Trip Report: 3 Weeks in Southern Europe (Spain, Greece, Malta)

Day 3: Cadiz

Cadiz was a really lovely city. This was my first experience with a train, and it went very smoothly, and once I got off, I hung out in the plaza in front of the famous Cathedral until it opened. I’d say that the interior was quite pretty, and I believe that there was a pretty significant underground area (though I could be confusing it with another cathedral), and the bell tower had pretty good views of the city. After visiting the cathedral, I checked out the Cadiz Central Market and bought a snack before heading to begin the scenic walk around the waterfront, beginning from the Jardines Clara Campoamor and ending in the Castillo de San Sebastian. The walk was extremely scenic and pretty since the gardens were filled with pretty blue and white mosaics, with plenty of spots to sit down and enjoy the turquoise waters and flowers / trees. One thing that I’d note is that around the second park (Parque Geneves), there’s this weird abandoned, dilapidated structure lining the waterfront view, not sure what it was supposed to be.

Once I finished the two parks, I decided to check out the Castillo de Santa Catalina. I think that because it’s a free monument, it wasn’t in the best state, a bit broken down, and was a bit small, but I had got pretty great views out of it, and it’s nice and quiet. From there, I checked out the pretty busy beach and walked down to the Castillo de Sant Sebastian, which was closed but still gave some amazing views of the Castillo de Santa Catalina and the city of Cadiz. From there, I went to the Torre Tavira, which was cool but definitely geared towards families with young children, and then chilled at the beach for a bit before repeating this itinerary during sunset for amazing photos. I will say that I finally understood what the handrails on the pathway to the Castillo de Sant Sebastian were for since I thought it was a bit weird that they just led directly into the ocean. It turns out that the tides in Cadiz are quite insane because what was ocean in the early afternoon transformed into full-fledged beaches in the evening, and it was just insane how far the tides had receded. After that, I ran to catch my train, and overall, I would say that I had a blast in Cadiz just walking around, chilling on the beach, and catching great views of the ocean, and I’d definitely recommend this underrated gem.

Day 4: Cordoba

Cordoba was decent, not mind blowing or anything like that, but it was a good time. I think my enthusiasm for it was tempered by a pretty terrible start to the day, where the wrong platform number was displayed for the train, causing me and many others to miss the actual train (train issues will be a recurring theme). This caused a two-hour delay and meant that I wasn’t able to go to the Alcazar de los Reyes in the morning, as I had planned, since I was already quite late to the Mezquita Cathedral. The Mezquita Cathedral is, I think, the big selling point for Cordoba and it was certainly very pretty, lots of cool architecture (lots and lots of arches) and good areas to sit and look at the art since the bars were less oppressive than Sevilla’s. Once I exited, I planned on heading to the Alcazar de los Reyes, but unfortunately, the place closes at around 2-3 pm in the summer months, something that I got surprised by since that’s really early.

With everything closed in the early afternoon, I got pretty bored, but since my train left at night, I had a lot of time to kill. I ended up walking around the walls around the waterfront (pretty but run-down with quite a bit of litter) and heading into the Old Town to check out a variety of random attractions (a couple of Roman ruins and random churches / buildings). Afterwards, I hung out a bit in the Jardines de Victoria before walking around the Jewish Quarter (very picturesque) and ended my day by visiting the tower at the end of the Roman Bridge, which provided a cute museum and great views of the bridge and city. Overall, while I had a good time there and thought it was a worthy diversion, I wasn’t as impressed as I had expected given that Cordoba definitely has a lot of online hype.

Day 5: Granada

Granada was really amazing! The Alhambra admittedly carries the city hard because it’s absolutely gorgeous, from the intricate mosaic and stone-work in the Nasrid Palaces to the picturesque gardens and fountains scattered throughout the compound. And that’s not mentioning the easy access to the great viewpoints of the Alhambra with the tickets, which is just absolutely spectacular and gigantic. If I weren’t a fast traveler and had more than a day to spend in Granada, I could easily see myself spending an entire day in the Alhambra because it’s just that spectacular. After spending about 5-6 hours there, including other attractions near the Alhambra, like a cute little museum and Palacio de Carlos V and Alcazaba, I headed back into the town to swing by the Catedral de Granada, which was enjoyable enough, and then began the walk up the Sacromonte neighborhood to the cave homes.

I’m going to be honest and say that the walk up to Sacromonte was definitely a bit iffy. The roads are narrow and the sidewalks alongside them quickly disappear, and there’s just quite a bit of visible poverty in the form of shanty-homes. I wouldn’t say it was dangerous per say, but just a fair warning if you tend to get easily scared off. I’d say that the walk was definitely worth it since the Sacromonte cave homes were a cute open-air museum with lots of cool information about the history of the Sacromonte neighborhood and origins of flamenco in Romani traditions. Plus, there are spectacular views of the Alhambra. From there, I hiked to the Mirador de San Nicolas, and although the sunset spot was absolutely packed, people were courteous, and I managed to capture some really spectacular pictures of the Alhambra and city of Granada, an amazing end to a great day!

Day 6: Malaga

My day in Malaga was pleasant. Once again, I had train issues, but this time, the train was canceled, though the alternative transportation buses didn’t end up taking that much longer (about 30 min more). Because of what happened in Cordoba, I wanted to ensure that I didn’t make the same mistake when it comes to attraction times and double-checked everything before heading out for the day. I hiked up to Gibraltar Castle and got some great views of the Malaga beachfront and city, though I wasn’t as impressed having seen the Alhambra the day before, all for a very good combo pack price with the Alcazaba (5 euros). After that, I went to the Picasso Museum, which I found to be enjoyable, and there were lots of goofy paintings and sculptures, though I will note that because I was running on about 5 hours of sleep, I almost fell asleep on a bench at the museum. The Malaga Cathedral came after, and it was decent, pretty in all the ways that Cathedrals are but nothing mindblowingly special about it, and once I finished touring it, I went to the Roman Theatre (tiny but good place to chill) and Alcazaba. The latter in particular was quite a bit larger than I had expected and was a cuter, less grand version of the Alhambra but still had some nice architecture, gardens, and plazas to explore and relax in.

