We heard about the festival Stretta, celebrating the dubious past and much more palatable present of the infamous Strait Street in Valletta. So we decided to give it a go. What nicer way is there of spending an evening on a mild Summer’s night, than strolling around our now stylish capital, while having a few drinks here and there, then proceeding for a bite to eat, before ending in a clubbish bar once again? Hard to beat you might think…

So we arrived in Valletta at around 20:30 and as we approached City Gate, much to our horror and not so mild disgust, we heard crazed yelling and idiotic cheering of a maddened crowd. Much to our dismay, there was a political meeting right at the entrance of Valletta, occupying the entire square and hideously raping everyone’s mind with amplified decibels. Are we not past this dumbo stage? Does’t TV, radio, FB and Twitter suffice? Who would go screaming and shouting and waving flags and unashamedly displaying such idolatry and superstar status to politicians? Scary, very scary!

We immediately made a detour which luckily brought us directly to the top part of Strait Street. It was a very pleasing sight. Bustling with people, establishments of all types with tables and chairs outside, as well as a series of clever and symbolically red lights all along the street. So very alluring and definitely comparable to any historic European city we all rave about in our travels.

So as it was our intention to visit the entire street from top to bottom, to see what the festival was all about and to relish the activities and interests brought to the discerning public on this occasion, we started down into the first part of Strait Street. And the first noteworthy pitstops happened to be in the very beginning, in the form of renowned wine bar Trabuxu and directly opposite the newly opened art gallery of world renowned Krista Sullivan, called Gallery 223.

We had heard a lot of praise and tribute about this acclaimed artist, so we ventured inside to view the extraordinary artwork. It is all about colour and expression and passion and gut feeling.

So we toed and froed between the gallery and Trabuxu with glasses of wine, until finally we managed to convince Krista, the genius artist, to accompany us for a sit down bite across the road.

Trabuxu is housed within a typical vaulted Valletta cellar, with more charm than anything I can think of, except for the artist herself. It also has a nice buzz and a cool feel to it, fully corroborated and cleverly orchestrated by owner Kris Fenech Soler and staff. Krista by the way is not the wife of Kris, it is just a first name coincidence of sorts…

We had a lovely and smooth lasagne, an extremely tasty chicken liver paté and a lovely large and generous platter with fine cheeses and cold cuts and loads of crudities too. Everything was of top quality and thoroughly enjoyed.

The bill for this food, as well as two bottles of Santa Rita Chilean sauvignon blanc, plus a bottle of water only came to € 77, which I thought was a bargain.

We then proceeded across the road again and in a sudden irresistible urge of artistic passion, we purchased one of the mind blowing paintings there.

As we ran to our car exactly in the sudden heavy downpour, Krista phoned me simply to inform me that she paid the bill at Trabuxu, which I somehow had totally forgotten to settle!

We saw absolutely nothing else of Strait Street after all. But it is now so resoundingly obvious that there is a much nicer way to spend a Summer evening than strolling aimlessly around Valletta! Just spend the entire evening firmly anchored between Gallery 223 and Trabuxu, where you can purchase an enchanting painting and eat and drink for free!