Day 7 - Saturday January 24, 2026 - The island of Malta

By Ellen Outten

Today was one of those days you realize why you decided to travel.  I set off alone on a tour called Malta Highlights.  Wayne took the 2 1/2 hour included tour and saw mostly Valletta, the town where we are docked.  My tour was full 8 hours and 14,083 steps later I can say I saw a good bit of Malta and enjoyed every minute.  

We started by driving to Hagar Qim, a megalithic temple complex dating back to 3,600 BC.  This temple (similar to some as Stonehenge) is among the most ancient religious sites.  In the 18th century.   In the 1800’s AD, scientists and archaeologists were able to carbon date this site.  It was long buried by earthquakes and eons of time. 


Pictures from the archeological site




This stone that people moved and put in place manually weighs 20,000 tons








The Maltese people  are one of the few societies that speaks a Semitic language, a branch of the Afroasiatic family which includes languages such as Arabic, Hebrew and Amharic. It is the only Semitic language spoken in Europe influenced by Italian and Sicilian.  It The only Semitic language spoken in Europe, uniquely influenced by Italian andSicily.

I took some pictures of their road signs and the names of their towns.  It’s a cross between Arabic but spoken by people with European accents.  


As we rode across the island, there was prickly pear everywhere and rocks made into walls that divides property birders.  It looks like Ireland in the John Wayne movie, The Quiet Man.







Our second stop was the fishing village of Marsaxlokk.  What a pretty place with the small traditional wooden fishing boats called luzzo’s.  
These colorful little boats have travelled these waters since the 19th century.




The harbor we walked through in the way to lunch, our third stop.  



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