Because of the impending rainstorm, the weather had cooled down significantly in the evening, and when I headed down Muelle Uno (touristy shopping area) to the beach, it was pretty cloudy and gloomy. To be honest, though, even without the poor weather, I was not impressed by the beach. It was brown-sand / muddy, filled with litter (so many cigarette buts) and sharp shells, and there appeared to be some sort of algae and gunk-filled pond or something in the middle of the beach fed by a pipe. Cadiz’s beaches were much more pretty and enjoyable compared to Malaga. Overall, I think Malaga was fairly enjoyable, certainly not as terrible as its detractors claim it is but not as amazing / underrated as its supporters argue it is. Maybe I would’ve had a better time had I stayed an extra night in Granada (or Malta), but I wouldn’t say that I’m particularly regretting heading to Malaga.

Day 7: Ronda

Originally, I was planning on going to Torrelimonos, just because I needed a break from moving around so much, and it seems like a pretty beach town that I could relax at. Unfortunately (maybe in hindsight, fortunately), it was projected to rain, so I decided to go for Ronda instead. One annoyance with Malaga was that the sidewalks get very slippery when it rains (nearly slipped probably 5+ times), and I almost missed my bus (arrived literally just as they were about to leave), and I was beginning to have my doubts, but Ronda really proved me wrong. It was absolutely breathtaking, really beautiful and picturesque, like it popped out from some fantasy novel. The cliffside houses with verdant vegetation just spilling over into the gorge were stunning to look at, and because of the rain, there were even some small waterfalls running down the cliffs. What I ended up doing was walking to the Plaza del Toros / Maestranza, taking the cliffside path to Puente Nuevo, then walking alongside the road near the gorge before crossing the Roman Bridge and heading up the Jardines de Cuenca and looping back to Puente Nuevo, making sure to take tons of pictures.

After that, I checked out a cute museum before taking the scenic path to the Arab bridge and baths before heading back up the Jardines and to Puente Nuevo. Third round, I checked out the Casa del Rey Moro, which was very pricey (10 euros), but totally worth it. I was able to walk all the way down to the gorge and get some amazing pictures while also seeing tons of birds just flitting everywhere, and I just hung around, observing nature a bit, before heading up. Because the original Puente Nueva viewpoint path was closed, I had to trek down this narrow, two-way road, but at the end of it, got some amazing views of the Puente. From there, I just hung around major viewpoints around the Old Town, snapping as many photos as I could before I needed to hop on the bus back. Overall, I had a great time in Ronda, and people aren’t lying when they say that it’s a must-visit for Andalucia.

Day 8: Barcelona

Train-wreck of a day. Don't feel like writing much about it, so here's the short summary of what had happened: Long train delay to Madrid (2+ hours) -> Missed connecting train to Barcelona, Long wait times for new connecting train tickets, Nearly missed new connecting train, Lost my jacket in security, Double-booked train seat in a nearly fully booked train, Noted the wrong hotel in my spreadsheets (had to walk 1+ hours to reach correct one with my heavy bag and now all my tickets were wrong since the attractions that I thought were far are close and visa versa).

Day 9: Barcelona

Because attractions in Barcelona are quite far from each other, I had a plan to divide the city into three sections: Gaudi, Old Town, and Montjuc, and spend a day at each place. Today was my Gaudi day, and it was quite fun. I’ll admit I was a bit sour in the morning when I visited the Sagrada Familia, not only because of the day before’s experience but also because I walked in circles attempting to find the guided tour since each worker I had asked gave me different directions. But once I got settled in, the Sagrada Familia was quite cool, and I really loved the colorful stained glass windows and intricately carved stone sculptures adorning the sides of the cathedral and the nature inspired architectural design (tree columns and raindrop stones). I’ll admit my only disappointments are that it’s quite a bit smaller than I had anticipated and that the tower views didn’t really yield any cool pictures due to construction.

After that, I swung by the street with all the Gaudi houses before trekking up to Parc Guell. It was also another attraction that I had thought was bigger and more substantive (thought there were tons of houses instead of the handful there actually were), but there were still many interesting things there. The arched rock pathways were very pretty and, of course, the candy-colored mosaics and main building were beautiful, even if it was overcrowded. The star of the show, though, is the lizard fountain (I was tempted to buy a plushie of it at a nearby store). I ended up backtracking to the Gaudi houses and taking the sunset at la Pedrera since I had luckily checked that the Carmel Bunkers had begun to close early. It was quite beautiful seeing the evening sky wash the iconic air vents in golden, and I got some great pictures from there. During the night, unfortunately, someone attempted to run the “bar friend” scam on me. It took me a while to figure it out, mostly because the approach seemed so natural (was sitting in a crowded restaurant and the only seat available was next to me), but as the conversation went on, I had slowly began getting much more suspicious (details were not adding up) and got the scam confirmed at the end when he asked to go a bar with him to party with German girls. Unfortunately for him, he ran this scam on a gay guy, and I was able to quickly get my check and leave, though I think this did put a bit of a damper at the end of the day.

(Will post the rest of the updates later since I think I'm being blocked by anti-spam filters right now)

Glad you enjoyed Cadiz, its become quite popular with local Spanish as an escapade by the sea which isn't overrun by foreigners.

