right guys so a couple of clouds in the sky i wasn't expecting that this morning i thought i
would check out the bus service on malta i've got no idea where it goes from uh how much it costs
or anything else really but i've got a rough plan to maybe head up towards valletta and
then maybe to the north of the island and just kind of mooch around for a bit really and give
you an idea of what public transport is like on malta because um there's no railway um just well
there used to be uh but um that's that's long gone so it's bus or taxi really i'm gonna try the bus
so we'll see how it goes and i'll speak to you a little bit later from wherever i happen to end up
thanks for watching and i'll see you in a bit cheers for now
the bus service in malta is currently operated by auto buses urbanos de leon
who have retained the catchy name of malta public transport
which was used when it was nationalized prior to 2015. there are currently around 400 buses in the
fleet are built by the turkish otokar and chinese king long bus manufacturing companies apparently
and are instantly recognizable by their white and lime green livery now as you would expect
most of the routes emanate from the capital valletta though i was surprised at how many
there were to be honest and the airport is also a kind of hub for connections although that proved a
little bit more difficult to figure out as you will see a little bit later on in this video
anyway i soon find myself on the bus taking my first journey this morning which would be from
birzebbuga where my hotel was to valletta that was a journey time of around 30 minutes and the
first impressions of the bus were pretty good it was fully air conditioned essential really on on
this island and i felt the ride was fairly comfortable up near the back of the vehicle
in terms of pricing you could buy a seven day explore card if you intend on using the bus a
lot and that costs 21 euros which is pretty good in my opinion however as i was only here for a
couple of days i found it easy just to pay the driver on boarding it's two euros cash for any
single journey which is easy and simple and only one euro 50 cents for that in the winter
the bus station in valletta is kind of located to one side of the triton fountain in three
separate zones there are plenty of information boards here to guide you to the correct stand for
your bus departure and it's also a great place to begin any sightseeing adventure of the city
as you walk towards the city gate through the mighty ramparts now they really give you a feel
for how heavily fortified the city is and has had to be in the past of course fort saint elmo
is a great example of this right on the tip of the peninsula it was built to repel the invading
ottomans in the 16th century and it's now a museum and of course it's a unesco world heritage site
okay guys i'm in valletta at the moment there seems to be some random thing going on with
a cannon over on the other side of one of the largest natural harbours in the world apparently
but it's very nice there's lots of archaeological interest
in this city and it's pretty warm as well it's going to take me a while to get around this but
i'm going to have a little look around and i'm going to be hopping back on the
bus and heading up north so yeah enjoy the views and i'll catch you a little bit later on cheers for now!
right guys i just got off the bus i'm in
Cirkewwa i'm not sure how that's pronounced to be honest anyway this is
the port where the ferries go over to gozo and comino i'm going to go over to gozo on the ferry
just as a foot passenger see what it's like really em it's clouded over a bit
i wasn't expecting that but i'm going to take some great shots anyway hopefully and when i get there
i'll um have a little look around the island and then come back i'll catch you on the boat
yeah so as you can see somebody shouts at everyone to tell them the boat is ready for boarding
and then we all go up the escalator and through the walkway on this occasion to the waiting ferry
now my randomly allocated ship for the outward crossing was the gozo
channel company limited's mv malita which was built by malta ship building in 2002 and it's
one of three identical ferries on this route the others being the mv ta'pinu and mv gardous
now there's a decent-sized shop on board selling lots of essentials like
cold bottles of water and also a cafe bar area and lounge i made my way straight
to the sun deck to enjoy the sunshine as it had brightened up considerably at this point and as
the bow doors closed we sailed quickly out of port through the azure blue waters and headed for gozo
gozo then i tell you what it's pretty busy look at the queue for the ferry there the police have
had to come out and start directing traffic onto or past the ferry it's quite nice though there's lots of
boats in the harbour i tell you what it was quite busy coming into the harbour as well because the
ferry i was on had to wait for other ferries to come out and but yeah it's all right i think i'm
going to have a wonder around the harbour there's a nice church up on the top of that hill over there i'm not
sure i'm gonna make it up there today to be honest because i'm being a bit lazy and it's hot so i'm
entitled to be lazy today that's what everybody else does when they're around here i'm sure
so i'm gonna have a look at that maybe i could grab a coffee somewhere that'd be nice wouldn't it
just have a look around the harbour area and then make my way back i'll catch you in a bit
well i didn't really see much of gozo I really just wanted to be able to say i'd been here
and maybe i'll come back again one day and stay over properly you will notice from the earlier
map that there is also a full bus service here although they don't actually go over on the ferry
you need to catch a separate bus once you're on the island i paid for my ticket on returning to
the ferry terminal total fare was 4 euros 65 cents return which is pretty good really isn't it
when i got back to cirkewwa i decided to take the X1 bus to the airport which was leaving in
about five minutes i thought this would be quicker than having to go all the way back into valletta
and then back out again well that's what i thought anyway i paid my two euros and we were on our way
south again total expenditure so far today was 10 euros and 65 cents including the ferry
right well i'm stuck here at the airport bus station the X4 which was supposed to be here at
18:10 didn't show up and but apparently it showed up at 18:15 from stand three
well nothing showed up at stand three then an X4 did go past and ended up at stand one which was
heading towards valletta that was about 18:20 the 18:15 one disappeared off
the screen and now it's showing um up as 18:45 that's that's a different
one i presume er but i'll tell you what guys if you come to malta do not pay any attention to
the bus timetables online because they're completely wrong and they don't mean anything um
god only knows whether this one will turn up and if it does
which stands it going to turn up at and where is it going to go i don't know
if it doesn't turn up i'm gonna get a taxi but i'm kind of tempted to stick around now to see
if it actually does so um wish me luck and um hopefully i'll catch you again in a bit
well a bus did turn up in the end the 119 to marsaskala and as you can see the sun
was beginning to go down by this time which unfortunately put paid to my early evening swim
anyway this was my final bus of the day four journeys at
two euros for each trip plus the ferry ticket to gozo and back
that made a total cost of 12 euros and 65 cents not bad really for a full day sightseeing
and i reckon i was probably on the buses for getting on towards four hours in the end
oh my god back at the hotel finally the airport i got to the everything was going really well and
i got to the airport where i was supposed to change buses
and uh bloody bingo's going on again tonight
and they just didn't show up
i've got no idea why
um anyway i tell you what um word to describe the um bus service
well that section of the bus service is unreliable and i'm probably being kind there
anyway i did manage to get make it back to the hotel before it got dark which was great because
i wanted to have a look at what is going on outside and as you can it's um
it's quite impressive isn't it it's um you know some people might like
that view some people might not uh but i think it's quite interesting
massive container ships uh coming in here to offload and load up again
and there's some other i don't know what sort of ship that is if anybody knows please let me know
um anyway i was gonna have a swim tonight and it's a bit late now because i'm really hungry and so
maybe first thing in the morning um apparently it's a man-made beach this it looks quite nice though doesn't it
oh yeah like i said then i'm not going to partake in the bingo tonight um i'm too tired to be
honest i'm just going to have a shower and i'm going to go and have something to eat so thanks
for watching my video about buses in malta and ferries to gozo i hope you've enjoyed it it was great
fun making it really a long day and um until the next time guys thanks very much and cheers for now!