Each bus displays a number but no destination which is not surprising as they seem to meander through many villages before reaching their terminus. In order to work out which bus to catch it is necessary to have a timetable which lists the route for each bus, along with the fare and approximate times when they leave Valletta. An example was the bus to the Gozo ferry - “6.00am/11.00pm leaves every 20/30 minutes”.

The bus station is in Floriana, just outside the gates of Valletta and almost all the buses travel to and from Valletta with only a few cross-routes.

The Bus Station , Floriana, viewed from St John's Bastion.

The cost of travel on the buses is very modest in monetary terms but very heavy on time. Malta is about 17 miles long and to travel from Valletta to Cirkewwa, where the ferry to Gozo leaves, takes an hour. Even the trip to the airport, which is about seven miles away from Valletta, takes 30 minutes and the bus I caught to the airport was a real museum piece.

I found that getting where I wanted to go was a bit of a problem; most of the villages do not display signs to say where you are but on my ride to Hagar Qim the driver announced the correct stop, as Hagar Qim is a major tourist attraction.

Just once we caught a bus mid-route but a friendly and very helpful man told us which bus to catch and, as he caught the same bus, let us know where we should get off again. The people were all very helpful and several times we were stopped and asked where we wanted to go and then given directions.

The driver collects the fares and the guidebook warns that it is a good idea to have small change for bus fares as the drivers rarely have change for anything large. Certainly the change they gave was always in the very smallest denomination possible with the small coins lined up ready to be given to any hapless person who didn‘t have the correct money. I left all my very small coins, courtesy of the bus drivers, as a tip for the woman who cleaned my hotel room.

The roads are in a very bad state and particularly through the villages they are extremely narrow. With Malta’s entry into the European Community there is a grant to have the roads upgraded but at the moment they are rough and potholed which makes for an exciting ride. The space to the back of the seat in front was just the right width for me to be able to wedge myself in.

All the buses are bright yellow.

Unlike Perth where everybody drives cars, the buses are much used by the local population. This is not surprising, given the traffic on the roads and the real difficulties encountered when trying to park. There is no parking in Valletta except for residents and even in the villages the residents are not sure if their parking space will still be available when they return home. To compound the traffic chaos, the drivers see it as a bit of a free-for-all, although I only saw one accident in the two weeks I was there.

I had been told that these days drivers have to obey the rules of the road and for the most part they did so. I only attempted to drive when we went to Gozo for the day. The traffic there is not so heavy and with a navigator to help me to find my way around it was a fairly relaxed day but the car which we hired was not, I suspect, a proper hire car. We hired it at a supermarket and had to wait while it was delivered. We were then taken by the driver back to his village and furnished with a map of the island. I had the presence of mind to ask where we were so that we could orientate ourselves and except for the fact that the petrol tank appeared to be nearly empty, and given that there were only two service stations on Gozo, we saw pretty much all that we had planned to see.

The gear box was extremely sloppy and the clutch was very sensitive. I had some problems with that to begin with but one can get used to anything, given time. The thing which I found hardest to forgive was the fact that for some reason the horn didn’t work. With many blind corners and the enthusiasm with which the Maltese use their car horns I was looking forward to following suit … but it was not to be; the horn didn’t work!