{"id":13696,"date":"2019-05-22T10:24:01","date_gmt":"2019-05-22T04:54:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/manuscrypts.com\/test\/?p=13696"},"modified":"2019-06-15T11:57:05","modified_gmt":"2019-06-15T06:27:05","slug":"dingli-rabat-mdina-ghajn-tuffieha","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/manuscrypts.com\/test\/2019\/05\/22\/dingli-rabat-mdina-ghajn-tuffieha\/","title":{"rendered":"Malta: Dingli, Rabat, Mdina, Ghajn Tuffieha"},"content":{"rendered":"

Continued from Part\u00a01<\/a>,\u00a02<\/a>, 3<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Since the Gozo trip was relatively untaxing, we had decided to make up for it with a packed day. But given that we both now have to look back to find our our 40th birthdays, we were a little kind to ourselves. So instead of slumming it on a bus, we booked a cab to Dingli.\u00a0 Explanations on the web were a little patchy, so it was difficult to know beforehand what location would give us a good view of the cliffs. The journey took us less than half an hour and so, a little after 9.30, we got down at what Maps calls Dingli Cliffs Panoramic View. If you walk off the road a little bit you get a very good view.<\/p>\n

A little under 2 kms of walk, which though uphill is made pleasant by the magnificent view, will get you to the St. Mary Magdalene chapel from where you can get a good view too. There is a bus stop just opposite.<\/p>\n

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The buses here are only at 1 hour intervals, so we had decided to get a cab. Our pickup point was the Dingli Cliffs cafe, a 10 min walk from the chapel. We couldn’t find the cab at the designated time, and since we didn’t have mobile connectivity, spent a\u00a0 few minutes spent fretting whether we’d finally have to take a bus. Thankfully, we found the cab and in about 20 mins, found ourselves at\u00a0the Church of St.Dominic & The Blessed Virgin.<\/p>\n

As the internet promised, there was absolutely no one around! A wonderfully serene place, which we were visiting only because this was where Cersei had her confrontation<\/a> with Ned, and said the famous line – “When\u00a0you play\u00a0the\u00a0game of thrones,\u00a0you\u00a0win or\u00a0you\u00a0die. There is no middle ground.”<\/em><\/p>\n

This was another instance when I realised that Croatia and especially Dubrovnik have really been the only ones (we have visited) to capitalise on Game of Thrones’ popularity in terms of tourism. In Morocco as well as in Malta, it was quite underplayed! Not necessarily a bad thing! But to the extent where there is really only one tour company in Malta which has a GoT group tour, and that’s only on Saturdays! That’s why we had decided to visit the GoT locations on our own.<\/p>\n

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The streets of Rabat are lovely and serene..<\/p>\n

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..and it took us about 15 minutes of walk through winding alleys to reach\u00a0 St.Paul\u2019s & St.Agatha\u2019s Catacombs. An entrance fee and bio break later, we set about exploring the catacombs. There are more than 20 entrances spread on two sides of the road. A few of them are closed to the public, and all of them require climbing and ducking!\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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From there, it was another 15 mins of walk to the\u00a015 mins to the Mdina Gate, the entrance to the fortified city of Mdina. Horse carriages and cars both find a place inside the medieval walls! Inside, you can see\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>the Vilhena Palace, Banca Giuratale, St Paul\u2019s Cathedral & Museum, Falson Palace, Villegaignon Street, all very near to each other.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Our preferred lunch spot was\u00a0<\/span>Fontanella<\/span><\/a>, which had a fantastic view, in addition to a famed chocolate cake! Beer, pie, pasta and chocolate cake (partly hype) later, we were out. Tip: Plan your bio breaks here well, the queue gets fairly long!<\/p>\n

