Malta & Gozo: Limestone, Sunshine and Honey...

From the sky, the limestone cliffs make the island look like a giant, extremely complicated jigsaw puzzle-piece floating on the Mediterranean.



This place is incredible. Not only are the people so nice, but I had no idea how ancient these islands are. I went to an audiovisual thing called The Malta Experience ("Experience Malta's 7000 years of tumultuous history in just 45 minutes!") and my brain swelled a bit.

I learned that over the last 3000 years Malta has been "discovered," threatened, invaded and/or enriched by Venetians, Romans, Byzantines, Arabs, Normans, Turks, the French and the British, mostly because of their prime position on the East-West trade routes, hence all the fortification.

The influences from all these cultures are traceable through the language, among other things, which makes it a really unique blend. The heaviest influence is Arabic. It's so cool to listen to, especially the inflection.

The capital, Valletta, is one of the world's first planned cities. It's buildings have corner niches for holding torches, the streets are straight so as to be easily defensible, and it is enclosed by walls with a main city gate.


This is the city gate:


Just outside the gates, a massive fountain of mer-men.


I've heard that Malta is beige (read: bland) but I found it gorgeous. When the sun in shining, its all shades of cream and apricot with sienna and dusty rose accents everywhere, from the houses to the sidewalk stones.




How's that for a store-front?


This is the courtyard of the Grand Master's Palace:

And his clock tower:


Even the buses are cool. If you're the only one getting on or off, they don't actually stop - it's more of a roll-by and you've gotta have quick feet!



On my first day I went to the Blue Grotto, which is a collection of caves along the coastline.

As I was walking down the road, a guy called out to me "yes, lady, lady...you go down this way (pointing in the direction I was going)...cliffs here, boats stop at four o'clock (pointing to his bare wrist)...you go quickly, yes...me taxi driver." The boats were about a hundred feet away and it was three o'clock, ha. After that I realized people stop and give unsolicited directions and advice almost as a habit. I can't tell you how many times I was offered a ride while walking along the more rural roads.

I took a little tour in a speedboat that seemed like it could flip at any moment, and dipped my hands in the water to see them glow blue in the sunlight. On the left side of this picture, you can see a little boat coming around the cliff-side.


The caves were lined with crystals and different colours along the waterline...






Not a bland fishing boat in sight, and they still have the Eye of Osiris painted on the bow, a superstition picked up from the Venetians around 1000 BCE.



Oh, and there are cats everywhere. This rather unfortunate looking one swatted at every piece of lunch I offered it, and when satisfied with its sandwich-kill, purred like mad until every crumb was gone. Then it followed me for nearly half a mile, ha. So cute.


Mdina is another one of the oldest towns in Malta. It's fortified as well, with two entrance gates - one Arabic and one Greek.


The Arabic gate to Mdina, in Rabat:


Rabat itself is gorgeous - they have chandeliers hanging from the power lines!


And lamp posts that are attractions in their own right:


Inside the walls of Mdina, most of the streets and alleyways actually feel medieval. As long as you ignore the few tourist shops scattered around, that is.








At the Museum of Natural History in Mdina (above), I was hanging around checking out the architecture, knowing they were about to close, and on my way through this gate, the director (on the left) started chatting and ended up escorting me through the entire museum. I like free private tours. He was really nice, although a bit of a close-talker.


The Mosta Dome, brilliantly lit every night, like most other buildings and churches.


Malta is very proud of this one carving because it extremely intricate for prehistoric art: the sleeping lady, c. 3000 B.C.E. They think it has something to do with death rituals, i.e. the eternal sleep of death.


St. Paul's Catacombs surpassed my expectations for creepiness. The pathways were so narrow and the corners so very dark. It was wicked.



This was a door on one of the tombs - they think the surgical instruments carved on it mean that a doctor is buried there.


I went to Zurrieq one afternoon and got lost too many times for such a small town.
It's impossible to get anyone to say left or right - it's all up, down, this way, that way with indiscernible hand gestures as they change their position five times in as many seconds.

Finally I stopped in a little cafe, where luckily Victor gave me decent directions, a bottle of Kinnie (soda with bitter oranges and aromatic herbs) for the friend price, and a warm "you have any trouble you come here."

The scenery is beautiful: old limestone walls, farmers huts, tiny aqueducts and spring flowers.
And, this is the best fort-making terrain ever - oh to have been a child in Malta...







The main reason I went to Zurrieq: the Hagar Qim Temples, dating from 3600-3200 B.C.E.


This slab is one of the largest single blocks found in any temple on the islands. It's over 6 meters long and probably weighs about 20 tonnes.


See the little 'oracle hole' on the right? (above)


Spiral patterns are a major symbol on most of the temples, and even on the flower boxes lining the city sidewalks.



I wasn't able to get tickets to the most popular site in Malta, the Hal Saflieni Hypogeum. They only admit a certain amount of visitors each day for the sake of preservation, and tickets were sold out until April 17. But I did go to the Museum of Archeology...

This is a model of the Hypogeum: it's basically a cemetery with three levels that were carved into the rock starting around 4000 B.C.E. The area is about 500 square meters and reaches about 10 meters below the current road surface. It was only discovered during urban development in the early 20th century.




I also went to and old limestone quarry where they've set up a "limestone heritage" site:



Complete with statues and little model homes illustrating how limestone has been used over the years...





...ocean fossils...


...and of course, a peacock. Because what kind of shoddy limestone quarry would this be without a peacock?


This is Mgarr harbour, where the ferry arrives in Gozo:



I went to Xaghra to see more temples and walked around the little field paths and town squares.


From Xaghra you can see the cathedral in Victoria, the capital of Gozo.




Little lizards scurrying everywhere...



I was really impressed with the houses here - unique architectural blends of traditional/modern and really decorative entryways:









There's even a mobile store that goes around honking his clown horn through the streets.


I also went to Xerri's Grotto, a small system of cave's accessible only by these stairs.





These are the Ggantija temples, dating from 3600-3200 B.C.E.





I can't quite get my head around the fact that these temples are the oldest free standing structures in the world, predating Stonehedge by 1500 years and even older than the pyramids in Eygpt. And I cast my shadow on their walls. Astounding.

Ok enough of the ancient stuff for now - it's incredible but it can be exhausting.

One of my favourite things was going to the glass-blowing workshops. It's fascinating to watch and I couldn't tear myself away from the shelves upon shelves of glasswork.




The guys at Valletta Glass beckoned me right into the middle of the workshop to stand next to them while they work. I mentioned how much I loved a few certain colours and the owner, Paul Said, had me point out which colours I liked and he just made one for me, right there.

That's my orb-in-progress!


And there it is while it cools...it turned out nice and dark with swirls of green, orange, brown and white.


This is Paul working:



Paul is the only person I accepted a ride from the entire time I was in Malta - it's really difficult to abandon that big-city-girl mentality. And in Malta walking is easy and you end up seeing more. Like an ex's last name (Spiteri) on everything from auto dealers to pastizzeria's. By the way, his mother's homemade pastizzi is still the best.

Aside from that, I saw these signs as well:



On my last night in Malta, I went out with Ze Germanz staying at the hostel.
Good times and enthusiastic promises of beer tours once I reach Germany.
I'm in.


Narak iktar tard!