Valletta, Malta

I have a sad story to tell about our visit to Malta.  Let me start by saying that David and I had been to Malta four years ago and thought it was the highlight of the trip that year.  Our itinerary on this cruise called for a day in Malta, then on to Tunisia the next day.  However, a couple of weeks ago, we were informed that the political situation in Tunis is unstable, so the stop there was canceled and replaced by staying overnight until noon the next day in Malta.  Back to my story--after our  trip to Cairo and the pyramids, we were at sea for two days.  On the evening of the second day at sea, I was struck with some GI distress, followed 8 hrs. later by David succumbing to it too.  We had enough meds with us to deal with the situation, but knew we needed to report our illness to the Medical Center.  Because illness can spread so quickly on such a closed environment, we were placed in quarantine for 24 hrs. after symptoms subsided.

I was well enough to take some sail-in photos from our veranda.  

I learned that Valletta, the capital of Malta has been chosen as the European Culture City for 2018.

But for the first day in port this is what we saw looking to the right from our balcony (above) and to the left (below).

Malta sits in the Mediterranean Sea just 50 miles south of Sicily.  With a total land mass of 122 sq. miles and 450,000 residents, it is one of the world's smallest and most densely populated countries.  Its strategic location made it subject to rule by just about every conquering civilization from the Phoenicians to the British.  The stunning fortifications were built by the Order of Knights of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem (who cared for injured Crusaders) to whom the islands were given in perpetual lease in 1530 by Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, for the yearly fee of one Maltese Falcon.  In 1565, lead by Jean Parisot de Valette, the Grand Master of the Order, they withstood a siege by the Ottoman Turks.  Thus, the inner harbor city was named Valletta in his honor.  The eight points of the Maltese Cross were seen as symbolic of the 8 lands of origin of those knights.

I was fortunate enough to be released from quarantine on the second morning of our stay, so I was able to go on an excursion.  We made a short photo stop at the Blue Grotto.  The photo doesn't really show it, but there was a vivid blue-green color inside the grotto.

We visited the site of one of the world's oldest free-standing temples.  These temples, built from 3600-3200 BC, were over a thousand years old when the pyramids were built.  For centuries, only the tallest of the monoliths peeked above the surface of the ground.  They have been excavated and are now covered by a giant tent to protect the porous globingerina limestone from further weathering.  

A very nice visitor's center has been built at the site.  This scale model was helpful in interpreting what we had walked through.  

We watched a short 3D movie at the visitor's center which furthered our understanding of how the temples were built and how they may have been used.  Above the door of the theater was this sign.  The Maltese language is classified as Semitic and is a combination of an ancient form of Arabic influenced by Italian and Sicilian.

Next, we drove back to Valletta to visit the National Museum of Archaeology.  To get to the museum, we had to walk down Floriana St. which has been turned into a pedestrian street as a result of Valletta being named the European Culture City for 2018.  

 There were two other cruise ships docked in the harbor in addition to ours, so the street was full of tourists in addition to the locals.

One of my favorite architectural features are the enclosed balconies.  They are seen everywhere.

The museum houses many of the building stones and artifacts from the ancient temples accompanied by large photographs of the early work of excavation.  

The most memorable feature of these temples are the statues, ranging in size from a few inches to a few feet, of obese, headless women.  The girth of these women gives rise to the theory that the temples celebrated fertility.  The statues were found without heads, but with holes where the heads could be inserted mortise and tenon style.  Apparently the heads were changeable.  (Can I get a new head?--this one is getting too full and I can't find what I'm looking for anymore.)

Sadly, the "all aboard" was at 11:30 am, so I didn't have time to wander on my own, and David missed seeing anything but from our stateroom window.  The blow was softened though, by that fact that we had been there once already and can refresh our memories by looking at our pictures.  

All of our fellow guests were so delighted to be in this remarkable city.  It is clean, the temperature was blissfully mid-seventies, and we weren't accosted by vendors at every step.  We're in Europe!

The honey-colored limestone grows out of the sea through the fortifications into the medieval buildings.  The effect is stunning.

Our first visit to Malta was unexpected and fascinating, but I never thought I'd come back.  Perhaps we will have yet another chance one day.