Where are Ron and Ellen?
Malta
17 February - 2 March 2005
Ellen and Ron, windblown in Malta!
"Why Malta?" everyone asks us. Because we hadn't been there, it was a cheap package deal for a short vacation (hotel plus air fare), it looked like an interesting place, and the weather wasn't frigid at the end of February.
Malta is a small group of small islands in the middle of the Mediterranean, south of Sicily. The larger island is Malta, the smaller one is Gozo, and the tiny island of Comino, inhabited only in the summer when the hotel there is open, is between them.
When the Turks forced them from their stronghold in Rhodes in 1523, the Knights of St. John were given Malta by the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, and then they became known as the Knights of Malta. They fortified the island and held off the Turks in the Great Seige of 1565, then held the islands until 1798, when Napoleon took them for the French. In 1814, at the end of the Napoleonic Wars, Malta became a British Crown Colony, and 1964 it became an independent country. It has been a member of the European Union since May 2004. Most people speak Maltese and English, and many also speak Italian. They use Maltese currency, but will probably go to the Euro eventually. Here's the map of Malta from Lonely Planet.
Sliema, Malta, Saturday 19 February 2005
Links in the text below are to individual photos. To see all the photos from the 19 Feb report at once, click on the thumbnail.
Hi Gang,
This is to announce that we are alive, well, settled into our hotel, and tooling around Malta although so far not on our bikes.
It has been colder than we thought it would be and threatens to rain frequently, but stops just as quickly, so that so far we have not gotten very wet. Everyone here is complaining because the winter has been the coldest and wettest and stormiest they have had in 27 years, with temperatures often in the 40s rather than in the 50s as is usual for this time of year.
We managed to hook up with one of Ellen's high school classmates and his wife on the first afternoon we were in Malta. The day we arrived at noon was the day they were leaving for the airport at 6 pm to return to the UK from a week in Malta, so we weren't sure it would work out, but it did. We had tea with them, then walked around Valetta a bit. Valetta is the capital city, a short bus ride from where we are staying -- the bus system is cheap, easy to use, and covers all the island. Bard and Rena told us some of the places they had liked best during their time there. That was nice, since there were a couple of things we did and enjoyed that we might not have done if they hadn't told us about them.
On Friday, we took a bus to the north end of Malta, the big island, to where the ferry goes to Gozo, the smaller island. This was a scouting expedition to determine how it would be to bike, since the terrain and the roads are actually quite rough, and the roads are narrow with lots of traffic until you get outside of the urban areas. Ron has now put his bike together and tomorrow plans to explore for possible routes to get out of the city on something other than main roads that we've been on in the bus.
After checking the ferry schedule etc yesterday, we backtracked a bit and hiked up to a watch tower (looking more like a small square castle) built on a high point in 1649 as part of a chain of signal towers across the island. From the tower there are spectacular views in all directions, and you can certainly see why it was a good location for a military watch point. We hiked back down to the road through tiny, rocky terraced garden areas, and went on to Bugibba, the town where St. Paul was shipwrecked in 49 AD. He stayed in Malta several months, and converted the Maltese to Christianity before they helped reprovision his ship (new or repaired? not sure) and he went on his way. There are many churches in Malta named St. Paul's, including the very large and very ornate Church of St. Paul Shipwrecked in Valetta. St. Paul's shipwreck and time in Malta are considered by historians as fact, although some of the stories about St. Paul's interactions with the islanders during his stay in Malta may or may not be fact. We walked along the waterfront in Bugibba and had tea, and then Ellen took the bus back to the hotel to read for a while and Ron continued on to a few other towns to check the lay of the land.
Today we took the bus to Mdina, the old capital of Malta and now a United Nations Heritage site, a medieval city with fascinating narrow streets and a huge cathedral (Ron had been here on Friday night during evening mass), all built with the golden limestone that most buildings here are made from.
We then walked along the spectacular Dingli Cliffs on the west coast, saw "Clapham Junction", an area where there are prehistoric ruts worn into the limestone, probably by people pulling travois (plural travoises?) with something heavy on them that eventually wore ruts in the soft stone. Possibilities for what they were hauling include building stone, or topsoil hauled up from the bottom of the cliffs (if you saw how incredibly rocky the soil is, you would understand their interest in topsoil!).
So that gives you a brief outline of our travels to date.
Love to all,
Ellen & Ron
Sliema, Malta, Wednesday 23 February 2005
Links in the text below are to individual photos. To see all the photos from the 23 Feb report at once, click on the thumbnail.
