Winter 2018 seemed endless.  And Easter in Malta seemed like the proper solution to escape the greyscale skies of Belgium, as well as the coughing crowds.

And just as it usually happens, after a two-hours flight we were in another world, full of sun, sea, nice people and cheese pastries. Add to this breakfast @ Cordina and you have the perfect antidote to a winter full of viruses, germs and tears.

Malta has developed tremendously since my first visit. There was a time in Valetta when, after shops’ closing time, the only thing that seemed to add some sound in the capital’s evening life were the empty cans rolling on the empty streets, swept by the maddening wind.

Nowadays it’s hard to pick a restaurant: there are hundreds of them, serving simple and sophisticated food, as well as hundreds of bars, and people, PEOPLE, alive, having fun in this astonishing Unesco open-air museum.

You have those cities with nice buildings scattered among newer, uglier ones. In Valletta you have sometimes an ugly, newer building among a vast majority of superb historical buildings. And all this in a city that received by far the most per capita bombs during the WWII,

and throughout history as well.

In 2018 the bombing danger seems to have subsided, although the recent assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia (with a car bomb) abruptly interrupted this cease-fire and has shown another danger in the islands ‘public life:

corruption, that may have permeated at the highest level.
A more tangible danger for you though is driving in Malta. Although speed limits do not exceed 90km/h, the country has the most road accidents per capita in the world! So be careful and stay safe, the roads are in a very bad state that left me at a loss,

considering the progress achieved in seemingly every other field of life on the islands.

Last but not least, in very religious Malta Easter is celebrated piously and extravagantly! Don’t miss on the processions of Good Friday happening almost in every city and village of the island! They are grand (i.e. the cathedral of Mosta),
as are the churches that seem to be blown out of any proportion, compared to the small scale of the islands!

Happy Maltese Easter!