Sorry you didn't like Cordoba, it's my favourite Andalucian city, the real charm of Cordoba comes out in the evening, when all the daytripers from Sevilla have left and one can explore Cordoba's whitewashed streets in relative peace. This is only possible by spending the night there.

Also things closing down in the early afternoon is typically in Spain, especially in the summer, in the evening is when most Spanish cities come alive.

Don't worry about almost getting scammed or robbed in Barcelona, think of it as the authentic Barcelona experience 😅

Day 10: Barcelona

The second day of Barcelona was spent mostly in the Gothic Quarter area. I took the metro (but got somewhat lost) and went to the Picasso Museum in the morning, and there were lots of goofy art pieces, like the emoji ceramica, alongside the more serious blue period pieces. I think that one issue that has been plaguing me is museum fatigue, especially when it comes to morning museums, and the Picasso Museum was no exception. As soon as I step into any museum, especially art museums, I feel so tired, and I admit, I almost fell asleep sitting down on a bench in the museum. Still, I had a good time in the museum, even if I was only half-awake. After that, I went to Palau Guell. I thought it was pretty funny that the most famous part of the place is the blue mosaic toilet, which was, admittedly, very beautiful, and the roof fixtures, like the ones in la Pedrera, were quite pretty and colorful.

Once I finished that, I walked to the Market Boqueteira, and while it was quite lively, I got scammed at one of the stalls. I was supposed to be charged 2.5 euros for a fruit juice, but instead, got charged 3 euros and only realized this after I had paid since the guy didn’t show me what number he had entered on the card reader. But I didn’t want to start a fight over 0.5 euros, so I decided to wander the streets of the Gothic Quarter before heading to the Parc de Ciutadella and Arc de Triomf. Like the Plaza de Espana, the Parc de Ciutadella was quite impressive for being a public park, with a cool fountain structure near the aquarium, and a nice place to relax a bit, with quite a few picturesque views of the sunset at the nearby Arc de Triomf.

Day 11: Figueres + Girona

The Dali Museum in Figueres was quite nice. Surrealism lends itself to lots of funny-looking artwork (like the first statue you see upon entering, which is a figure perched on top of a car but underneath what appears to be a crying boat), and I had a good time there, except for the museum fatigue, an indication that I seriously cannot do museums early in the morning. Did about 2-3 hours there, but still had time to kill before my train ride to Girona, so I hiked up to the Castell de Sant Ferran, and it was amazing. The castle is not only massive but completely empty. Because many people only go to Figueres for Dali, there was virtually no one at this castle (maybe around 20 tourists, at most). I was able to practically have an entire castle to myself for only four euros. Seriously underrated gem!

From Figueres, I made my way to Girona. Old Town Girona is very beautiful, with the pastel colored homes on the edge of the river into the historic city center and abundance of vegetation covering the ruins and castle walls. I wanted to check out the interior of the GOT cathedral, but unfortunately, I accidentally chose the wrong one. Still, it was quite quaint and cute, with one particularly detailed section, and once I finished that, I found the famous cathedral steps, took photos, and then headed off to hike the medieval wall of the city. The hike itself wasn’t too strenuous, though it lacked much shade between the towers, and I got lots of great views of the cathedral and Old Town Girona. I made it maybe ½ to ⅓ of the way before heading back to catch the sunset behind the cathedral before rushing to get to my train back to Barcelona.

Day 12: Sitges

Sitges was a nice, chill beach day. The town is quite small and easy to walk about, especially since the train station is so close to the town center and beach area, meaning that you wouldn’t need to bring a pair of sturdy shoes to walk around, unlike other beach cities, like Malaga or Cadiz. And of course, the town is extremely gay. I’d heard about its reputation, but wow, there were a lot of gay people here, especially since I had visited during Bear Week. One of my personal goals for my trip was to become a bit more comfortable in gay spaces since I’m a gay guy who grew up in a pretty socially conservative community. I’ll admit that I did feel a bit like a fish out of the water here, but at least I didn’t chicken out of going here.

Because I tend to get a bit bored just chilling on the beach, I ended up walking alongside the entire coastline, composed of small beaches broken apart by breakwaters, except for the very end (which I believe is the nude portion of the beach), just because it was a bit hard to access. After that, I went into town, explored it a bit, and grabbed food before chilling in a good spot on the beach until the sun began setting, which is when I walked up to the church to grab some great photos of the sunset. I wanted to just check out some of the nightlife or walk around a bit but unfortunately for me, I didn’t realize that my power bank did not charge until I attempted to charge my phone, which was sitting at 10% battery. With this revelation, I had to dash to the train station to catch the train back before my phone died and stranded me in Barcelona.

Day 13: Barcelona

I’ll talk about this more in the overall portion, but basically, I had been developing some eczema since Day 8, but spending all day in the sun in Sitges gave me mild sunburn that unfortunately turbocharged my eczema to the point where I could not exposed either my neck or arms to the sun for long periods of time because it would burn. Because of this, I changed up my original plans for the day, which was supposed to be split between Barcenoleta and Montjuic by solely focusing on the latter. Because Montjuic Castle was a long walk in the sun, I ended up splurging on a cable car to take me up, and spent most of my time hopping from one-shaded spot in the castle to another with a shirt wrapped around my neck, occasionally darting into the sun to snap some pictures. What was supposed to be a pretty intense walking day ended up being a lot more chill since I mostly relaxed in the shade.