Hi, all -
Sunday Ellen went to church at the Anglican church in Valetta (another one of the many St. Paul's churches) and spent the afternoon exploring some of the city, while Ron spent the day exploring by bike, working his way out of the urban area and generally northwest to/through some of the smaller towns. Valetta, the capital city, is on the tip of a point of land, surrounded by fortifications, and only about 1 km long and 600 m wide. It has wonderful narrow streets, many so steep that the pavements aren't smooth, but are built as shallow steps.
Monday we went to visit two of the megalithic temple sites on the west side of the island, huge stone ruins of temple complexes that predate the pyramids. Hager Qim and Mnajdra both date from 3600-3000 BC. The two are quite close to each other on the southwest side of Malta, just rocky fields around them, perched on the edge of the island overlooking the sea. Quite impressive. Also incredibly windy! All the trees are short and have a distinct lean to them, so you can tell it wasn't just an unusually windy day when we were there. We joked that the reason for the concentric circles of stone surrounding the inner temple area was that the stone walls would be the only way to protect any votive or sacrificial fires from being blown out by the wind. Before catching the return bus we walked along the road to the overlook where you can see the Blue Grotto (not to be confused with the Blue Lagoon, a prime swimming and diving spot off Comino, the tiny island between Malta and Gozo).
Today we went to the Archaeology Museum in Valetta and looked at some of the statues and stones that had come from the numerous temples in Malta and learned a lot about the ancient history of the island. In several of the temples large and small statues of female figures were found, with huge thighs and arms, tiny hands and feet, and all wearing pleated skirts. A good introduction to the underground burial chambers and another temple that we will visit on Friday.
Yesterday Ron did another bike ride (Ellen has decided not to bike because of the rough terrain and the heavy traffic in congested urban areas), and Ellen spent another day exploring the narrow streets of Valetta. Most churches, museums, and shops had been closed on Sunday afternoon, so this day was spent going in various incredibly ornate churches, visiting the museum that is attached to the Cathedral of St. John, and seeing the reading room in the national library and archives. The Cathedral is gorgeous, every surface is carved and ornamented, and the floor is covered with multi-colored marble inlays marking the tombs under the floor. The Cathedral Museum has some huge tapestries and other artwork, but its prize items are two beautiful Carravageo paintings (Carravageo spent some time in the monastery there). I had a fine day and so did Ron!
The weather has improved significantly, with nice sunny days and temperatures around 60, although it is still windy -- but apparently it is always windy here.
Love to all,
Ellen and Ron
Afton, Virginia, USA, Wednesday 9 March 2005A report from home about our second week in Malta.
Links in the text below are to individual photos. To see all photos from this section at once except the market photos, click on this thumbnail.
Links in the text below are to individual photos. To see all the market photos at once, click on this thumbnail.
On Thursday we did a package day trip to Sicily that included the fast ferry (1.5 hrs each way) and a bus trip that covered 400 km, including Mt Etna, and the baroque city of Modica. It isn't generally the way we'd choose to travel, but we knew we couldn't cover the same ground and see the same things on our own unless we spent several days doing it. Mt Etna was quite spectacular, snow-covered, smoking (it is an active volcano), and very cold and windy at the base of the ski lift where we had a 1.5 hr stop for lunch and photos. Luckily, we'd been warned by someone in our hotel who had taken the tour a few days before us, so we had appropriate clothes for snow and temperatures just below freezing -- unlike some people on the bus who were wearing sandals!
Friday was another ancient history day. One of the things we'd done on our first day was to get tickets to tour the Hal Saflieni Hypogeum, the underground burial chambers and temple complex dating from 3600-3000 BC. Because of strict conservation controls, there are only 8 tours a day of 10 people each, so you have to book tickets 7-10 days in advance. The place is fascinating, about 500 sq meters on 3 levels, all carved out of the natural rock (with flint tools -- no metal, as the guide kept reminding us). It has hallways, chambers, and a temple area that looks very similar to the above-ground temple ruins from the same period. Much of the carving is done to create concave curves that make a domed effect on the ceiling, and the acoustics are marvelous. At one point the guide asked two people to do a deep "om", and it reverberated and vibrated almost like the deep pipes of an organ. It obviously was used as a burial place, since there had been skeletal remains of about 7000 bodies there, but other than that, no one knows much at all about either its uses or about the people who built it (and built the other temples on the island).
After visiting the Hypogeum, we visited the nearby Tarxien Temple site. This temple is right in the middle of a busy urban area, but once inside the protective walls it is a peaceful place with flowering almond trees and bright flower beds along the entrance walkway. This temple site had stones decorated with spiral patterns and pitting, as well as bas-relief carvings of cattle and goats.
