Rome to Malta

We have had a couple busy days in Rome, and we had planned to tour the Colosseum or the Parthenon on our last morning. You know this group was tired when they opted to sleep in and catch up with laundry instead of sight-seeing. Some of us had already seen both of those big ticket sites, and it did feel good to sleep in. When we left after our leisurely morning, we found that our nearest Metro station (Baldo) was closed--again. So we had to run uphill to the Cornelia station, and barely made it to the Termini Station. Wow! We have had some rotten luck with the Rome Metro! When we successfully made it to the Termini Station, we went in search of the VIP lounge. Buying those first-class train tickets for the last few days earned us some time in this air conditioned lounge with comfortable seating and free snacks. Those were three things that were hard to find in Rome--air conditioning, comfortable seating, and anything free! We also found that the Termini Station was one of the best places to eat in Rome. We divided and conquered, buying a smorgasbord of fun things to eat at the food court. We bought pasta, steak, fried artichokes, hamburgers, fried eggplant, and french fries, and then divided them eight ways so everyone got to try everything. We were sad when it was time to leave this metro station, but we had reservations for the train to take us to the Rome Airport. When we arrived, we found that Rome has a new airport--different from the one we slept in 23 years ago. But that's a whole different story.

The new Rome airport had a shopping mall that included some high-end stores. Have you ever heard of Golden Goose shoes? The photos below include some of their inventory of vintage tennis shoes. Can you guess their price tag?

These were old heavy tennis shoes with yellowed soles and broken shoe laces and cracked leather. You can buy them for only $650! You can change out for older laces for an extra $50 and add the "lived in finished" for an additional $70.

No, we didn't buy any of those ugly shoes. But we don't buy jeans with holes in them either. We're obviously not very fashion-conscience. After that interesting shopping experience, we got in the short line for our flight to Malta. 

Malta might be another country that you don't remember from your last geography class. It's a tiny island country off the coast of Italy, and we went there for a couple nights. We checked into the Westin Dragonara Resort, right on the beautiful coast of Malta. Our resort had access to the Mediterranean Sea . . .

as well as not one . . .

not two, but three pools! All that water certainly looked inviting. But we were hungry. So we got an XL uber to take us to the harbor.

We scored a table for eight near the water at a well-reviewed Greek restaurant. Yay!

We left the ordering to Alexia, who was raised on Greek food. While the food was being prepared, we took a little walk along the harbor as the sun was setting.

Malta has beautiful old buildings, that were built over the years while it was controlled by the French, the Moors, the Romans, the British . . . Its location in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea made it a heavily sought-after trophy. 

Since it became an independent country in 1964, it has become a popular place to visit.

We needed a walk to work up an appetite to be ready to eat the delicious food that had landed at our table.

While we ate, the skies darkened. Mark bought a new iPhone right before we left. We have been enjoying its advanced camera, and tonight we got to see its ability to take night-time pictures as the buildings around us lit up.

In the meantime, three different Greek desserts were delivered to our table. We loved the opportunity to sample so many different ethnic foods on this trip!

As we waited for our uber to return us to the resort, we tried out that new camera's ability to take portraits in low lighting. We are fans of that new camera on the iPhone 15.

We are also fans of this family that took us along on the ride of a life-time through Europe!

When we got back to our rooms at the resort, we found that the second room still hadn't cooled off. In fact, the air-conditioner wasn't running at all. The lobby staff were quick to send someone up with fans, and we later found out the problem. We had opened our balcony door to check out the view of the pool and the sea earlier. We had closed the door, but failed to lock it. The resort has a system to conserve electricity that automatically prevents guests from running the air-conditioner while that balcony door is open. Until the balcony door was locked, we weren't getting any cool air. Oops! We learned another lesson on this trip from Rome to Malta.