A Winter's Stroll

In Malta, there are two types of winter's day. Those that are bright, with the sun shining, blue skies and fresh air that can border on nippy when you find yourself in the shade. Then we have the rainy days, where the heavens open and the entire country floods. This particular winters walk was on one of those cool, sunny days. The temperature has finally dropped below 30 so a brisk walk is a perfect way to get some exercise on an otherwise lazy weekend.One such weekend recently we felt we'd been a bit inactive. Both of us had spent most of the day on our laptops either working or blogging or just watching too much Seinfeld so we dragged ourselves out and had a beautiful walk through Swieqi and up to Madliena.I love going for strolls, especially this time of year in Malta. It's still sunny and bright, the fields are green as the periodic rains have started to fall and its warm enough to enjoy without a jacket but cool enough to actually get a pace on without sweating bullets. The walk was very pleasant, through some quiet, sleepy villages. We saw some beautiful homes, passed a lot of farmland and spent quite a bit of time stopping to play with the myriad of cats we passed along the way.If you enjoy walking in general and want to go on a bit of a nature ramble, I'd really recommend heading over to Madliena. It's very quiet, like a real country village. Instead of signs to clean up after your dog, you'll start coming across signs to clean up after your horse. There is a lot to enjoy in this area like Fort Madliena; from the pictures I found online I think we only explored a small part of the Fort so I'll definitely go back to get some more complete photos of the good old British fortification.As relaxed rambles go, it was the perfect winter activity in Malta. We got to play with some beautiful cats, we walked alongside luscious green fields, enjoyed rich blue sea views. I get a lot of hits on the blog of people looking for 'things to do in Malta' either in the summer, whilst on holiday, during the weekend, in the evening or when it rains but one of the simplest and most fulfilling things is just to go out, take a camera and walk. Enjoy the quaintness of this island, enjoy the contrast and snap pictures of anything interesting you see along the way.