Double trouble! We were going on a new trip this year (trouble n°1) and we were going by plan (trouble n°2). With an 18 months old (almost 19 months actually) baby. Maybe I need to talk about triple trouble? And I was going to be 30 weeks pregnant of the fourth member of our family. Quadruple trouble?

[EDITED PART] Because of the corona epidemic we had to cancel our travel plans. So this year, for now at least, there will be no sunshine, holiday whatsoever for us. Too bad. But better safe than sorry. I prefer to let this post just be. Who knows, someday I may need it again :-).

But there was no turning back, we booked our plane tickets. And we already had our place to sleep (although we can still cancel that one). For the moment we’ve booked an apartment in the Pergola Hotel & Spa. The only downside of that is, that we’ve probably booked just a one bedroom apartment (I think the two bedroom apartments were already sold out). So let’s hope our little man will sleep … okay … with us in his room (or he in our room). Another downside is that we would’ve had to take a lot of food with us to start our holiday off and before we could go to a shop (maybe the first day in the afternoon). Luckily our little man eats about everything we give him. So … can’t be that hard, can it?
We still need to arrange our rental car (with child seat included… thought about it a lot, but I will not transport our own child seat on a plane. Don’t think it will survive it enough to use it again for baby number two ;-)).

But we are planning to do some kind of roadtrip on the island, but just starting from the same point every day. Why? Because we’ve learned people. We’ve learned. To listen to our little monster and to let him sleep at least once during the day as well. Than we’re all going to be happy. I hope.

So the planning is as follows (for now)

Day 1    Trip from hell (God, I hope not) with the airplane. From Brussels to Malta with Air Malta.  Think our plane leaves in the morning and we arrive around noon. So once we get our rental car, we just head out straight towards the hotel, get our little man in his bed for his afternoon nap and get to know the apartment/ hotel/ pools/ …

Day 2    We only head out in the afternoon, after our little monster has had his beauty sleep. We plan on visiting Mdina and maybe, depends on the time we have, walk a small part of the Victoria Lines to stretch our legs and enjoy some views.

Day 3    This is going to be a rather busy day. In the afternoon I want to visit Valletta and maybe go to the Three Cities (Vittoriosa, Senglea and Cospicua). You can go there by ferry from Valletta. So we’ll see in what kind of mood our little man will be.

Day 4    Because the other day could be rather stressful and busy … and because we’re staying in a hotel with some pools … we just kind of want to relax in the hotel today. And I’m warming the boyfriend up to go find him some diving places. Because, damn it, after the Maldives, we never got any pretty underwater pictures anymore. Time to do his job! Although I’m not quite sure I would survive a whole day (or half a day) with the little monster alone in a hotel. Let’s worry about that later, right?

Day 5    There’s an aquarium near our hotel, so maybe in the morning we could go and visit the National Aquarium of Malta. After that our little man can get some sleep perfectly before heading out again towards the complete other side of Malta and visiting Marsaxlokk. After that we have two possibilities: on our way back to the hotel, we could go and visit the viewpoint over the Blue Grotto, or leave that for tomorrow. So many possibilities…

Day 6    Time to do some more walking in the nature and visiting the Dingli Cliffs.  After enjoying some of natures beauties, time to go and visit some of men’s beauties. Or remains. I’m talking about the Megalithic Temples of course! Nearby the Dingli Cliffs (and the Blue Grotto for that matter) we can find some of the temples like Il-Misqa, Hagar Qim or Mnajdra. I plan on visiting at least one.

Day 7    It almost time to fly back home … but you can’t visit Malta and just stay on the first island, right? So excursion time to go and visit Gozo! I found an organisation who takes biking tours (with electric bikes and the possibility of child seats). They leave in the morning for a three hour tour with lunch included. So I think we might do that, it’s a bit more active. Our little monster loves to sit on a bike … and it’s an other way to explore the island. In the afternoon we would be free, time for some well deserved rest, before talking the hell-plane back home.

Day 8    Our plane leaves in the afternoon, se on our way back to the airport, I thought it would be funny (for the parents) to go and visit Popeye Village. It’s close to the hotel, and it breaks the waiting game. We all know we will be doing a lot of that in the airport. The downside of today? No time for our little man for a nap. Maybe on the plane? Fingers crossed? I’m not quite fancying the going home part :-).
I hope we’ll survive our flight… I hope the other passengers survive their flight. We all know nobody wants to fly together with infants. But hey, we paid for our tickets as well!
Let’s hope I’ll get to tell you what a wonderful trip we had ;-), and how the flight was way better than expected.

Moritori te salutant!