Saturday we took the bus to the northern tip of the island, and then the 20 minute ferry ride to Gozo, the smaller island. Although the terrain is similar, hilly and rocky, it seemed much greener than the big island, and there is certainly a lot less traffic, even in Victoria, the main city. We took a bus a few km to Ggantija, the largest of the temples in the Maltese islands, although from the same 3600-3000 BC period as the others. The outer walls are huge, with some stones approximately 6 meters high and 4 wide. This temple is on a hillside with a spectacular view of the southern end of Gozo and south across the water to Malta and the tiny island of Comino between. Back in Victoria, we explored the Citadel (the fortress and cathedral perched on the highest point of Victoria) and wandered around the old town center.
Every Sunday morning in Marsaxlokk (pronounced marsa shlock), a tiny fishing town on the southeast tip of the island, there is a huge market, so, loving markets, we took the bus to see that. What a market! Every kind of seafood you can imagine (fish and things that are definitely not in the fish family!), vegetables, fruit, olives, capers, cheese, bread, jewelry, pots and pans and plastic buckets, stamps for collectors, perfume bottles, plants, songbirds, clothing, shoes, and a wild assortment of trinkets and junk. Plus a huge crowd of tourists, locals doing their shopping, and assorted folks and dogs enjoying the event and the beautiful weather. We ate our picnic lunch on a sunny bench overlooking the harbor.
At this time of year there are trotting races at the sports complex near Valetta on Sunday afternoons, and, although we know nothing about racing, we thought it might be interesting. We'd seen horses with sulkies being driven on training runs along the road in front of our hotel, but for the races the horses were beautifully groomed and harnessed and the drivers were decked out in their riding colors. Having never been to trotting races before, we weren't always sure what was going on (took us until the second race to actually figure out where the finish line was!), but we had a good time, enjoying both the crowd and the horses. We didn't do any betting (another one of the things we couldn't figure out!), but we should have, because at least one of the two horses we picked to place in each race actually did so.
When we woke up Monday morning the good weather we'd had for the previous 10 days had ended: the Mediterranean in front of our hotel was no longer a lake, but had giant waves crashing up on the breakwaters and sending spume about two stories high. It was cloudy and threatening, so Ron opted to pack up his bike instead of doing a ride as he'd planned. Ellen took the bus to Mosta, to see the huge domed church there (Ron had visited it during one of his bike rides). The dome is indeed spectacular, third largest in Europe after St. Peter's and the Pantheon in Rome. During the bombing in World War II three bombs hit the dome at the same time. Two bounced off and landed in the square without exploding, and the third pierced the roof, bounced off the wall and rolled without exploding across the church floor where ~300 people were waiting for mass to begin. No one was injured by any of the the bombs. We have no picture of the dome because the Ron took pictures of the church but not the dome (he has no idea why he didn't!), and Ellen didn't take the camera when she went because she thought Ron had already taken pictures! We spent the afternoon reading (definitely not on our balcony, but inside the glass doors leading to it, still a spectacular view) and watching the increasingly large waves.
Tuesday it was cold and cloudy but not as windy, but the water was, if anything, even rougher than on Monday. We made a last trip to Valetta, and visited the World War II Museum, with photos and artifacts about Malta during the war. Malta was a strategic supply station and bombing base for Allied attacks on Sicily and north Africa, and, with its harbors and shipyards, was heavily used for shelter and repairs. In 1942 it suffered through 154 days and nights of continuous bombing.
We took a final walk through Valetta, then Ron went to nearby Vittoriosa (on the point of land across the Grand Harbor from Valetta) to visit the Torture Museum (an exhibit sponsored by AMnesty International) in the Inquisitor's Palace, while Ellen went back to the hotel to read (the World War II Museum had provided enough evidence of human warfare, cruelty, and lust for power!).
We've been back from Malta for a week now and are gradually picking up various threads of our lives. We had a good trip. Ron, of course, says it didn't have any real adventure -- but he does admit to enjoying it. Ellen loved it, and, especially after reviewing and choosing the photos for this Web page, would consider returning for another short vacation. Malta is an interesting place, with fascinating history, lovely baroque cities to walk around in, huge fortifications that enabled the Knights of St John of Malta to repel the siege of the Turks in 1565 (when you walk around the base of them in Valetta, along the water level, you wonder what ever possessed anyone to think they could capture the city, surrounded on 3 sides by water and fortifications, and on the fourth side by fortifications guarding a very narrow neck of land), small fishing villages, beautiful countryside, and lots of ruins and temple remains from 3600-2000 BC. Two weeks was a nice amount of time to explore without rushing, and to see what we wanted to see, although we agreed that if we had a third week, we would have enjoyed spending that on the more peaceful Gozo -- where Ellen might have actually unpacked and ridden her bike!
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Last updated: 16 March 2005
