I visited Malta with my husband for the first time last week and happened to pick up a copy of your paper while at the hotel reception and wanted to give some tourist feedback.

I worked in the travel industry for 20+ years and cannot believe that I have missed out on Malta for all these years! All the educational trips seemed to be to Spain and Greece for UK travel agents and anyone I asked about Malta actually knew very little about the island other than “there’s a lot of history!”

My husband and I had a fabulous few days at le Meridien St Julian’s, with excellent accommodation, fantastic food at the local restaurants and had the privilege of seeing the festivities celebrating St Julian.

With direct flights from Manchester with two scheduled airlines, the journey is a comfortable distance and we loved the old-but-frequent bus service to Valletta which was full of charm and history. In contrast, the development at the Hilton with the marina was breathtaking and very stylish in design, showing that Malta has a very modern outlook too.

It makes such a change to visit somewhere not overrun with lager louts (often our countrymen) and wall-to-wall English breakfast signs! We received such good service and help right from our arrival at the airport from the taxi driver through to when we were dropped off to fly home. How the UK could learn from this! What a lovely experience and one we will definitely repeat!

Diane Mansell

Manchester

England