In the late afternoon, I decided to walk down the hill to get to the Museum of Catalonian Art, and in a pleasant surprise, I had accidentally stumbled into its free hours. The museum was quite expansive and nice, and although I had spent three hours there, I didn’t feel like I had enough time there. The older fresco and gothic / renaissance exhibits are very interesting and moderately large, but the modern art collection, in particular, is absolutely gigantic, way larger than the Picasso Museum, which I had found to be a bit short. I ended up having to rush through some exhibits to leave just before sunset since I heard that there were amazing views, and the internet wasn’t wrong. It was absolutely gorgeous there. The only sad part is that due to the drought, the fountains at the base didn’t run, but that was alright. It was a great way to cap off my journey in Spain, even if getting to the airport was a whole nother ordeal.

Day 14: Santorini

I’m going to be honest and say that I wasn’t particularly impressed by Santorini for the bulk of my stay there. Don’t get me wrong, Akrotiri Museum was quite charming and interesting to see the ruins of buildings, aqueducts, and vases, even if I did experience some severe museum fatigue despite drinking a sugary fruit drink just prior to entering, and the three beaches, the Red, White, and Black beaches were cool to check out since the latter two were black sand ones. But I was left a bit underwhelmed since a lot of the beach space was way over commercialized, and I was left agreeing with the online detractors who had warned me that Santorini was way overrated (to be honest, the only reason I had gone was because plane tickets + accommodation cost + ferry cost ended up being lower than a plane ticket to Naxos, which was my original plan).

However, I was definitely blown away by the Fira to Imerovigli trail, a public path that gives just stunning views during sunset. It was absolutely gorgeous, really single-handedly bumping up my rating of Santorini, and had just breathtaking views of the houses lining the edges of the caldera. It’s like Ronda’s cliffside homes but upgraded. To make things better, I had lucked out hard that there were wisps of clouds in the sky that captured the afterglow and turned the sky a beautiful pink color. I wish I could’ve taken a photo of it, but unfortunately, like Sitges, my power bank had run out of juice, but this time, I wasn’t so lucky. While I was rushing down the trail, my phone died when I was approximately 20 minutes away from my hotel. While I was able to reconstruct my pathway there, at some point, I took a wrong turn and ended up getting completely lost. Luckily, I was saved by a McDonalds, which I had remembered being fairly close to my hotel on Google Maps, and with that, I was able to navigate home without my phone in a place that I had spent less than 12 hours in. Definitely very stressful but somehow worked out in the end!

Day 15: Naxos

The Santorini to Naxos ferry was a total nightmare. No one knew where to go, and it had arrived over an hour late, a result of extremely windy conditions that would continue to cause problems with ferry arrival times. Because of this, I ended up arriving at Naxos later than I would’ve liked, though because I had carved out so much transportation time in my itinerary, I ended up only falling slightly behind my schedule. After settling my stuff down, I took a bus to the famous Plaka Beach. Once again, the beginning of the beach was beautiful but over touristy, but as I walked further along, the beach expanded and became much more peaceful / quiet. Because I didn’t want to just sit down, since I had done enough of that on the ferry, I repeated what I had done in Sitges and walked the entire beach, which maintained its white-sand character throughout the entire stretch. I ended up passing a couple of nude beaches, which were, well, interesting as an American (old people in Europe really DGAF), and after walking and chilling, I headed back to Thora.

There, I spent the late afternoon walking the Old Town and Venetian Castle of Naxos. While there were some museums there, I was honestly sick and tired of nearly falling asleep in museums, especially since I had two museums booked for Athens, so I chose to explore the tiny, winding paths and nooks and crannies of the area. It was honestly quite pretty, and after that, I went to the Temple of Apollo to take in the sunset. Unfortunately, as a result of the aforementioned windy conditions, waves were crashing into the narrow pathway to the Temple of Apollo, and well, let’s just say that I got absolutely soaked. But despite the fact that the wind was threatening to rip my baseball cap from my head, once again, the sunset was spectacular and less crowded than it probably would’ve been if conditions were better. The walk back involved me getting soaked again, but I had already accepted defeat and walked to the hotel to get a change of clothes before checking out the very charming Old Town at night.

Day 16: Paros

There were two options for leaving Naxos to Athens. Either take the Naxos-Mykonos-Piraeus ferry or do the Naxos-Paros ferry and then Paros-Athens. Because I was worried about getting seasick, I ended up opting for the latter option, which split the journey into two (less consecutive hours on the sea) and allowed me to briefly check out Paros. Like the day before, there were severe ferry delays, so I ended up arriving later than expected. Once I had arrived, I dropped off my bags at a hotel that offered paid storage and checked out the Old Town. I would say that out of the three islands, Paros had the prettiest Old Town since it felt the least commercialized and filled with the most flowering vegetation, and some pathways led to some great coastal views. After that, I checked out the nearby cathedral and the small museum attached to it. It was quite pretty, a bit maze-like due to all the doors, and the paid tickets gave me some cool access to buildings and viewpoints that weren’t accessible to the non-paying public.

Because Paros was inherently going to be a whirlwind adventure, I decided to just embrace getting a bit of a taste of everything and hopped on a bus to Naoussa. The Old Port there was quite picturesque and the small, nearby beach had some cool views of waves crashing into rocks. After checking out the seaside restaurants, I ended up walking up a hill to check out a colorful church that I had spotted in the distance and chilled there with a cat before getting lost in the Old Town and hopping on the bus back. Once I reached Parikia, I went to the Livadia Beach to catch the sunset and relaxed at a nearby restaurant. Because I wasn’t sure when the ferry was arriving, I left a bit early to get to the port, just in case it arrived on time. Naturally, it didn’t (2+ hour delay), so while I wasn’t able to get super picturesque sunset views, it was still beautiful, especially since the afterglow on the horizon was bright red. The ferry delays meant that I had zero chance of catching public transport, and was forced to take a taxi that had totally ripped me off. The driver had the audacity to demand 40 euros while dropping me off 20 minutes from my hotel at close to 2:30 AM in the morning. I was so tired that I wasn’t in a position to bargain, so I just accepted defeat and vowed to never take a taxi in Greece again, which I had kept.

