Mosta, Malta

We had a direct flight from Belgrade to Malta on Air Serbia. It only cost about 80 EUR, and the cheap direct flight was one of the reasons we ended up choosing Belgrade for our revised itinerary.

The flight was at 11:40am, so we had lots of time for breakfast and packing up. I had booked our airport transfer through the hotel cause it wasn’t that much more than a taxi. We also did a pretty good job of spending our last Serbian dinars, reserving enough to tip the driver.

(The rest of the trip is in the eurozone, and we don’t mind having extra Euros at the end of the trip.)

Our carry-on suitcase was packed with the same items as the previous flight, weighing 7.9kg. We were able to check it at the counter. The saga of our carry-on suitcase will continue right through the Azores. For our flight home we’re allowed two checked bags each, so it’s really just the inter-island flights in the Azores that we have left to sort out.

The flight was uneventful until we got close to Malta and we got in a holding pattern. The pilot gave an announcement that the airport was closed for about ten minutes, and then we’d land. Typically this means there’s a military plane taking off or landing, although I did have flashbacks to our Kars flight being rerouted.

We did land in Malta (phew). It’s a small airport, the plane just pulled up to the terminal, and we walked from the plane to arrivals. No Cobus 3000 here.

We got through the new EU biometric stuff quickly, got our luggage and then sorted out where to wait for an Uber. There were at least a half dozen stag and doe groups waiting for their Uber / Bolt van pickup. Mostly these groups stay in the capital, Valletta. Our hotel was in Mosta, about mid-island and 30 minutes from Valletta.

It took a while for our Uber to arrive (Bolt is more popular, I’ll have to download that app later) but our driver was good. I hadn’t realized that Malta drives on the left - I should have rented a car here! (by chance, 10 of 13 countries we’ve rented cars have been left-side drive). After our drive to the hotel, I was glad we didn’t - it’s constant traffic (it’s basically one big urban spread from the airport to Mosta) and there’s nowhere to park.

Our hotel is a small boutique hotel. I had been WhatsApp’ing with the owner and they were expecting us. We had a coffee and chatted with Carmen and met their two friendly dogs.

We’re here for four nights so unpacked and spread out a bit more. I picked up some water and snacks from the convenience store next door (walnuts & bananas) as we our lunch on the flight was just a bag of pretzels.

Later we went for dinner at San Remo’s, a local restaurant recommended by Carmen. She had made reservations for us as it was a Friday night and super busy. She mentioned that some other guests (‘the Italians’, per Carmen, I wonder if she refers to us as ‘the Canadians’) had also later asked for reservations but she couldn’t get them in tonight.

The food was amazing. We tried some Maltese specialties. We split the snails in a pepper broth, and then for mains Heather had the half rabbit with peas, and I had the grilled octopus. We over-ate and went for a walk around the alleys in Mosta after dinner, and also checked out the Mosta rotunda in the main square.