Tom’s Travels

MALTA 2012

Rome, Oct. 18, 2012

After four wonderful, tiring days wandering through Rome, Colleen and I headed for Malta. We scheduled an 8:30PM flight so we would have a full day in Rome. This, of course, meant that we would arrive in Malta about 10PM. At the airport, I asked how to get to our hotel in Sliema at that hour. The young lady told me I should take a taxi. When I asked how much that might be, she told me to ask the driver, but that it would probably be about 20 Euros. I’ve had many bad experiences with taxi drivers, especially involving airports, and I felt another coming on. Malta is an island, a small island, and having looked at a map, I knew the trip would be no more than four or five miles. To pay 20 Euros for a trip of ten minutes duration was going to upset me. We walked out to the taxi area and there was a booth, labeled “Taxis”, manned by another young lady. I showed her the address of my hotel and asked how much it would cost to get there. 20 Euros. At that hour, I didn’t want to try to find another means of transportation. Unhappily, I paid and she called over one of several drivers standing around waiting for their turn and gave him the address. We got in the cab and fifteen minutes and twenty Euros later we were at our hotel. An elderly gentleman checked us in and, when he found out we were from the United States, he immediately began to tell us about his relatives who had emigrated to Brooklyn in the 1920’s. Our room was nice but small and our view from the tiny balcony was of the building next door rather than the Mediterranean which was across the street.

Sliema, Malta, Oct. 19, 2012

Our stay in Malta was very relaxed. We were exhausted after walking around Rome for four days. So this will be more about my impressions of Malta and it’s history rather than a report of the things we did. I will cover the things which impressed me.

Malta is an island. It is also a country. The Republic of Malta is an archipelago consisting three islands lying in the Mediterranean about 60 miles south of Sicily and 200 miles north of Libya. Malta and Cozo are the two main islands and are inhabited while the third, Comino, lying between, is uninhabited. Our island is about 18 miles by 8 miles, a mere spot on the map. With a population of 400,000, it is the most densely populated country in Europe. The island consists of limestone, which was the material of choice for the older buildings on the island. There are only a few sand beaches. Ours was limestone but we were always able to find a comfortable spot to lie on. The major benefit of a limestone beach is the the water is beautifully clear.

The country has a rich history. The first inhabitants arrived from Sicily, which they say you can see on a clear day, about 7,000 years ago. It has since been occupied by Phoenicians, Carthaginians, Romans, Byzantines, Arabs, Hohenstaufens, Angevins, Aragonese (Spaniards), The Knights of the Cross, French, and British.

The most famous residents and those who left the most lasting impression were the Knights of the St. John, who became know as the Knights of Malta. The Knights were formed in 1113 during the first Crusade for the purpose of protecting pilgrims to the Holy Land and to provide hospitals for the injured. They were driven out of Jerusalem by the Muslims in 1291 and established new headquarters on the island of Rhodes. In 1522, the Knights were defeated by Sulieman, the Magnificent and did not have a home until 1523 when Charles IV of Spain, the Holy Roman Emperor, gave them Malta for the annual payment of a single Maltese Falcon. (Enter Dashiell Hammett). The Knights ruled the island for 268 years until they surrendered the island to Napoleon in 1798.

The second day on the island, we took the bus to Valletta, the capital city. It was a thirty minute ride with several stops but only cost 2.60 Euros. We bought day tickets and as I understood it, a day ticket allowed us to go anywhere on the island and to get on and off the bus as many time as we wished. Which meant a ride to or from the airport would cost only 2.60 Euros, a realization that further heightened my dislike of taxis. Valletta is a lovely, old city situated on a peninsula that divides a large harbor into two. One of the reasons so many nations have been interested in Malta in the past is the fact that it has well protected harbors. At the end of the peninsula is a walled fortress, the Fort of St. Elmo, built to defend the harbor and the city and which resisted a siege by the Turks for a month in 1865 before capitulating to the far superior force. A shining moment in the history of Malta and the subject of several books we saw on Maltese history.

