Everyone kept saying, “Why don’t we come to Malta every cruise!” We only have Malta on our itinerary one time, and many of the crew who have been working on the ships for years hadn’t been to Malta either. I read a history of wars in the Mediterranean in the 1500’s in which Malta plays a very important role. The players are the Ottoman empire and Christendom consisting of a loose alliance Spain, Rome, and Venice. Malta is attacked and holds off the full force of the Ottomans for an entire spring, summer, and fall. One of their forts fell, and casualties are exceedingly heavy on both sides. It sounded unimaginably brutal. In the end reinforcements are finally sent from Sicily to end the battle.
Sadly I hadn’t finished my reading by the time we got to Malta, so I didn’t know all the historical importance of a lot of what I was seeing, and we were mostly in the city of Valetta (named for the leader during the siege) the is newer than that battle.
In any case, Valetta was fantastic. Many amazing churches, and the town was plenty old to give a feeling of antiquity and deep history. It didn’t hurt that it was a beautiful day as well. I’d love to go back.
They had a fleet of old busses that ran tours around Valetta. Sadly we didn’t get to jump on one.
Everything was fortified facing the sea.
Jazz is big everywhere in Europe.
The interior of one of the churches. I can’t remember if this was the one, but there is a church where there are around 400 people buried under the floor of the church. Marble mosaics mark the graves.
Marzipan Fruit.
Nut soda?
Um. Go Obama?
The City of Valetta is on a peninsula surrounded by two defensible harbors, so all along the shores are mighty fortifications against sea warfare.
THIS is a unicorn. Yes it is built onto the side of a church. Amazing.
Note the man reading the paper?! Really?
This is the door of the headquarters of the Knights of St. John. They were basically Christian pirates and built the forts that were sieged in the battle for Malta.
Lots of cool ironwork around the city.
Our ship is registered in Malta. I’m assuming some beneficial laws concerning maritime travel and employment practices.
