Hilton Malta

I started the morning with a walk around St Julian's bay, hoping to swim at Neptunes Swim Club. It's a blazing hot 30-degree Sunday morning and town was buzzing with road closures and preparations for what I think was to be the St Julian’s festival - just like in the UK on any national holiday celebration when the sun it out, there were guys hitting the beers at 10am!

The Neptunes pool is only 15 minutes from the hotel and initial research on Google Maps looked amazing — 33m right on the water’s edge — but on arrival, find it was set up for a more casual family swim, and I wasn’t in the mood for a dodgeball swim in jammers. So, about-turn and decide to take an extended loop back to the Hilton and give their indoor pool a go.

Even after four days in this hotel, I still managed to confuse myself with the lifts (why is the ground floor level 5?). Eventually, I made it to the indoor pool. I think this was my first time swimming in a lane marked out by floor-to-ceiling columns - love a pool with unusual in-water features! The pool is short at 20m, but spectacularly presented. I had the place to myself. Any sane person was outside enjoying the sun, but I was just happy to get through 50 lengths and 1.2km without my left shoulder complaining too much after weeks out of the water.

I finished with a quick di pin the plunge pool. I thought it was refreshing, but the guy who jumped in after me insisted it only 10-degrees and wasn’t cold enough - a few years ago I would have questioned who actually brings a digital temperature probe to the pool, but now i've joined the open water fraternity, it's quite normal! Back in the changing rooms, I completely missed the large ‘no changing in locker area’ signs — apparently there’s CCTV! A sheepish thanks to the receptionist on the way out in case she’d caught my tan lines on camera. Then it was off for a dip in the Med, followed by a cold local Cisk lager (or three) by the pool.