St. Paul's Bay - Malta

We decided to take a vacation from our vacation and go over to Malta for two nights. This time we took the regular ferry to Cirkewwa instead of the fast ferry to Valletta, as St. Paul's Bay is closer to Cirkewwa.

We had two reasons for visiting St. Paul's Bay:

1) Steve's Uncle John wanted to know more about the connection between St. Paul and Malta

2) We wanted a hotel with a pool. Normally when we come to Gozo we can get a membership at the Kempinski to use the pool... but they are no longer offering memberships shorter than three months. Also there are way more jellyfish in the ocean this year, so swimming in the ocean is not that attractive to me! Anyway, we were craving some pool time.

Steve found us an excellent hotel called the Seaview Hotel. It is right across the street from the ocean, and has a terrific infinity pool on the rooftop (10th floor).

Not many photos to show, as we mostly just relaxed for two days... but here's a few...

View from the rooftop

Happy people at the pool 😎

The pool!

Check out the beautiful sunset view from the balcony of our hotel room!

This is definitely a resort town. You can hear club music at night if you leave your door open (don't do it, mosquitos will come in!), there are a ton of restaurants, and lots of people in the ocean (braver than me to swim with the jellies!).

There is a nice promenade to walk along the water. Steve and I walked down to the Malta National Aquarium. Our favourite part was walking in the tunnel that goes through the tank and watching sharks and stingrays swim over our heads. It's kind of like swimming with sharks without the danger of being eaten!

Our hotel gave us coupons for 3 Euros off the entry when we checked in... but we forgot to take them 😀

As we walked back to our hotel we stopped at a little cafe for a drink to cool off.  (It is still very hot at night... only cooling off to about 28 degrees at night.) You buy your beverage of choice from a stand on the sidewalk and then he has some tables behind it where you can sit and relax. We both had a slush puppy and were quickly reminded about what a brain freeze is!

Only a few random thoughts to report:

1) The included breakfast at the hotel was WAY better than we expected! A very large buffet and a fancy coffee machine (even though we don't drink coffee I could see other people were very excited about the coffee machine!)

2) We would definitely stay at this hotel again... as a matter of fact we look forward to it!

3) When we stopped for a drink on the promenade there was a man "pretending" to play his guitar... fake busking if you will. He actually was broadcasting from youtube from his amp, which he had plugged his electric guitar into and was pretending to play. Here are some tips for you sir... when your music has ads periodically that is a dead give away... also try moving your fingers when you fake play the guitar... also does anyone actually give you money???

4) For the regular Gozo ferry, you only pay on the Gozo side. When we arrived at the terminal on the Malta side, the stairs were open, but there were also people sitting in the waiting area. We weren't sure if we should go up, so asked the lady sitting at a desk. She asked us if we had a ticket... hmmm... you don't need a ticket on this side.  She made us show her our tickets we bought on the other side. Basically she was trying to pocket some extra money... and the guy working beside her didn't stop her. I think this is a prime example of people taking advantage of tourists. We however did not pay her because we happened to know you only pay on the other side. I thought about letting someone know about it... but pessimistic me is quite certain nobody cares. So this is just a heads up for you... for the car ferry you only pay on the Gozo side.

5)  I almost forgot to mention St. Paul. It is widely believed that the apostle Paul brought Christianity to Malta in 60 AD when his ship was caught in a storm only to be wrecked on the Maltese coast. There is a monument on St. Paul's Island commemorating the event.

If you are interested and want to know more you can check out this website St. Paul in Malta

In summary, we had a marvellous time enjoying the pool and would highly recommend the Seaview Hotel in St. Paul's Bay.