Malta, Along the Ramparts

I didn’t have a clue what Malta would look like before I visited. My mother and I came to Malta for 5 days of sunny days, knights and catacombs. Her fascination with the island is about ten years long and springs from a bus tour we took as a family (in Prague, I believe) where the rest of the group consisted entirely of Maltese tourists. They were rowdy. They sang songs and clapped and carried on and spoke English. All of these activities made them, and their country very appealing.

My mental image of Malta is now of something big, imposing, limestone. Fortresses and walls. This despite the fact that the country itself stretches only 300 square kilometers. It seems like every city is guarded by giant ramparts, forts and deep sea waters. They aren’t all so protected, of course - some cities in Malta aren’t even on the coast. But once I had the image of that first fort (visible across the bay from our hotel room) it was hard to create another picture. I guess I could say that Malta is charmingly deceptive. Every city is chock full of monuments - statues and saints point in various directions from atop walls and in the center of squares. It’s easy to get lost, and even easier to walk into walls while staring at the lovely sights.

There is always something pretty to look at, such as the Three Cities as seen from Valetta, or the Valetta waterfront (both below).

We stayed in Valetta, wherein residents wear short-shorts and walk miniature dogs (not always at the same time). The city was in the grip of World Cup fever, so many buildings were adorned with either an Italian or English flag (there were also a few, lonely flags representing other nations like Brazil). Every restaurant advertised big screen TVs and live sport.

Here is one of the many, random monuments and a view of the imposing city walls.

We managed to avoid the Cup at one lunch, however. After visiting the catacombs of St. Agatha (patron saint of weaving) and St. Paul (famous victim of a ship wreck) underground the interior city of Rabat, we walked the narrow streets of Rabat’s twin city Medina and came across a restaurant offering a vegetarian platter with an included half-carafe of local red wine. The purple-haired waitress said that the restaurant, like all those around it, had pledged to broadcast games on its TV and she’d put it on if we wanted. We didn’t. So we ate broad beans, stewed tomatoes, thick crusty bread and other delectables while listening to the blues. It was glorious.

Below is my mom at one of several WW2 monuments, and a priest in front of God's house.

Transportation on the island can be disconcerting, primarily because the streets work on the British model - i.e. people drive on the wrong side of the street. They also drive quickly and the guidebooks seemed to think that they drive in an intimidatingly erratic, but Cairo traffic leaves me unimpressed in almost all other contexts. There’s an excellent bus system on which we reached various cities for only 47 Euro cents (are they called cents? Euritos?) and even took a water taxi from the Three Cities right back to our hotel - or to a spot on the water 100 feet below our cliff-side residence.

The buses are all 1950’s-looking megaliths painted in bright orange and yellow tones. The powers that be threaten to replace these buses with modern buses. They will be less charismatic, I’m sure. The boats are guaranteed traditional (motor propelled) paddle boats. Ours even had a little roof for shade!

My mother refused, however, to ride this giraffe. Her loss.

We spent one day on the beach tanning/sunburning everything but our chests - topless sunbathing is forbidden, as per the below sign. We selected Exiles beach, whose restaurant offered a lovely octopus salad and whose water polo team was this year's champion. The water is so deep right off of the coast in Malta that people play water polo in cordoned-off areas of the sea!

On Sunday we visited the Valetta fort which is open only for colorful recreations of Important Historical Periods. These recreations require swords and tights and are narrated in English, French and German. The first line of defense at the fort? Kitties!

The men appeared to take their job as recreators very seriously - I might giggle, were I wearing some of their getups. Then again, they also get to play with knives and shoot cannons, both of which are Serious Historical Business.

Food is available at various social clubs in Valetta. We didn't eat at the Labor Part HQ, but we did dine across the street at the home of the King's Band. Despite her recent bonding experiences with the fuzzy mammals, my mother ate a rabbit. We do not know whether it was white, but apparently it was tasty.