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Got blocked by anti-spam filters again, so I'll post the last third of the report in a couple of hours.

@Carlos -- Thanks for your comments. Yeah, I definitely noticed that Cadiz had much fewer international tourists and much more domestic ones. As for Cordoba, yeah, it was unfortunate that I wasn't able to spend the night (only got a glimpse of the nightlife as I was walking to the train station). Maybe someday I'll revisit it and give it a second chance.

Day 17: Athens

Because I had arrived so late, I knew that I wouldn’t be able to appreciate the Parthenon + rest of the Acropolis on a handful of hours of sleep, so I decided to sleep in a bit. Unfortunately, that was a mistake since when I had arrived (9:30 AM instead of the 8:00 AM that I had planned), the Acropolis was jam-packed with long ticketing queues, which I was forced into since I had bought my tickets prior to the implementation of the timed ticket rule. I’ll admit that I was slightly disappointed by the Acropolis once I had arrived, just because the main attraction, the Parthenon, was totally covered in scaffolding. Obviously, it’s for good reason to do needed repairs but I was a bit sad about that. Luckily, the other buildings on the slope were not under repair and there were fantastic views of Athens from on top of the hill.

Once I had pushed through the crowds, I went to the Acropolis Museum. It was quite interesting, definitely felt very modern and polished, but much smaller than I had expected, which was both a relief (museum fatigue) and a shame. From there, I made my way through the wonders in the combo-pack that I had bought, all of which were somewhat disappointing. The Roman Agora was mostly, like, ruined ruins, Hadrian’s Library was a bit more substantive but not really a well-preserved building as I had expected (also experienced some shockingly rude behavior from the ticketing lady, who accused me of fraud for being issued a “free” physical ticket despite the fact that all online ticket holders were issued one due to the timed ticket implementation), the Temple of Zeus was completely scaffolded up, and the Lyceum was an archeological dig site, which is cool for its history but not very exciting to look at. Luckily, the hike to Lycabettus Hill for the sunset was much more invigorating, and although it was overcrowded (made worse by a narcissist who sat on the railing right in the center of the viewing spot, making taking pictures very difficult), the views of Athens were beautiful. If there’s one thing about Greece, it’s that sunsets are just amazing there. From there, I went to eat at Thenasis Kebabs, who I just wanted to give a shout out to for serving gigantic portions of delicious, affordable foods despite being located in a very touristy place.

Day 18: Athens

Unlike the Acropolis Museum, the National Museum of Archeology was gigantic, and having arrived so late (since the museum is very out of the way), I did not get the complete opportunity to just really appreciate all of the artifacts (special shout out to the funny golden masks and status in various states of beheading). By the time that I had seen the thousandth ceramic pot, my eyes were totally glazed over, and I was itching to leave since I still had two more of the wonders. I ended up doing 3.5 hours there before rushing back to the Old Town. The Kerameikos Archeological site was much more substantive and larger than the Lyceum, with a mixture of ruins and occasional standing monuments, while the Ancient Agora was seriously well-preserved with the lovely Temple of Hephaestus that was smaller than the Parthenon but wasn’t coated in scaffolding, allowing me to get some cool pictures.

Because I had vowed to not take a taxi, combined with my total lack of cash, I was forced to take the metro to the airport. Since I wasn’t particularly familiar with the system and didn’t want to end up in a Barcelona situation, where I missed an important train to the airport, I left for the metro fairly early, about 3.5 hours prior to departure. That was honestly a pretty smart decision since it took me quite a bit of time to make it to the airport since, unlike what the internet says, not all metro trains on L3 go directly to the airport. You have to get off at a stop and then wait for the right one to pop up that takes you to the airport. Luckily, I made it to the airport all good and everything went smoothly from that point onwards.

Day 19: Valletta + Blue Grotto + Mdina + Dingli Cliffs

My flight from Malta was fairly late, so I once again pushed my ambitious itinerary back and got some extra sleep instead. Because St. John’s Co-Cathedral would be closed on Sunday, I was forced to do it today in order to fit it into my itinerary, but I have to say that I’m glad that I did because the cathedral is really pretty. The interiors are just so lavish and golden, with what I believe are frescos on the ceiling, and, most importantly, lots of great photo opportunities since mostly everything wasn’t barred off, like the previous cathedrals. Once I had finished this, I hopped on a bus to Zurrieq and did the hike down to the Blue Grotto, getting lots of cool photos of the Maltese countryside and cliffside views of the ocean. From there, I took a boat tour of the caves and famous arch, which was well worth it for the views, even if the caves themselves were underwhelming, and after chilling a bit there, took a Bolt to Mdina.

Unfortunately, when I had arrived in Mdina after eating lunch, I had gotten a bit complacent and didn’t check when everything had closed (at 4 pm), and by the time that I had found an attraction that was open in Rabat, it was a bit late to explore it. So what I did instead was explore the Old Town and walk down all of the narrow streets and corridors while taking lots of pictures of the famous monuments there, like the palace housing the history museum or large cathedral, and enjoying the view of the countryside. Then, I briefly walked around Rabat, which was quite pretty, and checked out the area around the Catacombs before hopping on the Dingli bus. I had to hike to the Dingli Cliffs viewpoint by the chapel and caught some cool views of the sun setting behind the observatory. Not sure if I went to the wrong viewpoint since it looked a bit different than the pictures online, but it was still quite beautiful. Once the night set in, I went and checked out the Eurovision concert organized for Europride, which was one of the reasons why I had gone to Malta. While I was not particularly familiar with anything, I had a good time just bopping by myself, and ended my night there.

