Stuff you need backpacking around Malta

Traffic safety billboard The official languages are Maltese and English. Italian is widely understood and spoken, especially by the younger generation. You could get around with some basic French but few people can speak fluent French in Malta. Getting around with English alone is easy, but even a few words of Maltese will be much appreciated. The basis of Maltese is Semitic, while the superstructure is Romance (mostly Italian). It also has substantial Anglo-Saxon (English) elements in it. Knowing a few phrases in Maltese may be useful. See the Maltese phrasebook for details.

Good, distinctly Maltese cuisine is hard to find but does exist. The food eaten draws its influences from Italy, northern Africa and Britain. Most restaurants in resort areas like Sliema cater largely to English tourists, offering pub grub like meat and three veg or bangers and mash, and you have to go a little out of the way to find 'real' Maltese food. One of the island's specialities is rabbit (fenek), and small savoury pastries known as pastizzi are also ubiquitous. The Maltese celebratory meal is fenkata, a feast of rabbit, marinated overnight in wine and bay leaves. The first course is usually spaghetti in rabbit sauce, followed by the rabbit meat stewed or fried (with or without gravy). Look out for specialist fenkata restaurants, such as Ta L'Ingliz in Mgarr. True Maltese food is quite humble in nature, and rather fish and vegetable based -- the kind of food that would have been available to a poor farmer, fisherman or mason. Thus one would find staples like soppa ta' l-armla (widow's soup) which is basically a coarse mash of whatever vegetables are in season, cooked in a thick tomato stock. Then there's arjoli which is a julienne of vegetables, spiced up and oiled, and to which are added butter beans, a puree made from broadbeans and herbs called bigilla, and whatever other delicacies are available, like Maltese sausage (a confection of spicy minced pork,coriander seeds and parsley, wrapped in stomach lining) or ġbejniet (simple cheeselets made from goats'or sheep milk and rennet, served either fresh, dried or peppered). Maltese sausage is incredibly versatile and delicious. It can be eaten raw (the pork is salted despite appearances), dried or roasted. A good plan is to try it as part of a maltese platter, increasingly available in tourist restaurants. Sun dried tomatoes and bigilla with water biscuits are also excellent. Towards the end of summer one can have her or his fill of fried lampuki (dolphin fish) in tomato and caper sauce (see here for the peculiar method of catching this fish: http://www.june29th.com/lampuki.htm). One must also try to have a bite of ħobż biż-żejt, which is leavened Maltese bread, cut into thick chunks, or else baked unleavened (ftira, from the Arabic root for flat), and served drenched in oil. The bread is then spread with a thick layer of strong tomato paste, and topped (or filled) with olives tuna, sun-dried tomatoes, capers, and the optional arjoli (which in its simpler form is called ġardiniera).

The national drink is Kinnie, a fizzy drink made from bitter oranges and slightly reminiscent of Martini. The local beer is called Cisk (pronounced "Chisk") and, for a premium lager (4.2% by volume), it is very reasonably priced by UK standards. It has a uniquely sweeter taste than most European lagers and is well worth trying. Other local beers, produced by the same company which brews Cisk, are Blue Label Ale, Hopleaf, 1565, Lacto ("milk stout") and Shandy (a light soft-drink type beer). Since late 2006 a new beer produced by a different company was released onto the markey with the name "Caqnu". A lot of beers are also imported from other countires or brewed under license in Malta, such as Carlsberg, SKOL, Bavaria, Guinness, Murphy's stout and ale, Kilkenny, John Smith's, Budweiser, Becks, Heineken, Lowenbrau, Efes, and many more. Malta has two indigenous grape varieties, Girgentina and Gellewza, although most Maltese wine is made from various imported vines. Maltese wines are generally of a good quality, Marsovin and Delicata being prominent examples, and inexpensive, as little as 60-95ct per bottle. There are also many amateurs who make wine in their free time and sometimes this can be found in local shops and restaurants, especially in the Mgarr and Siggiewi area. The main Maltese night life district is Paceville (pronounced "patch-a-vil"), just west of St. Julian's. Young Maltese come from all over the island to let their hair down, hence it gets very busy here, especially on weekends (also somewhat on wednesdays, for midweek drinking sessions). Almost all the bars and clubs have free entry so you can wander from venue to venue until you find something that suits you. The bustling atmosphere, cheap drinks and lack of cover charges makes Paceville well worth a visit. Interestingly it does not rain much on Malta and almost all of the drinking water is obtained from the sea via large desalination plants on the west of the island or from the underground aquifer. Since water is scarce you will find that swimming pools are usually filled with salt water.

The official currency of Malta is the euro (€).

Costs

Goods in Malta are of average value by north European standards but quite pricey compared to Africa. Touristy restaurants and shops can be very expensive, and imported goods and produce are also pricey. You can survive on a budget of less than €30 a day by staying in youth hostels and self-catering, but you'll need to double this amount for comfort.