Happily we missed some celebration when we arrived in Malta. They were just dismantling a stage on dockside when we were there. I looked down onto the sea in the harbour. A sensation of wave equations, like looking at sine waves overlapping on an oscilloscope. Malta has had a painful chequered history over the years, including ethnic cleansing by Arabs from Africa.

The timing of excursions didn't always fit nicely with lunchtime. Today was had a salad at the Glass House before we went - not so good.

We went on a good trip to see Mdina, and have tea and cakes at Palazzo Parisio. The tour was enlivened by a fun guide who compared Bronze Age man replacing Neolithic to being like Hells Angels dealing with hippies. He also told the nobles in Mdina made sure the city only had the good poets, keeping the bad poets outside. You mustn't let the two mix apparently! Mdina is of limestone made, with twisty narrow streets, houses you could virtually step from one window into a window across the street, a cathedral with gravestones for a floor, a solitary red British telephone box. There were gravestones for people who hadn't yet died, that felt eerie.

Palazzo Parisio was different, build by an industrialist family who mixed Greek mythology with steampunk in the decor. They were the first on the island with electricity and wanted to show it. Each room was eclectically different.

Rain greeted us on our return, the only time the weather was less than gracious.