Day 20: Comino + Gozo

I had three options that day: Comino, Gozo, and Europride events and had to pick two. I picked the former two, but in hindsight, I think I should’ve picked the latter two. That’s not to say that the Blue Lagoon was bad. I was finally able to take a dip in the water since it was the first place with easily accessible lockers and changing stalls, and it was nice to just relax a bit. Unfortunately, as mentioned many times online, the Blue Lagoon is very overtouristed with extremely limited beach / water access space as a result of the geography of the area (extremely rocky), so it felt very crowded. Because I had misremembered my ticket out, I missed the ferry I had intended to get on, and instead, used the opportunity to explore supposedly less seen areas of the island. But even coastal spots away from the Blue Lagoon were quite touristy (lots of party boats blasting music), but were still quite beautiful.

Once I landed in Gozo, I immediately took a bus to Victoria, where I explored its Old Town. Honestly, it was quite similar to Mdina’s, except that Mdina’s was a bit more lived-in (like people actually lived there) while Victoria’s was a bit more like a museum, with more vegetation and more ruins, though I felt like both were pretty similar in size (maybe Mdina was a bit bigger). It was quite nice, and afterwards, I hopped on a bus to Dwejra to catch the sunset. Although the Azure Window did not exist anymore, the views at Dwejra were still amazing, like what I had expected from the Dingli Cliffs, and with the cloudy skies, caught an amazing afterglow. After getting back to Valletta, I ended up just wandering the streets at night, which were bustling and packed since it was my last night of vacation, and I wanted to extend the memories.

Day 21: Valletta + Three Cities

Just like Paros, I embraced today’s status whirlwind tour because I didn’t have much time left. I spent the morning walking alongside the waterfront of Valletta, checking out the Barrakka Gardens, which were cute but quite small, and enjoying the waterfront views of Valletta. Because the ferry heading to the Three Cities had some major breakdown and wasn’t able to run, I was forced to take a touristy gondola there, and to be honest, it wasn’t as bad as I had expected. I mean, the boat was a bit dingy, but the price wasn’t much more expensive than the ferry (about half a euro more) and was faster and dropped us off at a pretty convenient location. Seemed like a decent deal for a pretty touristy activity.

With only two hours in the Three Cities before I had to leave to Malta, I decided to check out Fort St. Angelo with the time that I had left since it seemed like a cool mixture of ancient architecture and WW2 history, and to be honest, it was like another Figueres situation. The fort was smaller than the castle and had a bit more tourists but was still oddly quiet and empty for something that I thought was a pretty major attraction in the Three Cities. I got some great views of the sea and the rest of the peninsulas of Malta, not to mention some cool harbor and fort views. And once I had finished the fort, I wandered a bit around Birgu before grabbing my last meal on vacation and rushing to reach the airport before my afternoon flight to London.

Overall Thoughts:

Transportation: Planes were easy to navigate for my first time doing it solo. Trains were also mostly easy, even when I had a lot of issues when it came to them in Spain, probably because of bad luck. My only gripe would be that when there were major problems, the train station workers exclusively gave instructions in Spanish, which could get confusing, though granted, this is more of a me problem since I don’t expect them to speak English for people who are not fluent in Spanish. Busses were alright, if a bit slower than I had expected, and once I had gotten acquainted with metros after going the wrong direction a couple of times, they were fairly easy, though I did have a mini-panic in Athens because the way that they indicate metro destination with lights was opposite to Barcelona and thought I was heading the wrong destination. Ferries were a complete mess, a combination of poor weather conditions -> delays and confusion queuing situations, though I was seriously lucky that my ferries were not canceled.

Food: Gonna be honest, I ate very little during my travels and was running probably a 1000+ calorie deficit per day in the beginning of my trip on the first leg of the trip. I will say that it got better over time, and I ate better in Greece and Malta compared to Spain. I think the sit-down culture at restaurants was just very intimidating, mostly because I wasn’t sure about whether I could just sit-down or wait until I made eye-contact with the waiter to sit down. Other than that, I don’t have a tendency to get particularly blown-away by food, so I don’t really have much to say about it to be honest.

Safety: I never really felt like my life was in danger, but there were definitely suspicious moments. One thing about Spain is that because it’s in the “wrong” timezone, the sun sets much later, but the sun rises much later. I’d scheduled lots of 7:30 AM trains, and because the sun rose so late, I essentially had to walk through some dark streets to get to the train stations. The walk to Malaga station felt the most safe, Seville a good second. The walk from the Granada station was somewhat nerve-wracking, mostly because I got lost since Google Maps decided to malfunction on me and the area around the train station was very quiet compared to the latter two. Outside of that, there were the usual scams: lucky rosemary ladies (in Andalucia), free bracelets (in Athens), and the petition scam (in Barcelona) that I dodged, not to mention the aforementioned bar friend scam.

Health: I’m very surprised I didn’t get COVID on my trip. No one wore masks and lots of people were wet-coughing. Combined with densely packed metros and buses, I thought I was for sure going to get sick, but it didn’t happen. That being said, I got the worst eczema of my life on this trip. By the end, 70% of my neck and about half of my arms were covered in flaking, scaly skin. What had happened was a combination of a number of factors: backpack straps rubbing against inner elbow and neck and causing skin irritation -> getting aggravated by sun exposure -> uncontrolled skin scaling and flaking without moisturizer. Luckily, symptoms faded near immediately once I headed back and lathered moisturizer on it. Also, I got a ton of mosquito bites in Spain and Malta, so make sure to pack bug spray if you go there.

