We have been planning our next steps.  Before we left Tacoma we booked flights from Madrid to Malta at 6:20 on January 11 and our first place to stay on Gozo.  Malta is an archipelago but from a population standpoint consist of two main islands, Malta itself, sometimes called Valletta which is the capital of Malta, and Gozo.   Gozo is about 26 square miles and 38,000 people.  It is about 8.7 miles by 4.5 miles – not a very big Island.   The main Island of Malta is 94 square miles and 400,000 people.  We will be in Malta for about a month, the first 8 days on Gozo and the remaining on the “big island”.  Today we looked at the bus schedule and found we can take the 1X bus from the airport to the le-Cirkewwa ferry dock where we will travel on to Gozo.  The proprietor for our Gozo place said he will pick us up at the dock if we let him know our schedule.  Looks like the ferry leaves about every 45 minutes.  You can buy a bus ticket for all day for 1.5 euro and the airport buses allow for luggage.   We also just booked our first place to stay when we return to the big island.  We booked two weeks but told the proprietor we may stay a third.  This particular place is only 20 euro a night ($24) a pretty good price but did not want to commit the whole time without seeing it.  The proprietor said he would reserve the third week just in case.  Malta is interesting in that it is an amalgamation of every society in the area.  It was of military interest due to its central location in the Mediterranean and as a result, everyone conquered it at one time or another.  Since control shifted from one country to another over the centuries, the culture retains aspects of  both Europe and north Africa.  We took the picture above and added it to the “About Us” link at the top of the blog.  -Dave