Wednesday 27 January 2010

Wednesday 27th I have been booked up for a few days now to go on a mystery tour organised by Cyril and Monica, it turns out fifty two other people have the same idea, so it’s up early quick breakfast and meet in reception at 9am, it’s a lovely day, I’m looking for a slim person to sit next to, Irene fit’s the bill and is good fun into the bargain, so we set off and everyone is asking the same question where are we going? It’s a mystery tour!!

We start winding our way through towns, I’m not sure if Cyril is trying to be surreal or just is because he takes the microphone and starts a running commentary we such little gems as, that building there used to be a car showroom, but it isn’t any more, and there’s a church, over there is a brewery we had a fantastic time there the last time we did this trip, most of us were drunk with the free beer, even the driver, but were not going there today, well thanks Irene and I mutter, suddenly Cyril gets the coach to stop, below the wall of the road he points out cattle, there are probably about seven cows on a narrow strip of land, all tightly controlled, he also imparts some information I had long been suspecting, you see crops being grown in very fertile earth yet surrounded by barren rocky terrain, well it turns out the soil come mainly from Italy, so one minute you are walking on Malta earth the next Italian.

Soon we view Rabat and Mdina on the horizon, now I would put money on us going there, it’s beautiful as you may remember my comments the last time I visited here, I’m right, we pull into the square just outside the walls of the silent city (Mdina) Cyril tells us all to get on the wheeled tourist train, what a stroke of luck, I was going to hop on this the next time I came here, so that’s three Euros saved, all aboard and off we go, it takes on a ride through the centre of Rabat, and round it’s outskirts, it is much larger than I had thought, the whole journey takes about thirty minutes is most enjoyable, even with Cyril soon to be joined by other shouting to the locals “bon-jew” good morning in Maltese, they either shout back “Good morning” or look at us as if we are on a trip for special people with social services, I can well understand them thinking the latter, I’m beginning to feel a special case myself.

Back on the coach, well that’s a good start most of us are thinking, where next, Cyril promises us all the next thing will be something different, I don’t think you will have seen this before, expectancy is high, then we enter Valletta, well I’ve seen this nearly every day I tell Irene, we pull up outside the Malta experience, I’ve seen that as well I further comment, we then cross the road and are almost stood out side the Knights Hospitallers, now come on I was in here two days previous.
Cyril puts us out of our suspense we are going to see the making of Carnival floats, in February each year there is a Carnival parade through the streets of the capital this is a big event in the Malta calendar, he has got permission for us to watch them building the floats, we all follow Cyril, then he stops and starts taking to locals, this goes on for some minutes, we follow, he stops and talks to locals, it’s not long before the penny drops, the mystery tour has now become a mystery to the guy who organised it, we follow him even further, he looks as if he’s beginning to panic, now we notice Monica’s not with us.
We are now at St. Elmo’s fort Cyril goes into the entrance, says there is some sort of a problem and promptly vanishes up the hill, leaving his charges alone and bewildered, some of us lean against the harbour wall in the sunshine, thinking what else we could be doing on such a beautiful day, I for one could be on Gonzo,
The banter is in full flow now, we have been deserted for some fifteen minutes, we spot a metal trailer for towing behind a car or van, so jokingly some of us pose for photographs at the side of it claiming this must be the Carnival float Cyril had promised us, then coming down the road we spy our coach with Cyril standing up at the front, it goes pass us and disappears out of sight, a few minutes and it’s back, we all pile on waiting for an explanation, the facts of the matter are the person Cyril had to see was not there and the person who was there would not give him a ticket to see the floats, this somehow has a follow ring to it, before we know it the coach pulls up for a loo break we get off get back on again, then the coach goes a few hundred yards only and stops again, what is going on? Cyril then orders the people from the middle of the coach to the back to get off and follow him, the rest of us sit there nonplussed, then we are ordered off the coach, are we all to be executed I wonder aloud, but no we are going to see the Carnival floats after all, they are in a rather large warehouse, there are many such places all working on a different theme, the choice of this warehouse was Scooby Do, so there were weird and wonderful ghouls and the like, we all snap away, then back on the mystery tour so far it’s not as magical as the Beatles one.

Next we pull into a large car park outside a shopping complex, we are informed that we will be wine tasting inside the supermarket, then the magic words for free, this is the end of our magic carpet ride, we are given two hours to shop if we wish, there is a restaurant so most of us after sampling one or two snorts of wine and a few nibbles venture upstairs to said restaurant, I settle down to a couple of pints of the local beer “cisk” cheap at just two Euros twenty at this place, prices have varied elsewhere, Irene, M&S, Sandy and I band together like the famous five round a table, and try to put the world to rights on a whole raft of topics.

We return to base without anything of further interest taking place, most of us agree all in all we have had some laughs and the day has not been a waste, epically Irene who wins the whisky in the raffle.