Language: While I took four years of Spanish in high school, I found it to be not particularly useful when it came to navigating Spanish in Spain. My general rule when it came to speaking Spanish was that I’d use it in gift shops / bakeries, lowkey order in Spanish in restaurants, and use English for important things, like transportation, tickets, and hotels. While I was able to kind-of speak Spanish, I will say that if someone responded in Spanish, I would have no clue what they said. Greece and Malta both have good English-language infrastructure, so it was easy to navigate language there, though occasionally, some directions will only be posted in Greek in Greece.

Weather: Absolutely amazing in Spain, except for the day that it rained briefly. I love hot and sunny weather (find it weirdly invigorating unlike cold weather, which makes me want to curl up into a ball and sleep), and in Spain, daytime temperatures ranged between 80-100 degrees, which made it extremely pleasant to walk around during the day, so long that I brought enough water to keep myself hydrated. Athens and Malta were in the same boat as Spain, really nice and warm weather, but the Greek Islands got a bit cold at night for my tastes as a result of the windy conditions.

Pacing: Not too bad to be honest. I feel like I definitely planned and executed this much more aggressively than most of you all, but to be honest, I didn’t feel particularly rushed most days. I think there were only two times, Athens Day 2 and Malta Day 3, where I would’ve appreciated more time, but they could’ve been fixed by either rearranging my itinerary for the former and cutting out Malaga to add a day to Malta for the latter. I’m not really a big fan of sitting around and not doing much during vacation, something that I had inherited from my parents, which is why I think a faster traveling style works a lot better for me compared to a slower travel style. I guess it may seem like I’m only seeing the highlights of each place, but to be honest, I don’t really feel like I have the need to spend a ton of time at a place to soak up the vibes and get a memorable impression about the place.

Social Life: Let’s just say I really put the solo in solo travel. I had zero meaningful interactions with others while I was abroad, and frankly, most days, the only time that I spoke was to get tickets or order food or check-in with my parents. I was under no impression that solo traveling would cure my severe social anxiety, so I’m not particularly surprised about this outcome. I’m not exactly the most personable person and am fairly aware that I come off as awkward, cold, and standoffish a lot of the time since I’m not very good at being friendly, and traveling abroad didn’t really change much of that. I’m not really sure how to feel about this, though. On the one hand, everyone says that you’ll eventually forget about the trip but never forget the people you meet there. On the other hand, interacting with anyone sends my anxiety spiking, and if I were constantly having to converse (like if I had stayed in hostels throughout the trip), I’m not sure if I would’ve been able to complete the trip, especially since it was the first time navigating a ton of things, such as public transportation and sit-in restaurants, and I was already very nervous Perhaps, I could’ve challenged myself more, but I treated this trip as a once-in-a-lifetime journey, and I didn’t want it to be marred by memories of poor interactions with others since I have a tendency to focus on the negatives vs the positive. Overall, the peaks could’ve been higher but the lows could’ve been much lower.

Miscellaneous Thoughts:

• Tons of smoking and vaping in Europe, especially amongst young people, compared to the United States. The Eurovision concert in Malta was particularly egregious with this. It was honestly pretty gross.
• I know there's this weird perception that Europeans never drink water, but honestly, it’s lowkey true in the countries I visited. In the United States, I feel like water access is extremely abundant (restaurants, parks, libraries, museums, airports) in ways that are not in Spain (minus Barcelona to some extent), Greece, and Malta.
• Is it me or is the idea of blending in like a local less on clothing and more on looks? I was dressed in my baseball cap, shorts, and t-shirts, basically the most American outfit possible, and still had people ask me questions (like if I could watch their bags or take their photos or information about the trains) in Spanish, maybe because I look pretty racially ambiguous.
• In Spain, I barely used any cash since everything was contactless, but man, I spent so much cash in Greece (bus fares and that taxi) and especially Malta, which not only lacks contactless pay in comparison to Spain but also has people who are pretty hostile to contactless. I once tried paying for a souvenir by card and got scolded by the shop owner.
• Speaking of souvenirs, what I did was that at each destination, I bought a postcard and journaled both the activities that I did but also the emotions that I had felt that day. I’m gonna be honest and say that I have a tricky time remembering what happens on vacations (went to Italy with my family 5 years ago and can’t remember anything except for Venice and bits and pieces of Rome’s Colosseum, Florence’s bridge, and Vatican City), so journaling not only keeps the memories fresh but allows me to look back onto my trip and the emotions that I had captured.
• Constantly moving wasn’t too bad. Everyone says that each movement uses up half a day, and I’d like to call BS on that. Maybe it's because I one-bagged it, but re-packing only took about 30 min, and checking into and out of hotels wasn't as arduous as I had expected. Especially in Spain, I overestimated transportation times and ended up beating most of my expectations.

Final Ratings:

1. Andalucía (9.5/10): Sevilla (9.5/10) > Granada (9.25/10) > Ronda (9/10) > Cádiz (8.5/10) > Córdoba (7.5/10) > Málaga (7/10)
2. Barcelona (9/10): Barcelona (9/10) > Sitges (8.5/10) = Girona (8.5/10) > Figueres (8/10)
3. Malta (8.5/10): Valletta (9/10) > Mdina = Victoria (8.5/10) > Dwejra (8.5/10) > Dingli Cliffs = Blue Grotto (8/10) > Blue Lagoon (6.5/10)
4. Greece (8/10): Santorini (8.5/10) = Naxos (8.5/10) > Athens (8/10)

Three Cities and Paros were left unranked since I simply did not have enough time to explore them to make a judgment call on how I had felt, though based on vibes, I’d probably give both 8.5/10.