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A must-see place for us within the fort was Mesquita Square. We had tried to find the place before lunch, but failed! After lunch, we gave it one last shot, and managed to find it! The easiest way to find it, on hindsight, was to look for Don Mesquita, an eatery.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Mesquita square is a significant place in Game of Thrones and plays host to Littlefinger’s brothel. It is also the scene of the Ned vs Jaime street fight that leads to the former’s imprisonment.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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The web holds that Crystal Palace, also known by its nickname Is-Serkin, is the best place to try the Maltese dish – pastizzi. We were amazed to see that there were people from near our part of the world doing serving duties. We got ourselves a hot tea with veg and chicken pastizzi, sat on a bench outside, and completely loved the experience!\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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We used the public transport planner, we had figured out the bus route to our next destination – Golden Bay. Rabat 2 is a stone’s throw away from Crystal Palace. We took the 186, though the driver didn’t know the stop we were supposed to get down at – Gholja 2! The system in the bus is such that you can press a button for the bus to stop at the nearest stop. We saw Gholja 2 too late, and got down at the next stop. Since we anyway had a half an hour wait there, we were fine to walk back. The 44 then took us to Golden Bay. In the seats in front of us, a couple of girls were talking in Malayalam! They got down in a remote area, and we wondered about the surreality of it, and about their lives too, in a corner of a tiny island so far away from home! We now got the full import of what the person at immigration had said.<\/p>\n

Towards the end of the journey, we were the only two people in the bus! And thus, in a bus we had all to ourselves, we got dropped at Golden Bay around 5.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Right next to it, about 15 minutes away is\u00a0<\/span>G\u0127ajn Tuffie\u0127a Bay. Our plan was to see the sunset here, so we found a nice spot, and waited.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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But closer to sunset time (7.45 PM) the direction of the sun’s movement made us change our decision, and we moved back to Golden Bay to catch the sunset. A glorious one it was. <\/span><\/p>\n

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Since the bus journey to Sliema was estimated to be an hour, we had booked a cab. The driver turned out to be an immigrant from somewhere in East Africa whose original plan was Italy. But the boat he was traveling in ran into trouble near the coast of Malta and he ended up here. He spoke to us about how the dictatorship in his country caused a lack of opportunities and forced him to leave. He drove for eCabs, “the black cab company”, and was grateful to be making enough. We passed their office on the way back. He also told us how he used to watch Bollywood movies, but has stopped now because the quality had come down! \ud83d\ude00<\/span><\/p>\n

We got back to the hotel and were tired enough to switch our original night out plans to\u00a0<\/span>The Black Sheep<\/span><\/a>, which was next to The Brew. We had to wait a bit before we gave up and took the bar seating. Though we finally managed to get a table, they forgot our food order! They apologised and offered free coffee, but we declined since all we wanted to do was crash!<\/p>\n

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A hectic day that saw us go to the other side of the little country. The spectacular Dingli cliffs followed by an afternoon in Rabat and Mdina, where we explored catacombs, had excellent pastizza at the legendary Is-Serkin, and also visited some significant Game of Thrones locations. We then hopped across to Ghajn Tuffieha and caught a lovely sunset at Golden Bay. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5336,5747,17],"tags":[5779,5786,5777,5780,2421,5785,5788,5787,5781,5783,5778,5790,5782,5784,5789],"class_list":["post-13696","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-europe","category-malta","category-travel","tag-church-of-st-dominic-the-blessed-virgin","tag-crystal-palace","tag-dingli-cliffs","tag-fontanella","tag-game-of-thrones","tag-ghajn-tuffieha","tag-golden-bay","tag-is-serkin","tag-mdina","tag-mdina-gate","tag-mesquita-square","tag-pastizza","tag-rabat","tag-st-pauls-st-agathas-catacombs","tag-the-black-sheep"],"aioseo_notices":[],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/manuscrypts.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13696","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/manuscrypts.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/manuscrypts.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/manuscrypts.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/manuscrypts.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13696"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/manuscrypts.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13696\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13772,"href":"https:\/\/manuscrypts.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13696\/revisions\/13772"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/manuscrypts.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13696"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/manuscrypts.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13696"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/manuscrypts.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13696"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}