Valletta was founded by the Knights and served as their headquarters. All of the old buildings and fortifications are of terracotta colored limestone. Fort St. Elmo, the gates to the city, the Grandmaster’s Palace, the churches, all are the same color. We wandered through the streets and decided to go into St. John’s Co-Cathedral (I never found out why it is a “co-cathedral”). In my travels, I am fascinated by churches. It amazes me how much of a city’s resources are devoted to these structures. The buildings are usually the largest and most ornate and the most lavishly decorated inside. This is usually true no matter how rich or how poor the city or village might be. St. John’s Co-Cathedral was no exception. The interior seems to be made of gold. The walls, the columns, the pulpit, the carvings, everywhere the color gold jumps out at you. And there is no part of the church that is not decorated in some way. The vaulted ceiling has beautiful paintings. Every wall has a bas-relief in gold. The Maltese Cross is included in many of the intricate designs. Paintings and Sculptures are everywhere, every nook and cranny is filled. Some of the sculptures were delicate, life-sized figures as good, it seems to me, as those of Michelangelo or Bernini. And that just emphasizes the fact that it’s not what you know but who you know. The most interesting feature of the co-Cathedral for me was the floor. The floor serves as the final resting place of over 400 of the Knights of Malta, each individually decorated in colored marble. I was reminded me of the Hagia Sophia where the carpet is designed so that each worshiper has his own space, his own prayer rug. I always wondered how the Muslims at prayer were able to arrange themselves in such an orderly fashion. All they have to do is pick a spot from the design in the carpet. The tombs in the floor on St. John’s are in the same orderly layout though each is different in design, a stunning pattern. I bought postcards which showed the floor from above, magnificent!

The other compelling feature of the church was that it had two large paintings by Caravaggio, The Beheading of St. John the Baptist and St. Jerome Writing. Why did this church on this tiny island in the Mediterranean have two paintings by Caravaggio you ask? Well, that’s another story.

Caravaggio rose to fame in Rome about 1600. He was a prolific painter and was said to be able to complete a painting in two weeks. Between 1600 and 1606, he was “the most famous painter in Rome”. He always had commissions. However, when he wasn’t painting, he was brawling. In 1606, he killed a Roman and had to flee the city. He went to Naples and then to Malta where he joined the Order of the Knights. Unfortunately, in 1608, he attacked a fellow knight, was thrown out of the order and fled to Sicily. In 1610, he died while returning to Rome where the Pope was supposed to lift the death sentence he had placed on the painter. The cause of his death is still under debate, recent studies of his remains suggest that it was lead poisoning. Caravaggio died at the age of 39 and, though his career was brief, he left over ninety paintings.

We ate lunch in an open air plaza in front of one of the famous buildings, the library, which had a statue of Queen Victoria with a very soiur look in front of the entrance. We chose specialties of Malta. Colleen had rabbit, the whole thing, including the organs served within the ribcage. She shared with me. I’m not exactly sure what I ate but it was good. I had the “Valletta Platter”, a sampling of foods for which the island is famous. There was bean paste, olives, sausage, peppers, crackers, bread and cheese. I enjoyed mine more than hers. And it was all washed down with Cisk, the local beer, which was also very good. After lunch, we went into the Grandmaster’s Palace, just looked into the open courtyard. Two men were practicing their fencing. In days of old, a Knight would have to have known how to use a sword. The knights still exist today, but as a religious order dedicated to helping the poor, etc. rather than serving any warlike function. In front of the palace is a large plaza where several children were playing in a fountain and some group was conducting aerobic exercises to music, good music, my kind of music. I danced through the square to Colleen’s embarrassment. We walked around the small town taking pictures. We sampled the pastries which are a specialty if the island. I think there were six different varieties, some filled with bean paste, some with meat, some with fruit and some with cheese. We were told that they were baked only in the morning and when the bakery’s supply ran out, you had to wait til the next day to get any more. They really weren’t anything special but they were unique to the island so we had to try them. I did a little souvenir shopping and we headed back to Sliema.

One day we took the bus tour around the north part of the island. There is also a tour of the south part as well as a tour which goes to Gozo. It was a hop on / hop off tour with about thirteen stops. We only got off in two spots. The first was a crafts village that had pottery, silver jewelry, glass blowing and several other crafts. I was fascinated by the glass blowing, having never seen it before. We were able to watch them making the items on sale in the gift shop. The “factory” didn’t have a production line as such, but each person had his task and they all worked together smoothly. One person was given a long tube with a glob of molten glass on the end. He blew the glass into the shape he wanted and just as he finished, someone would arrive to take it off his hands and move to the next step. In the time I watched, I could never determine if there were teams working together. It didn’t seem so but there was never any confusion and when one step was completed, there was always someone there to take the object to the next step. The finished products included vases of various sizes and shapes and even pairs of birds that were intertwined. Amazingly, it only took about two minutes for the artist to fashion two birds with wings and beaks from a molten glob of glass. The gift shop offered everything from a wide assortment of glass animals to plates and saucers to replicas of famous paintings like Van Gogh’s “Starry Night” or Klimt’s “The Kiss”. Truly amazing and well worth a visit.

At the silver shop, we watched a man fabricate intricate designs and objects using only very thin wires of silver. He made replicas of the Maltese Cross and small boxes. The showroom had models of sailing ships made only from silver wire. The amazing part was that when the filigreed design was completed, it was very sturdy, not fragile at all.

