One thing the low cost airline concept is going to bring to Malta could be a potential explosion in the weekend breaks traveller, those birds and bees that come for anything from two to five nights.

The trend is anyway, almost everywhere, for people to take more but shorter breaks in the year rather than the one holiday in August or whenever. This is true of all the countries whose peoples are great travellers like the Brits, Swedes and Germans, although perhaps less true of the more conservative French and Italians who tend to have more concentrated holidays in August, as well as an understandable love of holidaying in their own countries, where the weather is less inclement than that of their more northern neighbours.

And in Malta too, despite our good, perhaps too good, as in too warm, climate, more and more of us are taking off for more and more weekend or shorter breaks, by plane and increasingly on cruises which are proving popular with young and old, the affluent and less so, as we become increasingly uncomfortable not only with air travel but also with the hassle at airports and flying in general.

It’s almost as if terrorism, and the current 21st century Crusade (well that’s what it is in Bush’s eyes anyway) would have put us off flying even more, but these dirt cheap flights now just push us to go on travelling despite the dislike of flying which is becoming so prevalent.

The thing is though, as far as weekend breaks are concerned, it’s fine going to Prague or London, Dublin or Rome for a weekend. But is Malta easy to fathom and enjoy in a weekend unless you have good friends or good contacts, or unless you are lucky enough to have chosen one of our few excellent hotels where everything can be organised for you?

I always think Malta, and to a much lesser extent Gozo, are great places to holiday, but only, or much much more so, if you know someone here.

Somehow Gozo is a bit different though, both because it is smaller and more of a cohesive place, whereas Malta’s jewels are somewhat hidden and takes some doing to discover. Gozo on the other hand is a perfect day or weekend destination, although even here tourists need a little bit more help and guidance than they are currently getting.

You can arrive in Gozo without too much of a plan and enjoy yourself, whether it is for one day, or two or more. I recently spent a week day there out of season and it was just idyllic. You know the routine so many of us love. The early boat, breakfast in Rabat, browsing round the tiny but cute market, a good walk around the back of Gharb, lunch in Xlendi which was packed solid with day trippers, and where the atmosphere was just a huge happy buzz, helped by the perfect weather accompanied by the best of breezes.

Then collapsing for a bit, walking again near those amazing salt pans to the left of Marsalforn where scores were fishing against an amazing sunset glow and best of all, a quick but wonderful meal at a great, new, tiny place in Rabat which has a clever women chef, and back on a late ferry.

I was only away for 15 hours but it felt like three days off. And also for the European weekend traveller a few days can feel like a week if it is hassle free and easy to access all the best places.

Is this kind of Gozo experience easily replicated in Malta though, even though Malta does have a lot more to offer, the whole of Valletta, fabulous Cottonera which is starting to burst with eateries, Mdina and all our other jewels?

My friends who visit adore Malta and can’t understand my moans. We have so little greenery, not many wild flowers I protest. But they of course stumbled across scores of species that I, being a local, am just blind to, and plenty of pockets of greenery we all have become oblivious to. But of course they have always been guided to eat at good value places, to visit our ever increasing number of beautifully restored sites like the Hypogeum and the Roman Villa, which now has a more correct name but it will always be Roman Villa to me from my Sacred Heart school outing days, when we enjoyed anything away from the normal, boring school routine, even if the packed lunch was invariably some nasty shrivelled sausage roll. Anyway, that was all before the days of sushi and sashimi where food was either wonderful or home cooked, or just disgusting almost everywhere else.

Can a few trendy, not to say sexy, heads bang their heads together and devise some good sample weekend breaks for potential travellers?

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