The next day, once again, it was an early rise as I had reserved a rental car through the hotel concierge to be delivered around 9:30 in the morning.

We went to breakfast before the delivery of the car, and unfortunately you can not have breakfast outside, although the breakfast restaurants has huge windows on the bayside, so the view is incredible. The breakfast is the place were the hotel shows how huge it is and were the negative sides of the reviews on trip advisor may be true. The Maitre D’hotel in the breakfast room could be friendlier and is more of a traffic agent in the breakfast restaurant. The buffet is standard fare for a 5 star hotel, although noting excels, with a heavy focus on the tastebuds on our English friends. They do have two egg/pancake stations, which at times have a long line, but give me a nicely cooked omelet in the morning and I’m okay.

After breakfast, the lady from the rental car agency (local and quite cheap) was waiting in the lobby to arrange the paper work on the rental car, which was waiting for us in the underground garage of the hotel. As we wouldn’t be hauling any luggage and having heard that a large car can not be parked on Malta (small island with too many cars) I booked the cheapest category, and this is what was waiting for us:





Driving it on the left side of the road worked out after a couple of hours, but one thing I could never get used of was shifting gears with my left hand. I deeply regretted not spending 5 EUR more per day to rent an automatic car. A lesson learned for the next time I visit a country were they never learned which is the right side of the road. However the small size of the car proved useful as it indeed only needs a handkerchief to park on and thus we could most of the time leave it right in front of the door of the places we wanted to visit.

First up today were the Three Cities, right across the harbor from Valetta. Very nice to walk around in the sunny spring morning.























After walking around the tree cities, where the harbor between the three cities and Valetta is filled with the most incredible yachts, we headed for Marsaxlokk bay, where we had an outside lunch with an incredible view on the fishing boats in the harbor. Some lobster ravioli and a beer on a simple road side terrace certainly hit the spot.







After lunch, it was time for one of Malta’s obligatory tourist attractions, the Blue Grotto. Although the island has no real beaches, the coast is amazing.



Geared up in life jackets, jumped in a boat full of (Asian) tourists for a tour around the caves.































All in all, a tourist trap, but a fun way to spend an afternoon.

After this, we drove further along the coast until the temples of Mnajdra, a couple of temples dating back to 3600 B.C. To protect them from the elements, the remains are covered by tents, and are mostly stones requiring lots of imangination, but it’s a nice walk on the cliffs of Malta.





Getting back to the car it was time to head back to the Excelsior for some rest and a swim before dinner.

As I already said I came ill prepared and let the concierge decide where we would have dinner and this night the suggestion and reservation was at Rampila, a restaurant right next to the main city gate, in the fortifications of the city. The restaurant has a beautiful terrace which was unfortunately closed as it still was to cold at night to eat outside. We opted for the dining menu with some bottles of Maltese wines (a red and a white). Quality of the food was good, I’ll let the pictures do the speaking:









Unfortunately, I forgot to picture the main course and the dessert.

The restaurant itself is in a tunnel in the fortifications, which ends on the now almost empty terrace.




Fully satisfied, we headed back the short walk to the excelsior for some rest before heading out to Medina and a Maltese wine estate the next day.