Re: Advice required re Malta mapping

JAT wrote...
I'm looking to buy a sat nav system. Although it will be used at home in
N. Ireland and on the mainland the main reason for the purchase is to take
it on holiday. I was thinking about the Tom Tom 700. Would this be a good
purchase? I would be using it on Malta this year. (anyone who has ever
tried to find their way in Malta using the local signs will know why!) Do
the Europe maps cover Malta as no one seems to know? Went into Halfords
today to ask this question but I don't think the guy even knew what day it
was. As I'm new to this game I would appreciate any advice you can offer.
Many thanks in advance.

Speaking as someone who has spent a lot of time lost in Hamrun with a friend
who told me that all roads seem to lead her to the main island rubbish tip,
I can fully
sympathize.

I doubt that the Tom Tom maps will be any good - the Garmin ones certainly
aren't so I doubt that you'll find anything suitable.

Your best bet will be to use a decent GPS that will give you a proper
coordinate fix, together with a paper map. I don't know much about Tom Tom
units but I've looked at the manuals for a couple of models and they didn't
appear to have any way of actually telling you exactly WHERE you are - just
places you are NEAR and a location on the screen, neither of which are any
good if you need a map reference!

Decent maps of Malta seem to be hard to find - the Ordnance Survey did
produce detailed 1:25,000 mapping of Malta and Gozo for the Department of
Overseas Surveys and these were identical in quality to the UK products.
However these were last updated in 1962 and are no longer available. The
Mapping Unit of the Malta and Environment Planning Authority has produced
topographic mapping based on 1994 Aerial Photography. I believe that these
are also 1:25,000 but they have printed the Malta map on a single A0 ***
which will be very unwieldy to use in a car - Gozo & Comino is much more
user-friendly at A1 size. These maps don't seem to be commercially
available anywhere but apparently you can buy them directly from the Malta
Planning Authority. In an email about a year ago Alison Zammit
(Alison.Zammit@xxxxxxxxxxx) quoted me Lm8.40 & 4.20 for the Malta and Gozo
maps respectively.

There is a GIS server on their website (www.mepa.org.mt and click on Map
Server at the top right hand corner) - keep on zooming in and you get to the
level of individual buildings unfortunately I can't get the Print PDF
function to work.

If you are into wildlife then click on the Environment tab then EcoExplorer
in the drop-down box under publications. This is a list of Maltese Flora
and Fauna with pictures and notes - some very brief and some detailed.
Certainly worth looking at the reptiles section so you will have some idea
what you see scuttling around (or flattened on the road!).

Have a great holiday - Fontanella's just inside the walls of Mdina (the
opposite side to the city gate) used to be a marvellous tea garden serving
the most fantastic home-made cakes, I used to drive all the way from Valetta
just to go there!

David


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