Malta was a very pleasant surprise. We actually got up at the crack of sparrows - in fact thats almost literal as there has been a wee sparrow travelling with the ship.. alighting here and there over the last two days.. I digress... we got up early to watch the ship sail into the incredible Valletta harbour. Its a very narrow gap for such a large ship, but the harbour itself is quite vast and surrounded by beautiful buildings. It was a quite spectacular entrance.. We docked and then had breakfast. On leaving the port area there is a lift to take you up the side of the walls - if you prefer, you can walk, zigzagging up the heavily fortied walls - but we decided to save our energy and use the lift. After being stung for €40 in Santorini for the cable car, €2 felt like a bargain. Once up in town we were completely bowled over by the beautiful stone buildings and mostly by the fabulous jutting out balconies... I took sooooo many photographs of balconies (and doo...