Beat the locals, plan ahead.
Festa season has been actively taking over our weekends for a good month or two; the excitement, anticipation and rush that precedes the grand festa day, as well as the pride and reverence that meets the crowd in the village square on D-day is as Maltese as you can get.
Not all locals find the village festa as important as the rest, however. Some complain about the fireworks, some comment on the statues that take up parking spaces, others just want to get home after a long day at work and find the blocked roads an utter inconvenience. If you're one of these people, here are some ways you can beat the festa rush when it hits your village.
Plan your route
First things first, you need to beat the traffic. Easier said than done - traffic in Malta is insane during festa season, and it does get in the way of a routine drive home. But why not take a different route altogether? Diversions are fun sometimes - you get to see something new. Rather than the same old Baroque church facades and the same nosey villagers peering out at you, there’s a whole new world of Baroque church facades and a few different nosey villagers in the town adjacent to yours. Mix it up!
Take a trip to Gozo
A trip to Gozo is usually welcomed with open arms. The Maltese love to spend the weekend on the quiet sister island with a good book, good company and good food. Gozo can offer all of the above, and provides the perfect getaway from the festa festivities once they find their way to your village. Of course, try not to hit a Gozitan village celebrating its festa - that would be rather pointless.
Play host
If you don’t want to move around your town when the festa’s in, why not make your crew come to you? Play host; a few rounds of whisky and you’ve got yourself a festa-party less the festa. Perfect! Your festa-loving friends will be under the impression that a trip to the village core will eventually come along, but they’ll be more than happy to stay when your party gets pumping.
Take it easy and take it all in
If you can’t beat them, join them. Sometimes the quirky little traditions and cultural motifs that embellish the Maltese lifestyle need to be embraced. The more you sulk and stomp your feet to the fact that the festa is on its way, the worse everything is going to be. Why not get dressed and head to the piazza, grab a doughnut, watch the fireworks and chat to some random villager? You never know, you might enjoy it.
Love them or hate them, Maltese festi are traditional celebrations that hit most villages. If you’re that festa-intolerant, I humbly recommend relocating to a remote, festa-free village… though right now, I can't quite think of any!