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A Papal feature? I'm not Malteasing you!

If you have perhaps been following this blog with even a morsel of the avidity with which the Ton of Mayfair read the latest Lady Whistledown, you might have spotted a pattern or two along the way. Perhaps it’s my tendency to make a shocking pun, safe in the knowledge that the screen between us muffles your groans, or the increasingly obscure references – although given that we collectively spent 251.74 million hours watching Season 2 of Bridgerton last week, I’d hope the opening one wasn’t one of those. Perhaps you’ve noticed that my adventures tend to take place on European soil, feature lots of good food, highly improbable events (the freak Czech tornado comes to mind), and probably have a monastery, pilgrimage or a houseful of Catholic students thrown in for good measure.


It is therefore with great excitement then that I share this Malt-easer of a post with snaps from an adventure which does indeed take place on European soil, feature excellent food, and well, Pope Francis, because our trip just happened to coincide with the weekend of the Pope’s postponed visit to Valletta and we didn’t realise until a few days before… I know it sounds ridiculous given the lengths my family and I have gone to glimpse the Pope Mobile previously – waking up at 5am to take a coach to Birmingham to see Pope Benedict XVI (2010), walking all day in a European heatwave and sleeping open-air at World Youth Day in Krakow (2016) – but I promise we really didn’t plan this one! After all, I knew a good friend was hopping off to Rome at the same time and I wouldn’t dream of stealing content from her blog… but alas, as she would later write… I went to Rome, the Pope was in Malta (tortoisetravelling.wixsite.com)


I’m afraid this post really only has some photos - one of the unfortunate side-effects of Final Year Cambridge has been that I’ve lost my grip on things – not only metaphorically but also physically, and so repeatedly using my hands and wrists for actions like typing and cycling – what one spends 90% of their time at Cambridge doing – is tricky! But I won’t let have the squeezy ketchup bottle have the last word on this one, so here’s to the eventual and full return of the articles and annadventurelog post-Cambridge, and in the meantime enjoy these photos of what happened when His Holiness rocked up on our family holiday.


As the shop front we were stood opposite aptly suggests, it was pretty epic indeed.

Swipe through for some scenes of Papal excitement in Valletta...


Below - the streets of Valletta, Lower Barrakka Gardens


Below - Botanical Gardens in Attard, a delicious tuna 'ftira' lunch in Mdina with a stunning view


Below - St Paul's Cathedral, Mdina - baroque fresco overload! Believed to be built on the site where Roman governor Publius met St. Paul on his shipwreck in Malta...


Family holiday turned pilgrimage?! Below (swipe through)- St Paul's Church and Grotto in Rabat, where St Paul and his missionary party were said to have taken refuge following their shipwreck


And finally, some nonholy-holiday snaps to round this blog post off...

Narak għada, see you soon!





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