Marvelling At Malta

Wednesday, October 05, 2011 Eva 0 Comments




“I am sooo tired”, said the jaded waiter to us as we dined at an outdoor table on the cobblestones of Valleta towards the end of our stay. “It’s festa time every weekend here”. 

We arrived in Malta’s capital unknowingly for the start of the St Dominic festivities.  Fireworks by day and night across the town and surrounding villages, marching bands, ticker tape parades, local film crews and reporters, church bells ringing out and religious street processions filled with the rich symbolism of the Catholic faith carried on over days.  Colourful banners and religious statues on decorated pedestals lined the narrow 16th century streets lending a festive atmosphere to the town. By night, Valletta’s many churches were lit up with hundreds of lights.


Malta was a five-day interlude between Greece and Italy to celebrate Max’s birthday.  The flight from Athens was almost 1 ½ hours long but we gained an hour because of the time zone difference. So, as you do when travelling from one country to another, we had breakfast in Athens, lunch mid-air over the Mediterranean Sea and a special birthday dinner in a Maltese restaurant that serves farmhouse style food.  
Situated in the village of Qormi, about 20 minutes from Valletta, a friendly and talkative waiter in this renovated 1700’s millhouse served us starters of rabbit livers, snails, curried tripe and Maltese sausage (most of it was tasty) whilst describing life and work on the island.  Mains were the Maltese traditional cuisine of rabbit - stewed rabbit and fried rabbit dishes were brought to the table in shallow saucepans, accompanied by a lovely Maltese shiraz.  We ate many a rabbit dish after that first night.
Traditional rabbit stew

Valletta's grand harbour
Listening to the Maltese talk confuses me, its written language even harder to decipher.  In one instance it sounds like Italian and yet my ears prick up at familiar Arabic words mishmashed into the language. And it’s no wonder considering its long past as a prize trophy fought over by so many different empires as well as a Crusader Knights stronghold due its proximity to Europe, Jerusalem and northern Africa. Malta is English, Italian, Arab, Roman, Norman, French and Spanish (to name a few) rolled into one historically fascinating island.  Everyone’s had a finger in this little rabbit pie.
Then there’s the question that I’m sure is oft asked - if one is of Maltese heritage, does that make one a Malteser? I bet they have heard all the jokes. It made me wonder, though, how the confection derived its name. You’re more likely to come across a British lolly shop than the chocolate balls themselves. But Malta is more renowned for other things.  It’s the place of manufacture for the children’s plastic toy range, Playmobil, the place where St Paul was shipwrecked on his way back to Rome, and for its delicious pastizzi (savoury flaky pastries usually filled with ricotta, meat or mushy peas – all varieties sampled, thank you very much). The local Cisk Beer was light and easy to drink on these hot summer’s days and we were quickly hooked on to Kinnie, a refreshing soft drink made from bitter oranges.

Valletta by night
Valletta was a gorgeous surprise of knights’ palazzos and steep narrow streets and alleyways to explore. Its streets were designed to catch the breezes and are lined with overhanging enclosed wooden balconies that reminded us of Istanbul’s medieval architecture. British leftovers such as the red telephone booths on the streets seem to be occupied more by tourists posing for photos than for actual calls and Malta’s old English buses had been put out of service and replaced by modern buses just before we arrived.


Valletta sits up high on a promontory within massive fortified walls. Looking out of the French windows of our hotel room perched up high on the hilltop gave us an excellent vantage point across to the harbours and villages across the way. Massive cruise ships could be seen docking, knights’ castles were clearly visible from across the harbour, horse carriages with bridal parties clip-clopped through the small square in front of our hotel on their way to the gardens nearby with panoramic views and the general busy-ness of daily life carried on below us. Next door a historic knights’ residence now houses Malta’s presidential office.

  
Valletta streets
Whilst many visitors come to Malta for the sun and beach, we were unimpressed by the overcrowded, homogenous high-rise resorts that stretched along part of the east coast. You could be at any number of similar mass-produced package-tourist resorts scattered along Europe’s coastline. Like cormorants sunning themselves on a rock, sunbathers sat at so-called beaches that were really just slabs of stone by the water’s edge. There were miniscule patches of sandy beaches. But we weren’t here for the sun and the sea – we were here for the history.
Grand Master's Palace
You can’t come to Malta and not see the legacies left behind by the Knights of St John who arrived here in Malta in the 1500’s after being kicked off the island of Rhodes by the Ottomans. The huge and imposing St John’s Co-Cathedral built for the knights is richly decorated in baroque style. It contains the tombs of some of the Grand Masters of the Order and paintings by famous Italian artists such as Caravaggio and Preti. Each chapel dedicated to the various divisions (or nationalities) of the knights order was saturated with art and sculpture. 


Colourful fishing boat
The imposing corridors of the Grand Master’s Palace, now housing Malta’s Parliament, are lined with suits of armour, paintings of battles and portraits of the Grand Masters. There’s a large collection of armoury and deadly-looking weapons that can make an imagination run riot with gory, bloodied images of attack. Everywhere out on the streets each building breathes a story of its own.

Further afield we explored the colourful fishing village of Marsaxlokk (you say it like marsa-shlok), the scenic fortified citadel of Mdina perched up high in the centre of the island, the prehistoric temple ruins of Tarxien and St Agatha’s catacombs in Rabat.  We were lucky enough to secure limited tickets to go deep down into the underground depths of the Hypogeum, an ancient necropolis from past civilisations – quite an awesome experience.

Fishing village of Marsaxlokk

Malta is a sundrenched island with an easygoing lifestyle and people. It is all about Grand Masters and their rich historical architecture, the legends and legacies of the Crusader knights and their symbolic Malta Cross, deeply-rooted conservative Catholic traditions, religious celebrations, rabbit and fish cuisine, its British links and unusual multi-racial language. All these juxtaposed against a backdrop of prehistoric underground burial chambers and megalithic temples. Impressive and marvellous Malta.

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