Our next stop was Mdina, a medieval walled city on the highest hill in the middle of the island. You could see the ocean on both sides of the island. Mdina is a walled city, built to defend itself against any invader. It has a panoramic view of the island. No army could approach undetected. There is a single entrance to the city, across a bridge and through a narrow arched gate. The city withstood sieges in 1429 and 1551. The streets are narrow and winding so the citizens could quickly disappear from view around the next curve. It served as the capital before the Knights were ceded the island and they built Valletta to be their new capital.

We walked through the little town, enjoying the sights and buying souvenirs. I bought several colorful shot glasses to give to my granddaughters. Unfortunately, I dropped one. I told the nice clerk, “This one is broken.” She smiled. That didn’t change the fact that the shot glass was now mine, that I had to pay for it, and that I would have to buy another to replace it. That one now sits on my desk with the cracked portion facing the wall. We bought sandwiches just outside the walls of the city and watched children play in the park.

Next we stopped next to a church and gave everyone a chance to go to the public toilet. I did so but also went inside the church for pictures. Interesting but not spectacular. It had a circular hole in the ceiling, similar to the Pantheon in Rome. The facade of the church boasted two clocks, one told the time and the other was simply painted on. It never changed and obviously the times are different. I was told that it involves an old tradition in which the two times are intended to confuse the Devil should he ever appear on earth. They didn’t explain why confusing the Devil regarding the time was important or why the Devil, for whom a millennium is only a moment in his existence, would be confused by an incorrect time or even care. They also failed to explain what would happen if the Devil should appear at one of the two times each day when the times on the clock are exactly the same. I’ve been worried about this ever since.

We didn’t get off the bus again but rode along the seacoast enjoying the views. We passed St. Paul’s Bay, named after the Apostle who was shipwrecked on an island in the bay, now St. Paul’s Island, in 60AD. On the island, you can see The Shipwreck Chapel and a large statue commemorating the event. This episode in the life of Paul is recorded in the 28th Chapter of the Acts of the Apostles. St. Paul was being taken to Rome when a violent storm drove the ship aground. All aboard survived and St. Paul later cured the Roman commander of a fever, and, as a result, the commander converted to Christianity. The Maltese consider this the beginning of Christianity in Malta, a very religious country. In Mdina, you can visit the Church of St. Paul (for a fee) and in Valletta, the Church of St. Paul’s Shipwreck, where you can “view the treasured relic of right wrist-bone of St. Paul and part of the column on which the saint was beheaded in Rome.” A treat I’m afraid I missed.

We saw some sandy beaches, a rarity on Malta, on the north coast of the island. And simply enjoyed the ride back to our hotel.

Along the way, we saw many of the traditional fishing boats, called Luzzu, brightly painted in yellow and red and blue. All had the Eye of Osiris painted on each side of the bow, although they were probably not intended to be the Eye of Osiris. (We saw the same thing in Vietnam.) I was never sure if these boats went out each day to fish or were mainly used to give tourists a trip around the bays and harbors.

All the sandstone beaches in Malta have either shallow, square pits or long, narrow ruts about the size of a car’s wheel, all carved by man. The origin and purpose of these seem to be lost in the mists of time, though, I suspect, amateur archeologist that I am, that they were used to collect salt.

We went back to Valletta a second time to do some more souvenir shopping. I bought small gifts that wouldn’t take up too much space in my bags. I was fascinated by one shop that displayed filigreed silver items in the window. Thin strands of silver wire bent into shapes, things like the doilies your grandmother used to have, a small wagon like the red one you used to have, a six inch Knight in full armor with a shield, a two masted sailing ship in full sail and a full set of chessmen. How someone had the steady hands and the patience to do something like that I could not fathom. Lovely to look at but expensive. These could have been museum pieces.

Malta played an important part in World War II. It had large, safe harbors that were vital to either side in controlling the Mediterranean. The day after Italy declared was on Britain and its allies, Mussolini’s forced attacked Malta. The island was under siege as it had been in 1565. The island defended itself valiantly and , in 1942, Malta and its people were awarded the George Cross by King George of Great Britain. The siege ended in 1943 when the Italian Navy surrendered in the harbors of Malta. In 1943, Malta was the launching site for the invasion of Sicily. The George Cross has been incorporated into the Maltese flag.

Our last day there was a day of rest. I took pictures at the beach. Beautiful clear, blue water crashing against the shore. The sea was so rough that no one went into the water that day. I considered it. I felt I would be able to get in but I also felt I might be crushed against the limestone wall or the ladder trying to get out. Not sure whether I’m getting more afraid or wiser in my old age. In either case, I didn’t risk it.

Malta is a fascinating place to visit. It has a little of everything. Though we didn’t visit them, there are ancient ruins of temples that predate Stonehenge. I hope to go back and spend more time there.