As a frequent visitor to this beautiful island over many years, I have had a love-hate relationship with the buses. The old iconic buses held a certain charm, were frequent, cheap and served the whole island.

Thankfully, the bendy buses and chaotic schedule of Arriva are gone forever.The increased service fromValetta to St Julian’s, Pembroke, Swieqi and Baħar iċ Ċagħaq certainly takes the pressure off the Coast Road service to Buġibba, which was a tortuous ride.

However, the scheduled half-hourly service (212) from the Ferries to Buġibba is a reversion to the old 70 direct service. The smaller buses are often crowded. The introduction of Tallinja cards much reduces delays. However, my experience of purchasing a 12-journey card was not positive. On my first full day in Sliema, I found the ticket booth at the Ferries closed at 2.30pm with a notice affixed advising it would reopen at 3.45pm. On two occasions at the Buġibba terminus, the booth was closed at 1.45pm and a similar notice advised it would remain closed till 3pm. Both notices were computer-generated and laminated and so I suspect this is a common practice.

At Buġibba there was no shortage of Transport Malta staff with clipboards to answer questions about the schedule but no one to sell travel tickets. Surely, a system can be found to man these booths full- time during the busy tourist season.