Malta

Our first destination was the island nation of Malta. I woke up early and was suprised to see we were pulling into port. I rushed out to the balcony to snap some pictures in the early morning light.

This neat southern european island is situated right off the coast of Sicily. One of it's historical claim to fames is that it's where Paul (from the new testament) shipwrecked about 2000 years ago.

We were a bit luckier than Paul and we made it into port without any troubles.

We decided to do the shorter bus tour which was fairly uneventful. We learned all about the dusty yellow stones that every building in town is made of.

We learned how they imported and made their own dirt in order to garden this completely rockfilled land. They also showed us how they divided up the different gardens with stone walls to keep this precious soil from eroding away.

As always, Ryan was extremely interested.

We made a few stops along the way where we saw some interesting buildings and scenic views.

And finally we stopped at one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen. We blew the camera up here and still couldn't get a shot that completely captured the panoramic, mind-blowing beauty of "The Blue Grotto"

I caught this last picture from our balcony. It's hard to see at this small size but it's a cross with the sunset behind it. I found out after we passed it, and I could see it from the side, that it was some sort of antennae and not a cross at all. It was like God gave me a little something special that morning.