To escape to bone-chilling winter, we decided on a last minute trip to Malta after seeing a special offer in the window of a tourism office. The only thing I knew about Malta before we hopped on the Airmalta flight, was that Maltese terriers must come from there. From the air, all 316 square km of Malta looked like a drop of beige in the azure blue of the Mediterranean Sea between Sicily and Libya. After landing, the spring sunshine and a portly driver greeted us, bunged our bags with gusto in the back and off we drove, careering along narrow, bumpy roads to our RIU hotel north in Mellieha Bay.
The Maltese landscape divided up into many short little crumbling stonewalls, just high enough to keep out any angry garden gnomes. These walls surrounding smallholdings were interrupted abruptly by cities, which looked like beige lego blocks built together randomly. Sandstone buildings huddled close together as if there was hardly any space for their foundations to stand. We screeched to a halt outside the hotel, nestled surprisingly inconspicuously in a quiet area with a pretty beach and azure sea.
People and cats
Despite a million tourists trampling through the island each year, the Maltese remain friendly and down-to-earth. We chatted with locals and nobody pressurised us into buying souvenirs. A strong social contrast between Malta and other coastal areas along the Mediterranean, is that normal families live in houses right next to the sea. The lobster-coloured playboys and girls - yachts moored outside seaside holiday homes were surprisingly absent.
The Maltese coast exuded a lived-in feeling. On our evening walks, we saw anglers repairing boats in their hallways and boisterous children playing outside. Not a Maltese terrier in sight, but they seem to love cats, which drape themselves on walls, cars like fluffy puddles to get as much sun as possible. Now and again, we had the eerie feeling of being watched, for in shops, on boats and in buses the symbolic blue eyes of Osiris stared malevolently at passers-by. These wooden or plastic blue eyes - selling for a few euros apiece, ward off the evil eye and protect the house or boat it is attached to.
Transport
The rule of thumb seemed to be that the bigger the vehicle, the more right of way it had, which is why we chose to take public transport. It seemed limiting, but after seeing how fast the locals drive, we decided to admire the view and not keep a worried eye on the road. A reliable bus service with a bus shelter was over the road from the hotel. One could see the painted canary yellow gypsy-looking buses dating back from the 1950’s speeding back and forth. The bus rides were the highlight of the trip, as we got the opportunity to see places in between destinations and soon got used to local way of running things. Bus timetables showed the times of bus departures from the point of origin, not the estimated time of arrival at the bus shelter we stood at, which was confusing, but nobody else seemed to care.
Capital city Valletta
For shopping, people watching and museums, Valletta is fascinating. We visited the small, but incredibly interesting Archaeology Museum, which left the distinctive feeling that some things have not changed at all. The shapes of hammers and blades were the same as today, except of course the material used. After an hour of looking at stone age art, and the famous Sleeping Fat Lady of Malta - a tiny ceramic sculpture lovingly made, we went out into the sunshine to explore the harbour.
The shady stepped side streets of the capital called out for exploration.Many old houses have anti-porta - a second inner-door of glass, which gives the residents a little warmth in winter and privacy from the prying eyes of neighbours. Fluttering washing hung out to dry from oriels - boxy wooden bay windows facing one another in narrow streets. These houses in typical Maltese/Arabic architecture are one by one being lovingly renovated. The impossibly narrow lanes are home to cats, children and old people, who watch suspiciously as one walks by. While traipsing along I caught myself thinking how quaint it all is. That is, until we walked out and saw the imposing view from the harbour. Quaintness cannot describe Fort St. Elmo, which flanked the natural harbour. The huge fort hailed back to the times of The Knights of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem, who built it to protect the island from violent invasions. For such as small country, Malta has had its share of incredible history. Even as recently as World War 2, it held a strategic position in the Mediterranean.
Looking at a map, we could see most of the urban sprawl concentrated around the northern part of the island. The southern side looked sparsely inhabited. We freely rambled along cliff paths with sparse vegetation, not seeing a soul. The bays and rocky coastline sparkled in the inviting spring sunlight and for the first time in years, I felt like an explorer on a marvellous adventure. Malta has this aura of being freshly discovered, but in reality, it has been inhabited for the last 7 000 years. Pre-historic tribes walked to Malta from Sicily over a land bridge and built huge temples out of sandstone to worship their Rubenesque fertility goddess. As the Archaeology Museum in Valetta states - these temples pre-date the Egyptian pyramids and Stonehenge by a few thousand years.
M’dina and Rabat
One worthwhile daytrip was M’dina - a fine walled city clinging to a rocky outcrop. High, thick limestone walls flank the city inside and out, which shield the visitor from the beating sun. Its history is rich and long. The walled buildings, which one can marvel at today, date back to the 12th century, but the site itself dates back 4 000 years. The pockmarked walls inspired romantic thoughts about life in the past.
When we exited M’dina the new city of Rabat enticed us to visit and one must do that. Entering Rabat after roaming the high-walled alleys of M’dina was like hitting a wall of heat, but a stop at the local sweet shop selling pastizzi (puff-pastry pies) and imquaret - various date, almond or marzipan filled biscuits refreshed us before doing a tour of the Roman catacombs of St. Paul. Rabat became famous for harbouring the shipwrecked St. Paul in AD 60. He supposedly lived in a cave, where later a church was built. The catacombs were interesting, but not as breathtaking as the catacombs and the museum of St. Agatha. This church dedicated to the patron saint for breast cancer is less than 500m from St. Paul. The murals in St. Agatha were in such good state of preservation, that even the vandalism from invading Ottoman Turks in the 16th century looked as if it was done yesterday. We went on a guided tour by an Archaeology student and saw colourful Christian frescoes, smiling skeletons (with surprisingly good teeth) and many of the graves still in tact. There was also a little museum inside the church and all the funds generated went towards preserving and renovating the catacombs.
Local produce
We generally don’t like shopping when on holiday, but we did buy a few Made in Malta products. Sun dried tomatoes, small wheels of goats cheese covered in crushed pepper are tasty. For jewellery, Maltese crosses in various shapes and sizes were popular, as well as fine filigree jewellery, lace, hand blown glass and brass objects. The local shops stocked a wide variety of interesting hand crafted wares without sellers pushing for sales. Local tipple we tried and liked were Maltese red and whites, the varieties of which hark back to Phoenician times. Zeppis produce local sweet liqueurs in a viariety of flavours. The local beer - a light, frothy number called Cisk and a darker variety called Hopleaf we sipped at one of the many small coastal pubs. For an island measuring +-30km in length and 14 km breadth, it catered for all broad interests from water sports to bird watching. We boarded the plane to return home, our minds and stomachs filled with good food and memories. The ancient history, sandy beaches, clear sea, and beautiful landscape stamped forever in our memories.
For more information such as best times to go, festivals and other general information, it is best to have a look at the official Visit Malta website:
http://www.visitmalta.com
This review is the subjective opinion of a TripAdvisor member and not of TripAdvisor LLC.
