Archive: Posts about Malta
November 5th, 2007, 3 Comments »
As we occasionally do, Julie and I spent a couple of hours today working in the lovely bar at the Kempinski Hotel San Lawrenz. I think it’s the only five star hotel on Gozo, and despite its peculiar location (there are no views of the sea), it’s quite posh.
I wasn’t using the web, but I happened to visit the hotel’s portal page for its wifi service. Here it is:
That looks pretty weak, doesn’t it? Why does a five-star hotel, with its spa smelling of sandalwood and lavendar, it’s beautifully-tiled pools and gorgeously-appointed rooms, have such a crappy-looking login page? The Kempinski isn’t unique in this peculiar disconnect–I’ve seen worse in plenty of four and five-star hotels.
It’s a tiny thing, but swish hotels aspire to get the tiny things right. The five-star devil, after all, is in the details. On the other hand, at least I wasn’t presented with an image of some kind of fruitophile.
Incidentally, I took that screenshot with a great little OS X program that Monique tipped me off on. It’s called Paparazzi, and all it does is make a full-length screenshot of any URL you enter. It saves you the trouble of stitching screenshots together.
3 Comments »
October 30th, 2007, 3 Comments »
One of the hot topics among locals here on Malta is the building boom. They often speak about how there’s too much supply for the current demand. And, indeed, there seem to be new houses and small apartment blocks going up at the edges of many villages, even on Gozo. Often the construction is happening next to a couple new but vacant buildings.
A recent article in The Malta Times describes the scope of the issue:
The census shows that the number of vacant dwellings now amount to about 53,000, an astonishing increase of 17,000 since 1995. In percentage terms, this means that 26 per cent of dwellings are vacant. Moreover, only 10,028 of these properties are holiday homes…
With a landmass almost eight times as large as Malta’s and about 100,000 more residents, Luxembourg has some 20,000 fewer dwellings. While there are 53,136 vacant properties in Malta, Luxembourg has only 4,000. Ireland, with a total stock of 1.4 million dwellings has only around 7,000 vacant dwellings or 0.5 per cent of the total stock.
That’s 53,000 empty residences on an island with about 400,000 people. The article goes on to say that Greece and Portugal are actually worse off.
What’s the cause? One reason, apparently, is that there’s no property tax in Malta. So it doesn’t cost owners anything to simply leave their properties alone. I suspect there are many cases of Maltese people living abroad whose parents have died and left them (often unwanted) property on the islands.
3 Comments »
October 24th, 2007, 4 Comments »
James and I were walking down the lane outside our farmhouse on Gozo, and I happened to glance at a bag of garbage awaiting pickup. Look a little closer–what’s that inside?
Outside of Toronto, everybody hates the Leafs.
4 Comments »
October 22nd, 2007, 4 Comments »
It’s been occasionally windy here on Malta, and we’ve had a couple of storms. But last night was serious, which winds gusting up to 75 km/h. The back patio is covered in debris, and there’s a sizable tree limb on our balcony. I was surprised that our sun loungers ended up in the pool. They’re plastic, but they’re reasonably heavy:
It’s no wonder all the houses are built of stone here.
4 Comments »
October 11th, 2007, 2 Comments »
When we sat down to dinner at a restaurant in Xlendi, Monique noted an odd correction to the menu:
I have no objection to people eating horses–it’s just peculiar that they subsequently crossed it out. Did they run out of horse? What meat are they using instead?
In related news, Monique has written an exhaustive and illustrated account of her and James’s first week on Gozo. It’s pretty typical of what our guests do. Give it a read if you want to live vicariously through them. You may also want to check out their photo sets.
2 Comments »
October 8th, 2007, 1 Comment »
I recently discovered that the satellite photos of Malta in Google Maps are vastly improved. When we planning our trip, Gozo was just a big greenish-brown blur. Now the resolution matches other parts of the world I’ve looked at.
For hilly countryside full of terraces and few landmarks, the new satellite photos are a real blessing. There are a couple of spots I’ve been trying to reach on my bike, but was never quite sure where they are. The overhead view makes all the difference.
I started messing around with Google Map’s newish ‘My Maps’ functionality, labelling points of personal interest around the island. In no time, I was up to fifty points, complete with Flickr photos and the occasional link. Here’s my memory map of Gozo–it’s a work in progress:
View Larger Map
That interface is kind of a joy to work with. The joy, I think, harkens back to a childhood spent making Dungeons & Dragons maps.
1 Comment »
October 4th, 2007, 27 Comments »
I occasionally see these water bottles positioned on the sidewalk, flush to the wall, in front of Maltese houses:
They have a particular purpose. I didn’t know what it was, and neither did any of our guests. I’m not sure how widespread the practice is, but it wasn’t what I expected.
Can you guess? Locals, keep your mouths shut.
UPDATE: Eoghan and others are correct–they’re apparently a defensive mechanism against wayward dogs. The Maltese folks who explained this to me weren’t sure how effective they were, but it’s interesting that it’s also a tactic used in Ireland and Japan.
27 Comments »
October 3rd, 2007, 8 Comments »
We have this cat that spends about 40% of her time in our farmhouse. I recently discovered that she had several ticks, grossly engorged with blood, attached to her head and shoulders.
I alerted the cat’s owners–two retired British fellows who live down the street–but they seemed a little prissy on the removal. So, I consulted the Internet, put on some gardening gloves and got to work. The quarter is for scale (it, happily, didn’t come out of the cat), and to instruct my victims of the nationality of their killer:
I was quite pleased with myself–this sort of hands-on-mammals stuff really isn’t my domain of expertise.
There was a little parable in how we went about it, too. For the first tick, one of us held the cat while I tried to pull out the offending insect. There was plenty of drama, as the cat doesn’t like to be held, and I suspect she could tell everybody was tense. So, there were several aborted attempts and she only let us do it once.
The next time, I just walked up to her while she was sleeping and quietly went to work. She let me take out all three without so much as batting a, uh, claw. The lesson, I guess, is that sometimes a haiku beats a sonnet. Or is that too abstract?
8 Comments »