Maltesers - 2

Proper little tourists we are. We’ve done the ‘Round the Island’ cruise, stopped off at the smaller island of Comino to take a powerboat ride around the Blue Lagoon. The Rumbling Nappa would have liked to climb up to St Mary’s Tower on Comino (shown above and possibly more famous as the filmed location for the Chateau d'If in 'The Count of Monte Cristo') but having got half way, he was just too puffed. We ignored 'Popeye Village (a film set bequeathed to the Maltese), and were almost trampled underfoot by St Patrick's Day revellers - very few of whom seemed to be Irish

A strange place Malta. Just as you start to think that it is a sunny extension of Blackpool (yes, they do have pigeon racing here), you discover some of the island's extraordinary neolithic history. We visited the Hypogeum, a 5000-year-old underground burial temple which is deservedly a UNESCO world heritage site. Here is history that is so old that one can only imagine the religious context in which the place was used. From the time that the temple was constructed it would be around 2,500 years before St Paul got himself shipwrecked on Malta. All quite mind-blowing