Monday 3 June  -  St Julian's
We have just completed our final day here. Tomorrow we fly to Rome then wait for an age for our flight to Florence. There will be no diary entry for that lot. We land just before midnight so by the time we settle in to our hotel, it will be past my bed-time. Mind you, there may be time to do some catching up on personal mail instead of this generic broadsheet.

So top of the list was the Malta classic car museum which is located right at the Northern most tip of Malta. This is where Echocabs comes to the rescue. It's  comparable to our Uber except that they take cash only as payment. Dangerous for the driver I would have thought, but they don't seem to have a crime problem in this country
So 10 minutes after Peter ordered a car, up he turned to our front gate in his late Peugot and then whizzed us James Bond style to the northern point and then couldn't find said museum. He was a very cool young man with much testosterone  and minimal English. However eventually he got us to the front entrance after driving us around many blocks. Kind of dampened his image somewhat.
The street frontage sported a replica Bugatti and 2 very glamorous Italian receptionists who welcomed us warmly.  The next 2 hours melted away into one of the most magnificent collections of classic cars we have visited. The museum actually restores and sells them world wide so they are all in mint condition.
Once we finally emerged into daylight again there was nothing for it but to patronize the Sicilian caffe next door. I resisted the racotta delicacies right around Sicily but thought I should at least try one before we leave. Oh my, that's why Sicilians are the shape they are. I certainly don't need another, ever.
So another echocab materialized about 5 minutes after Peter ordered one, but this time with a charming sedate senior drive who gave us a fabulous return trip together with delightful conversation.

The afternoon was spent in a serious appreciation of the elusive St John's Co-cathedral of Valetta.  No queue!!!!! We just walked straight in. Extraordinary. The building has been described as a unique, holy museum/ Baroque art gallery . It  was built between 1573 and 1578 as a place for the Knights of St John to gather for communal worship. One of its greatest treasures is a huge painting of John the Baptist by Caravaggio.  I photographed it but for those of you not on fb, you have missed nothing. It is beyond photography. We have had three attempts at experiencing this monumental edifice, and our persistence was well worth while.

Peter and I then parted company for the first time in 3 weeks. He had made arrangements to attend a Property Investors meeting and I to attend an Inner Wheel one. We had expected to meet up again at the end of the evening,  but Peter's meeting was just a brief business committee meeting with no social frills, so he was able to join me to attend my dinner which was all frills. We met up with 4 delightful Maltese women who were just out for an evening's fun,and then 2 sisters of one of them joined us. The woman who will be the in-coming president is a major TV presenter with her own programme. What a personality!!! Actually each one of them was a character in her own way. They didn't  seem interested in having any connection with anyone outside their club. However they were so gracious to Peter and me and paid for yet another sumptuous meal. We had a charming evening together. I doubt they will want to keep in contact. I was sitting next to the member who is the International service officer. She was not the person who eventually answered any of my emails and gave all the inter club material and NZ post cards I had taken to another member without so much as looking at them. She was born in Malta and not ever been out of Malta, nor as it turned out, remotely interested in anything but Malta. Very funny.