In December we headed out to Malta for a few days. I'd heard of Malta from the Maltese Falcon, Maltese Cross, the World's Strongest Man competition, and recently due to their invitation to join the EU. It was December, and we wanted to head south. Since Malta is near Africa in the Mediterranean we thought the weather would be nice. There is an amazing amount of history associated with the island so we hired a little car and set out to explore the two islands of Malta: Malta and Gozo.
You have to look at the website for John's Garage in Malta. You'd think this place knew what they were doing. The sign for the rental desk was about 6 inches high and took me about 30 minutes to find even though it was about 5 feet from the exit of the airport. Once I spotted the correct desk, I picked up the keys to our lovely car pictured above. The car cost about $60 for the three days we were there so I can't complain too much. What made the experience perfect was Erynn's inquiry concerning that fact she'd never, ever heard of Diahatsu! Just look at the John's Garage web site and our car. I thought it was priceless. And I have to say that Pepe, as we grew to call him, never let us down.
The two islands are pretty small so we were able to visit most of the sites. We didn't really gel with the culture, but we had a fun trip anyway. On one of the days we drove down to the coastal town of Marsaxlokk, which reputedly had the best seas food. We also happened to go on the day of the famous town bazaar. The pictures are of Erynn by the harbor and of the town square. Malta is famous for their multi-colored boats with the eyes on them. Not sure what the eyes are for, but it has something to do with warding of the bad ocean demons or something. That evening we did, in fact, have some great seafood.
The city of Mdina is kinda in the center of the island and used to be the capital before Valetta, the present capital, was built. We didn't spend that much time there becuase there wasn't much to do other than take a few photos. The main piazza in town is dedicated to the Cathedral of St Peter and St Paul. The first few photos were taken around the piazza. The last photo is probably the prettiest house we saw the whole trip.
On the northwest end of the island was one of the only modern tourist attractions. Popeye Village was the old film set for the movie starring Robin Williams from a long time ago. The backdrop is stunning and remote. Some enterprising person rescued the set from collapse and now charges admission. It was fun for us, as adults, for about 10 minutes.
One of the neat geological features on the island is the Azure Window. There was no one around beside the guy that made us (er...Erynn) buy the most expensive post card of our lives. The noise of the ocean and the rocks were amazing.
All the Malta buses on the island are really old and painted funky colors. I don't know why. I guess at one point they had to buy used buses or maintain existing ones forever due to budget constraints. Then it became a sense of pride and a source of culture. Now they just stink and are clunky. We didn't ride any, but took the token photo anyway.
The island of Malta has been fought over for centuries. It was occupied by the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem who used the island as their base for the Crusades. The island was defended against the moors multiple times and more recently as a base for the British during WWII. Valetta and the neighboring Three Cities encircle the main harbor with extremely serious fortifications. If you ever need to build a fort, call the Maltese!
Here are a couple of shots from Fort St Angelo across the bay to Valetta. Fort St Elmo is in the distance at the end of the point guarding the northern entrance to the harbor. I took the picture standing in Fort St Angelo on the south side.
...and here is the view back across to the other side from Fort St Elmo. There are three little fingers that jut out into the harbor with a city on each. Collectively they are known as the Three Cities. Apparently no tourists go there. I don't know why, but that's what the guide book said so we did anyway. And we lived to tell the tale!
One of the Three Cities (Senglea) has an impressive fortified trip. Here is a picture of the Senglea Our Lady of the Victories Church.
Cisk is the local beer company, and I thought the contrast in colors makes this a really neat shot.
Here's Erynn standing by a big canon on top of Fort St Elmo in Valetta.
While in Fort St Elmo we watched a reenactment of the daily parade the soldiers in the fort used to do.
As I said, the Malta used to be a British dependent territory and was used as base and supply station. By controlling Gibraltar, Malta, and Cairo/Suez the British could guard their supply routes through the Mediterranean. Therefore, you can still see some of the British influence in places like this statue of Queen Victoria in Valetta.
We took a day trip on the ferry over to Gozo, the small sister island. While driving from the port of Mgarr to the main city, Victoria, I saw this view and thought it was beautiful.
At the center of Victoria is the Citadel, which is an ancient fortified city. It's on top of quite a big hill and provides some good views of the city. These are various photos of the surroundings.
When we got back to Malta, we didn't have much time before we had to leave. One of the sights we went to were the Tarxien Temples, which were just really old, and I can't remember why they were significant. All I remember was that this is where I locked us out of the car. This was the first time in my life I've ever locked myself out of the car, and I ended up doing it twice on this trip. I took a picture of the sign next to the car as we waiting for someone from the rental car company to come and unlock the car. And forget about historical significance... the sun came out and Erynn took advantage.
As I've said before, the Maltese take their defences pretty seriously. This is a picture of the 100 ton gun at Fort Rinella. The entire fort was dedicated to putting gun powder and shells into the barrell of this gun. I was impressed.
Right next to Fort Rinella are the Maltese film studios. This is a picture of the largest outdoor water film set in Europe. Movies like U571 and Julius Ceasar were filmed here.
© 2002 Doug Rathburn