Downhill All the Way

The above title is what K.M. Peyton decided to name her book, and it describes exactly the type of walk my father and I went on yesterday. 

The book

To start off with, it would probably be a good idea to give a brief overview. After 2 months "in convalescence" it was high time I got to do a little exploration again, and what better way to do it, than going 'downhill all the way?'. To be fair we had been going on a walk here and there, but yesterday happened to be an off day and after running some errands around the central areas of the island we had some time to kill and headed to Bahrija. (Not directly though...we're not that energetic).

What I really had in mind was to explore Fomm ir-Rih. This little pebbly/rocky beach is quite secluded and not easily accessible. Usually we'd walk to the hanging cliffs above it from the Bingemma area (path in red) but there would be a road from the opposite side (yellow line). This seemed to be coming from Bahrija, and I intended to find out! 

Map of Bingemma/Bahrija area

We happened to arrive right when school was about to be finished for the primary children. Already some parents had parked their cars to the side, and the building struck me as being in such an idyllic location. It was the furthest in the village, overlooking the flora and fauna. 

The walk was so beautiful, and everything felt so fresh, especially after not being in the 'proper' outdoors for a while. This week has been really nice and sunny. It's a good break from the previously stormy and very windy days of December and January. 

At a point the path forks and we took the left path. When I looked it up on the maps later I found that it was the other road that led to Fomm ir-Rih, but the one we took was still nice. There was even a hiking trail along the cliffs but that will be an other adventure...

29/07/2025 To the capital again in 2025 part 1 Florania Public Library book sale!!

 Phew, its already almost August, and what better way to finish off July than to make a good trip to the old capital?

The parents took a couple of hours of leave and I... well I don't have school at the moment and Tuesdays are currently my free days...so we packed the car and drove to Valletta. Did I mention we left an hour late? It's quite a habit in the family... 

To be honest, the main reason of our excursion was to visit the Floriana Public Library, which is near Belt is-Sebt, located right outside the main entrance to Valletta. We saw on the maltalibraries website online that they were selling old, second hand books and simply had to go and have a look! (It ended up being more than a look)

Central Public Library

Apparently this book sale has been going on for the past 10 years, and come to think of it, when we visited last year I saw a section of random books sitting by themselves in a corridor but there was no sign whatsoever of 'books for sale'. Or maybe I didn't look well enough. Anyway, today we went to inspect.

Found a poster dating some years back on their FB page

AND WHAT A FIND! There is a whole corridor of books, on shelves, in boxes... simply everywhere you look there are shelves of unwanted books, though why exactly they are unwanted, I wonder. I understand that some of them are outdated and not that popular, but other modern children's books like Jacqueline Wilson were also amongst the shelves. There were also a lot of classics, and Enid Blyton books too. I didn't really look at the adult section. 

(Not the actual books)

There were also a lot of foreign language books, mostly German. Amongst theses, was a very interesting looking guide to some canals in that region. What a pity I don't know a word of German!

But I haven't got to the best part... books are sold at the mere price of 25c. Unbelievable! Even in charity shops prices usually go from 1 or 2 euro to 5. We spent ages rummaging amongst the books and when we finally decided which we were going to get, (some would be duplicates of ones at home which were too classic of an edition to leave behind), the total price was just 5 euro. As books sold for 25c each, 4 books makes an euro, so we had 20 books to take with us back home! I also got a Chalet School book which are pretty expensive on the internet. 

Chalet School

So that was the library, a great start to the morning. If you haven't heard of the book sale, do give it a visit, you may find a treasure!