Malta Day 1 New Year's Eve 2017

England can be rather dreary, wet and chili in the winter, so we decided to take a trip somewhere warmer, where there would be more sunshine over the Christmas Holidays. We only have sunlight from about 8:30 to 3:45 in December thus our sunlamp and Vitamin D have become necessities! So, we looked for cheap flights to warmer places and settled on Malta. If you’re American you may be scratching your head and wondering, where is Malta exactly? It’s just to the South West of Sicily beneath Italy.

So, off went to Malta on New Year’s Eve.We when walked into the Hilton, St. Julian’s lobby we were stunned at how beautiful it was! The view was three stories of glass windows overlooking the pools and the ocean. Just breathtaking! The hotel is enormous with  two outdoor pools, one indoor pool, a huge gym, sauna, creche, kids club, yoga room etc.

The room was very nice as well with a view of this little cove with lovely yachts docked all around it.

Being that it was New Year’s Eve, we knew that many of restaurants would have a prix fix menu that would be very pricey (which isn’t our style, with two little kids in tow). Instead, I made a reservation at a low-key pasta bar down the street from hotel that had good reviews. Ellie LOVES pasta and Hayden is happy with that too, so we figured it was a safe bet. But, as we turned the corner and saw the street sign, Scott had his reservations and was already coming up with Plan B. However, Impasta did not disappoint! The pasta is all homemade fresh, daily so you pick your pasta from the case and then choose the sauce you want to put on it.  I had the Salmon lemon sauce over a semonla noodle (yes, they had multiple Gluten free noodles for my GF friends) and it was mouthwateringly good. I’ve never had a sauce quite like it before! The kids both had the Carbonara sauce and Hayden loved it so much that he asked me to take a video of him eating it. In our family thumbs up means excellent, a sideways thumb means okay and thumbs down is well, you know...not great. Hayden gave it the thumbs past up, to the other side, which is apparently the best ever :-)

On our way walk back to the hotel we passed a little Gelato bar - L’Oast delGusto - which had great Gelato. Scott and I swooned over the dark chocolate hazelnut Gelato.  Hayden liked ours so much that he ended up sneaking some of ours! We found out while we were eating our Gelato that they had a pretty extensive menu that included crepes and sandwiches as well, which were all reasonably priced.

Our final stop for the night was at a Grocery store just around the corner from the Hilton (the Arkadia ) to pick up some breakfast food and snacks. I was ecstatic to find Vanilla Milk there! It can be difficult to find so I enjoyed quite a lot of it while we were in Malta. They also had pineapple milk, mango milk and strawberry milk.  It was interesting strolling through and seeing all the wonderful spices, prickly pears, fresh nuts and cheeses etc.

Travel tips:

• Ryan Air flies from Leeds/Bradford direct to Malta which was about 65 GBP per person. The flight was 3.5 hours in length.  
• We took the Malta Transfer Shuttle service from the airport to hotel in St. Julian’s for 34 Euros including the return trip. It’s cheaper if you book the return trip with the arrival trip. 
• If you stay at the Hilton, ask for a refrigerator for personal use. They will bring you one free of charge. There is a kettle and a couple of spoons in the room, so you can have oatmeal, yogurts and other breakfast foods in the hotel and avoid paying 18 Euros per person for breakfast at the Hilton. But, do bring some trash bags for the small trash cans in the room. Yogurt and the oatmeal cups can be messy and the Hilton doesn’t provide trash bags. We also brought a few plastic spoons and a knife to cut up the fruit.
• Although it was 65 degrees in Malta the winds were about 50 kmph, so it felt much colder. Definitely bring layers, including long sleeve shirts, a fleece and  a  windproof layer. I even wore my wool hat since the wind kept blowing my hood off! Many of the locals were wearing wool hats as well. I suppose it is winter for them after all! ;-)