
At the sunset we found ourselves in the very same nice pub than yesterday. Just like we planned. For an while it looked that we might not see the sunsetting because of the clouds but in the end, we did! I got even photo from helicopter flying by on the sunset.

On the way back we had some dinner (I ate sea food tagliatelle, Toni had lasagna) and we stopped for an bar to listen some karaoke before going back to the hotel. The karaoke host was great but I don’t myself like karaoke that much, I do not know how to sing. Luckily most of the singers did so it wasn’t so bad.
In the day and at the evening, I heard numerous times the maintenance guy in the hallway (he would knock on the door and yell Maintenance) so the others must have problems with their rooms too. Oh, our hotel in here are The Bugibba hotel, FYI so you know what to avoid.

Monday 16 th

After booking our next accommodation (Dolphin Court in the Marsalforn) we went to check out the Classic Car Museum. Which was for my surprise really nice! The owner turned his old car collection in to an museum. First he had his cars in several garages but he wanted them under the same roof and there the dream started. And he is still looking for cars around the Europe.
We had read in our hotel that they had discount if we show them our hotel room key so that’s what we did when we got there but they haven’t heard of it. So we bought regular price tickets and when we got inside the museum the guy from the counter stopped us and told that he checked and they do have 10%-discount for Bugibba hotel residents so he gave us some money back. That was an nice touch for the in any case nice day.

I found couple of cars for me, couple cute cars and one interesting one.

_{"My new pickup" -68 Morris Minor 1000}

The interesting one were -79 Trabant 601 which the previous owner had driven to Malta from Brno. At the time the car was 27 years old and it hold almost all of the 2615 km. When they crossed the borders the custom officer where most curious how they were in car like that. On the motorways even their maximum 80km/h, from the cars which passed by people would smile and wave.
They had couple pitstops on the way and finally they towed the car for last 3 kilometres. It was interesting story.