Impressions of Malta
14-21 November 2024
To celebrate my 70th birthday, Lawrence and I travelled to Malta with our best friends from Great Baddow, and spent a week exploring this fascinating country. We stayed in an apartment on Triq Marsamxett, overlooking Silema. On our first night, there was much noise and music coming from across the water on Manoel Island, and we enjoyed a spectacular fireworks show. It turned out that this was some event put on my a local building developer, so clearly someone is making good money here.
Our apartment was in this block which seemed typical of Valletta. We could not understand why so many tourists were taking photos of this block until we got to the airport to go home; it features on tins of biscuits/chocolates available as souvenirs.
The enclosed ornate wooden balconies (Gallarija) are typical elements of Maltese architecture. It is said to originate from Arab times, providing a peep-hole onto the world beyond, but protecting the viewer from prying eyes on the street.
As you can see, the streets here are very narrow and the city of Valletta is very hilly!
St. John's Co-Cathedral is a must see in Valletta. You could almost overlook it from the outside, so the richness of the interior comes as a surprise. The church was built by the Order of the Knights of St John, in 1577, soon after the Great Siege. Over the years, as the wealth of the Knights increased, so did the decorations inside the church. The floor of the main nave is covered with marble tombstones, commemorating some of the most illustrious knights of the Order.
The Great Siege was a landmark in the history of Malta. Much of the action took place at St. Elmo's fort which looks out over a harbour facing north towards Sicily. Even today this is an active port area. The area behind the lighthouse on the righthand side of this photo is where the set for Gladiator and Gladiator 2 were built.
The Great Seige of Malta occurred in 1565 when the Ottoman Empire attempted to conquer the island, then held by the Knights Hospitaller. The siege lasted nearly four months and was considered one of the most celebrated events of sixteenth-century Europe. Manpower from the Knights was estimated at 6,100 compared with 28,500 of the Ottomans, so no one expected the Knights to win. First St. Elmo fell to the Ottomans with the defenders making their last stand in St. Anne's chapel (shown here). But their resistance brought time for the remaining Knights to regroup in their remaining strongholds.
Today, the fort houses the excellent National War Museum which is well worth a visit.
As a result of the Great Siege, the Knights decided they needed even better fortifications, and the stronghold of Valletta was built. The walls surrounding Valletta are immence in scale, but I do not have a photo to do this justice. Today, the streets of Valletta are full of cafes/bars/restaurants of all varieties and deliciousness.
Looking down from the Upper Barrack Gardens you get a fine view of the Grand Harbour, with the cannons in place to fire at invaders, looking towards the Three Cities. It seems that everywhere you go on the coastline of Malta, there are fortifications to be seen.
We just happened to be near the cannons for their 4pm firing, and they certainly make a lot of noise!
We noticed there were adverts for people to be reinactors of the British navy firing the guns. This gentleman was looking for a career change and found himself moving from England to Malta on a whim. He loves it here and noted that in November, when we think the weather is fine, his Maltese colleagues are all wearing thermal underwear!
On our first day, we got out of the rain by visiting the Archaeological Museum. This was a fascinating place showing rare artefacts from the neolithic temples found all over the islands of Malta and Gozo. There were exquisite miniature sculptures (about 4 inches high), mostly of large-bottomed ladies. But the details on these were incredible considering that these were made over 5,000 years ago (before Stone Henge in the UK).
We did not have time to visit all the ancient temples, so missed the major site of the Hypogeum. Nevertheless, we had much to see and marvel at such an ancient culture producing megalith temples and fine miniature sculptures.
Borg In-Nadur (near Birzebbuga). This site was used during both the late Neolithic Period and the Bronze Age (3,000 - 700 B.C.), and more recently used as a pig sty!
Ghar Dalam is Malta's oldest prehistoric site and has a cave one can explore. Here they discovered a layer of clay containing animal bones from 500,000 years ago, and they called this the 'Hippopotamus Layer'. Given that Malta today is more brown than green, one forgets that it was once a tropical land full of animals and lush vegetation.
The temple of Hagar Qim is over 5,000 years old and these photos do not do justice to its size. Originally it would have been covered in a stone roof so the ability to manipulate rocks of this magnitude is unimaginable today. As the sun was setting over the sea, the rocks positively glowed.
500 metres closer to the sea is the temple Mnajdra, made up of a group of three buildings, with doorways aligning to catch the sun's rays during the solstices.
And on the neighbouring island of Gozo, we have the megalithic temple complex of Ggantija (3,600 - 2,500 B.C.). These are the earliest of the megalithic temples of Malta and are older than the pyramids of Egypt. Like the other megalithic sites in Malta, this one faces southeast.
One notable feature of Malta is the sheer number and massive scale of churches.
The church just behind our apartment in Valletta.
One of many churches and convents in Mdina.
In the hill fort of Victoria on Gozo.
At San Lorenz on Gozo, with Lawrence pointing at the road sign.
The Chapel of At. Anne, on Gozo, built in 1963. The mosaics inside this chapel were stunning.
Nowhere in Malta are you far from the sea. Below is a photo of Marsaxlokk, renowned for its seafood restaurants lining the harbour. And then there's the extensive St. Paul's Bay with sandy beaches and ice cream stalls.
The coastline of Gozo appears more rugged. We stopped at Dwejra for a snack and walked over the golden limestone rocks which were used for building temples and modern buildings throughout Malta, giving the towns a distinctive colour palette. We had intended to look at the inland sea here, but it seemed too much of a tourist trap so we carried on around the island.
This was my first visit to Malta. I already new about the Knights of St. John as I had been a member of the St. John's Ambulance Brigade as a youth and had to learn its history to get my Grand Prior's Award. But its really ancient history was all new to me and made me feel insignificant in my ignorance. We spent a week here yet there was still much more of Malta to explore.
