The restaurant chosen for our lunch is called “The Restaurant of the Girls.” The area, called the Valley of the Girls, was so named because three girls went missing one night. Though the town people searched and searched, they never found the girls, but some people say they now see them around the area as ghosts. The restaurant, Diar Il-Bniet is owned by local farmers, who rent their farm property from the Bishop. The farmer’s children opened the restaurant, and use only local ingredients in their food. They also give tours of the farm and the property. We’re just here for the food though – the only tour we’re doing is the winery later.
Victoria has suggested we order a bunch of shared platters to start, then each order a starter dish for later. This sounds like a good a plan as we can try a lot of different things. She takes care of the platters and we each order our own starter plus drinks. We are sitting across from a lovely couple from Columbia, SC who we have been talking with all morning. As it turns out we all end up ordering the same things! Diar Il-Bniet Local sheep cheese ravioli with “typical” Maltese tomato sauce for Betty and me, and the “Thick vegetable soup served with fresh sheep cheeselet” for Ed and Al. The boys both order a beer, and Betty and I order white wine.
The shared platters come first and all look great – until we figure out that we all have to share each platter. We just assumed there would be 1 each for each side of the table, so we were eating up our cheese and bread plate – except for what looked like a sundried tomato that turned out to be what I am calling a salt-dried tomato. Yuk. Hmmm…at any rate, we try to cut the fish cakes into little portions to serve all 12 of us, and then we end up passing the other plates up and down the table (I think the other end of the table got a little ripped off in this deal, it seems like we ended up with most of the food on our end).
The main dishes arrive and we all dive in. Ed’s soup is delicious, a vegetarian version of Bigos! My ravioli is ok, I’ll take their word it is fresh made, but the sauce is a bit watery from the ravioli and in hindsight, I probably would have been better off with the soup. But hey, local cheese ravioli? Had to give it a shot.
All in all it was a nice meal with very enjoyable company. Sadly, the bill paying part was a little bit of a disaster. Victoria, bless her heart, tried to get the restaurant to give us individual bills for our starters, but they wouldn’t do it. So she had to manually figure out how to divide up the platters between all of us, then manually figure out what each person owed. Never a good scenario. Then on top of it all, the folks who had ordered the spaghetti with the rabbit were given a main meal portion, not a starter, so their bill was far higher than expected. The four of us at our end of the table were in better shape than the rest. We only had single servings of wine and beer, where the other folks shared a couple of bottles of wine, which hurt the process. We each owed exactly the same thing, so it was easy to figure out and put our tabs in. The other end of the table ended up 20+ Euros short and had to pony up. All the while Victoria is having a totally heated conversation with the restaurant owners. She was so upset, she kept apologizing profusely and told us she would never take anyone there again. All of us reassured her it was fine, and it wasn’t her fault at all. but she really took it to hard. Sigh, the life of a tour guide….and/or the staff on a cruise ship, for that matter.
Our next stop is the Meridiana wine estate, which started life out as an airstrip in the war. Fields were planted around the airstrip, then in 1985, an oenologist convinced the owner that there was wine growing potential in Malta, and 2 years later he began his winery focusing only on locally grown vintages. We tour the winery buildings, going up onto the outdoor patio for a panoramic view of the surrounding vineyards and countryside (oh and more cactus!).
Then after a quick tour of the cellars, we arrive back in the courtyard for our wine tasting The tables are set out in a grouping of 4 and of 8. This causing some confusion when we try to move the tables so we can all be together, and when a couple of folks don’t sit at the table for 8. We finally get it all sorted out – we have a table for 4 and table for 8 – and settle in for the wine tasting.
The wines are all nice, and I’m particularly taken by the rose. No sense buying anything though, because with our onboard benefits, I’ve got more wine than I’ll ever drink, and we’re not flying bottles of wine home in our suitcases.
Tasting done, we head out to Mdina, our last stop of the day.
Mdina is a great walled city, and was the island’s original capital through medieval times. The architecture is wonderful, with so many great features, we snap away at all the interesting buildings and facades.
As we pass by the main cathedral, Victoria explains why there are 2 clocks on all the churches. The clock on the right is always the correct time, the other clock is incorrect in an effort to confuse Satan so he can’t come to interrupt the services.
It’s actually a quick walk through the city to the overlook with views all the way back to Valletta. We take some time to enjoy the view…
…then follow Victoria back along the ancient walls to the entrance.
There we hang out for a while until Vittorio arrives with our van, where we all pile in and ride back to Valletta once again listening to Victoria and her insights and perspectives on Malta.
We’re back a little later than planned, but we’ve still got plenty of time. None of us wants to go back up into the city, so we bid the Vic’s goodbye at the port and head back to the ship…where we find our nightly treat waiting for us already! At this rate, the ship will run out of strawberries before we hit San Juan.
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