The Malta bus service

Well this is a common topic for every foreigner in Malta.

The Bus public transport service. My first impresion was that the most of the buses are too old and now after 2 weeks here i can confirm that this is true, the most of the buses are quite old.

The buses themselfs are different among them, so is difficult to see 2 fraternal twins buses, altough all of them are painted in the same yellow colour (gray in Gozo island).

The elderly buses owns a string goberned bell to say the driver "kindly stop in the next bus stop". The more modern ones have the usual electronic bell button...

The bus marks are not known to me, i think they are english marks, it is difficult to see a Volvo, Man or Renault bus here.

When you are waiting in a bus stop and you can see your bus approaching, you must raise your hand and wave to tell the driver to stop and let you take the bus, otherwise the driver will not stop and you should be waiting for the next bus to come.

In every city there is a special bus stop called the "bus terminus", is just a "bus stop". You are not going to find there any building with confortable banks or any speakers system informing about the arrivals or departures, but you can find there the time tables (great) but unfortunately are a complety mess and nobody can make up its mind with that... moreover

you don't expect to have a time table in every bus stop, because this is not true, the best you can do is to ask for information to any kind pedestrian...

The main bus terminus is in Valleta, the capital city, it is just opposite the main city entrance door... this is really convenient for the tourist like me :D, by the way, it is crazy because let's suppose that now is the 20:00pm, all the buses wich its departure time is 20:00pm sets off at the same time¡ without any announcement, just start its engines and the race starts...

And i say, the race starts because the drivers are a bit mad here... i think they should be good WRC drivers... :D

But anyway, the service is really cheap, a trip costs between 0,47€ and 1,18€... (0,50€ and 1,2o€ really, you should no expect any change, and it is better if you pay with cash and no with notes).

And at short, to say the truth, the global service is good as far as you can reach every place in the island in less than 1 hour.

ps.- there is no railroad service here¡ the island is too small ;)