Concluding Words:

While each destination may have been less than a 10/10, when combined together, I’d say that overall, I had a 10/10 experience in Europe, which may be a bit cheesy but a bit true. Obviously, I wasn’t able to accomplish all of the personal goals that I had set for myself on this trip, and with some of them (nightlife, especially), I made little to no progress. At the same time, I made significant strides in many other aspects and have emerged as a more confident person when it comes to navigating the joys and perils of travel by challenging myself with navigating tons of unfamiliar situations all alone. Because I will be studying abroad in the UK this autumn, I do have many plans to travel, both around the country and to other European countries, so I’ll be able to learn from the mistakes that I had made and be open to taking more risks in these shorter weekend vacations. Anyways, I just wanted to thank you guys for your support and let me know if you have any questions!

PS: Will be adding pics to this post later and in the comments since I’ve got too many that I need to sort through.

Congrats on a successful solo trip!! 😊 I really enjoyed this trip report. Thanks for taking the time to provide such detail. And I appreciate your honesty with some of the challenges you faced—language, transportation, dining, and anxiety.

Looking forward to your pictures.

Awesome trip report--and so personal and heartfelt about your feelings toward travel and everything that you experienced. As a gay man, and also quite a bit of an introvert, and someone who has traveled a lot but never really solo, I was able to connect and empathize with many of the logistical/social interaction/planning/tiredness/nervousness issues you described. And you are certainly a fan of sunsets! Can't wait to see the photos!

Thanks for posting this excellent trip report. I especially enjoyed reading about your time in Cadiz and Sitges - highlights of our 2017 trip to Spain.

I’m not exactly the most personable person and am fairly aware that I come off as awkward, cold, and standoffish a lot of the time since I’m not very good at being friendly, and traveling abroad didn’t really change much of that.

This is me sometimes.

Wow, what a great trip report! Thank you so much for sharing with so much detail. I'm going to Spain for the first time soon so I guess I have some interesting train woes to look forward to 😉

This was a really interesting, detailed description of your trip to a couple diverse locations. One thing, we don't hear very much about Malta on this forum, and I was wondering why you only had one day there -- then I realized that days 19 and 20 are missing from your account and it would be great to see those too!

What an interesting and informative report! Thanks for sharing!

@Carrie - I'm glad you find it enjoyable to read, and I'm about 1/3 of the way through my pictures, so I should have a compilation of the best ones ready sometime by tomorrow.

@Pete - Thanks for your kind words! I'm glad that I'm not the other gay traveler who went through these similar emotions throughout my travels. And definitely expect to see lots of sunset photos once I finished my compilation.

@Estimated - Haha, glad you can relate!

@Mary (roubrat) - Thanks for your comment! I think I just had a streak of bad luck with trains, and I'm sure that your train rides will run much smoother than mine.

@Slate - Posted Day 19 and 20. For some reason, it wasn't appearing on the site even though I was getting a notification that I had posted something similar. Hopefully, they should be up right now!

@Carroll - Thanks! Glad you found it informative.

I took way too many photos, so sorting through them has taken a while, but here's the first round of pictures, which are the best ones that I took from Andalucia. My phone has a tendency to over-light and wash out the photos a bit, so I did do some minor editing (slightly increasing saturation, vibrance, and warmness along with shadows and decreasing brightness a bit) to better capture what those places actually looked like. Second round of photos should be out tomorrow. Hope you enjoy!

Andalucia Photos

https://www.canva.com/design/DAFvG0zPhXg/t7DN8x8ku4BG61tJAg6EWw/edit?utm_content=DAFvG0zPhXg&utm_campaign=designshare&utm_medium=link2&utm_source=sharebutton

Gorgeous photos. Nice to see clear skies and no crowds in your shots.

@Mary (roubrat) - Thank you! I wish there weren't crowds. Had to wait a bit for people to clear out for some of these photos.

Anyways, here's the second set of photos from Barcelona and the day-trips from there (Figueres, Girona, and Sitges). I should have the third set (Greece and Malta) up by tomorrow:

https://www.canva.com/design/DAFvMMCMQn4/vhV1W1ubl9YmDU1BWA3JEA/edit?utm_content=DAFvMMCMQn4&utm_campaign=designshare&utm_medium=link2&utm_source=sharebutton

Thanks for your trip report. I really enjoyed reading it. And your pictures are great! We have some from some of the same spots. What a great experience for you!!

Nice pictures again. Girona and Barcelona are on my list for a separate Spain trip..someday.

@Carol - Thank you! I'm glad that you enjoyed it, and yes, it really was an amazing experience!

@Mary (roubrat) - Thanks! Yes, go to Girona and Barcelona. Both are amazing places!

I'm a day late, but here's the last collection of photos from the final third portion of my trip (Greece and Malta). Some of my favorite sunset shots are here, so I hope you guys enjoy!

https://www.canva.com/design/DAFvY6myIxQ/nezZ4LM0YnCIGW2oKCLJqg/edit?utm_content=DAFvY6myIxQ&utm_campaign=designshare&utm_medium=link2&utm_source=sharebutton

Again, many of the sights we have visited. Beautiful pictures. I’m not sure where you got the energy to move so quickly and still appreciate what you were seeing. As someone in their late 70s I admire you! I hope you are able to enjoy more of these trips and hope that you will post more trip reports and pictures for us to enjoy!

@Carol - Thanks! To be honest, I feel like it was just the thrill of going new places (and a bit of FOMO) that kept me out all day just exploring and checking things out. Right now, I'm doing a study abroad program in the UK for a couple of months, so yes, there will be quite a few trip reports upcoming!