Day 21 - Monday 2nd October - Malta

Sometime very early in the morning when we decided to turn the fan off we could hear water dripping. At first we thought it was rain but when John got up to investigate he found that he hasn't turned the basin tap off properly when need he'd got up in the night  and because the basin tap was a bit skew-wiff the water that dribbled off the tap missing the basin altogether had dripped out of the bathroom and had moderately flooded the floor in the lounge room, under the sofa and had even soaked the sofa bed mattress and sheet which was very close to the floor. So there we were in our sleep attire or lack thereof mopping the floor with towels, pulling the sofa bed apart and hanging things up to dry!  We turned the alarm off when we went back to bed! We decided a sleep in was in order after this early morning activity. Very grey skies today and heavy rain predicted but we decided to still do the harbour tour. We set off this time not changing course with steps to the side and eventually, many thousands of slow steps later, we got to the other side of Valletta where the ferry to Sliema went from. Lots of people waiting and headed to the ferry when it arrived but we wanted to get on the Captain Morgan Harbour Cruise so we waited.  Luckily I asked the fellow selling tickets if this was where we waited for the Captain Morgan cruise and no, they left from Sliema so we too bought tickets for Sliema and hopped on with the crowds. Of course we just missed the 12.30 cruise so we had to wait for the 2.45!  We had bought some delicious bread and some cheese to eat on the boat so instead we found a bench in a square and ate our snack/lunch there. Then we went for a walk around Sliema which is apartment buildings and shops with very few interesting things to see so we eventually made or way back down to the waterfront to Tony's Bar where John enjoyed a beer and I had a coffee. 2.45 finally came around and we boarded the cruise, sat up top with a plan to go down if the rain came. The commentary was in Maltese, German, French & English so we had to hear everything the times which gets a bit tedious after a while. The cruise was great and took 1.5 hours going into each inlet in both harbors hugging the coast so we got some great photos of all the fortifications, forts and buildings but there's always one person who won't sit down so they can get all the good shots and their stupid head is in everyone else's photos.  Grrrr. The rain did come towards the end of the trip so we went downstairs with everyone else. We were lucky with the weather. When we got back to Sliema we hopped on the ferry to take us back to Valletta. We saw a mini-bus that took you up to the centre for €1 so I made a beeline for that and we got the last two seats. How nice it was not to have to trudge up all those steps we'd trudged down earlier. It dropped us off choose to the top so we still had a bit of steepness to deal with but we got to walk along streets we'd missed and even came across a tiny fruit shop selling delicious looking peaches so we bought some for later. Time for a refreshing drink so we went to a bar in Theatre Square and I had the stingiest spritz I've ever had while John enjoyed another glass of the local beer, Cisk. Headed home for a rest then out again for dinner. John had seen some people eating great looking burgers on our way back to the centre so we went there. On our way we passed  a truck in the main street with 2 guys putting up barriers on each side of the street leaving the centre blocked off. The restaurant was called Str.Eat Food and we asked the waiter what the barriers were for.  He said he didn't know,  probably some dignitary visiting because we were just next to The Palace on Palace Square. So, John ordered a burger called The Maltese which was the size of a house and thoroughly enjoyed it and I had Tri-colori Tortellini in a creamy pesto sauce which was also delicious. We topped this off with yet another Amorino gelati and headed home.