During the time when my daughter was not with me I ate my dinner at the hotel because it was easier; and I always had breakfast there because it came with the room. However, I never ate lunch at the hotel although I believe that it was possible to do so. Just as I never saw anybody in the bar, I never saw anybody in the dining room at lunch time but that is not to say that both didn't carry on a flourishing trade while I was doing other things.

Dinner at the hotel was something of a trial, apart from the food, because the best tables were out on the balcony and the doors, which took up most of the harbour-side wall, were kept wide open. After the first night I learnt to rug up in all my warmest clothes and was amused one night to watch a French couple gradually go and get more and more clothes, ending up with warm hats and scarves as well as their top coats. No amount of persuasion would cause the powers that be to close the doors until eventually one day the wind swung round making the dining room quite unusable with them open.

Lunch was usually at Cordina's cafe if I was in Valletta, although I did visit the little cafe in St John's Bastion a couple of times - they served the most superb apple pie.

The Auberge de Castile. To the right of the picture is an umbrella which marks one of the cafes in Valletta

Cordina's cafe was right in the middle of Valletta and it was fun to sit and watch the passing parade while I waited to be served. I tried Eddy's just the one time but was unable to get served and one can wait only so long without losing patience; I moved over to one of Cordina's tables as both cafes shared the same alfresco area.

Tipping was the usual 10% give or take a bit and I found that the prices had been worked out by some mathematical genius who had managed to calculate all prices so that however they added up, the amount, when rounded up to the next coin or note ended up with the change being approximately 10% of the price of the meal, thus eliminating the necessity to wait for one's change.

Taken from an Alfresco cafe in Senglea looking across Dockyard Creek to Fort St Angelo

After my daughter arrived she vetoed the suggestion that she should, just for the experience, eat one dinner at the hotel so we went out to a different place each night of her visit. We had a guide book which listed the available places but as Valletta is essentially a business district there was not a great choice. My breakfast friend, Martin, recommended a pasta restaurant and we went there twice because it was one of the only two places open on a Sunday evening (besides McDonalds) - the other one being a Chinese restaurant. I am not very keen on Chinese food.

One night we went to a pizza place where the pizzas were so large that I was barely able to get through half of mine and as there was no way of heating up the other half at the hotel I did not ask for a doggy bag. This was a feature of most of the places we ate at - very large servings which were far beyond my capacity. An entree size would be a better choice next time around.

Caper plants growing in one of the walls of Fort St Angelo

The place which we both voted the best place for dinner in Valletta was a little cellar restaurant underneath the Library. The food was good and the service was excellent. Even the wine, which we also drank at another place, was better there.

One memorable night, when I returned to Valletta at about 9.30pm with the prospect of watching fireworks from my vantage point at the hotel, I resorted to a Big Mac and chips. That was a Sunday night, as well, so my choices were extremely limited. It was hot, filling and available which is about all that can be said for fast food. The Valletta McDonalds was just around the corner from the hotel. Big Macs are the same the world over so I will not comment on them.

I ate rabbit stew - a national dish - twice while I was in Malta and decided that Maltese rabbits lead very hard lives which toughened more than their moral fibre. Pasta is a safer choice.