A lot of the tourists visiting Malta seem to end up staying either in St Julian’s (Maltese: San Ġiljan) or St. Paul’s Bay (Maltese: San Pawl il-Baħar). The latter includes the area of Buġibba where we were heading on a day trip from Gzira. That’s where you find the Malta National Aquarium.
When traveling with a toddler you will most likely dedicate at least one day from time to time to activities that are more appropriate for the smaller travelers. Our day in Buġibba was such a day.
Reason for going to Buġibba: “Baby Shark”
Small kids tend to find a song and then they listen to it way too many times for any parent to be able to keep their sanity. For Little A this has been the song “Baby Shark”, which has resulted in two things. One, she loves to see any shark anywhere and two, her second set of English words after “bye, bye” was “baby shark” which usually also included her pointing towards the TV. She will probably soon figure out how the Chromecast works. Haven’t heard the song? We cannot really recommend you to do a search on Youtube. If you want to keep your sanity, that is.
Before our trip to Malta, we had recently also visited Fjärilshuset in Stockholm. That is actually one of the few places with small sharks in Sweden. Little A really enjoyed that visit and was dancing when she saw the sharks, so we were quite sure that she would like the Malta National Aquarium in Buġibba.
The Malta National Aquarium
The Malta National Aquarium is located almost at the tip of the Qawra Point. The building contains both the aquarium a restaurant. There is also a smaller kiosk outside as well as a playground.
For us the visit started with lunch, this was our way of waiting for Little A to wake up from her nap that she timely decided to take on the bus from St Julian’s. The food was good. Susann was probably the one who enjoyed the food the post, having chosen a seafood pasta.
There are really a lot of different kinds of fish in the aquarium, mostly from the seas around the island. For Little A there was just one place of any bigger interest. That was the tropical area with the big tank. This tank had a walking tunnel and contained three types of sharks – blacktip reef, leopard and zebra sharks. She was more than happy to run back and forth looking and waving at every single one of them. It took us quite some time to get out of the place.
We ended our visit with Little A getting ice cream at the kiosk. The joy a child emits can really be contagious.
If you plan to visit the aquarium, then you can find more information on their webpage
A Walk Along the Beach Promenade of Buġibba
During our visit of Buġibba, the main attraction was the Malta National Aquarium. We did, however, also enjoy the walk along the beach promenade to the main square of Buġibba.
March might be low season on Malta and Buġibba is in a kind of sleeping mode, but the promenade to the center square is nice. It’s very green and the sea breeze is a delight. Buġibba as such was not as impressive. The area probably has several cozy restaurants and the sea can never be far away. But it was even more touristy in our opinion than Sliema and Gzira. In other words, a bit too much like a tourist town for our taste.
