In Valletta last Sunday at 7.10 p.m., a young German tourist stopped me to ask for help in finding a restaurant.

She did not want to sit outdoors and she wanted either typical Maltese food or a pizza. She had already looked around and had half resigned herself to ending up eating the kind of fast food that can be found the world over. That would have been such a shame. I walked around with her trying to find somewhere. The only places open were cafes and fast food places. At my wits' end, I finally suggested a hotel restaurant.

You cannot imagine visiting a capital city in any other country and not being able to find an open restaurant in the city centre. One has to ask whether it makes sense for a capital city to be so visitor-unfriendly and whether a restaurant licence should not include an obligation to open on Sundays.

Would it be so difficult to have some kind of interactive information bulletin board showing which places are open every day?