The Delhi-Munich flight was delayed and I was nervous about my rather short Munich-Malta connection. Fortunately, we made up time between India and Europe and I was able to snatch time for a couple of beers at Munich airport before catching the flight for Malta.
The brief flight over the azure mediterranean brought me to the Island of Malta, which is one of the three islands that comprise the country of Malta (the other two being Comino and Gozo) - I managed to visit all three during the week I was there.
The largest of these three islands, Malta, is about as big as Delhi (probably smaller) and there is an extremely efficient bus service that runs through it connecting all the major (and minor) towns. For a seven-day pass (at 12€) one can make as many mistakes as one likes. Almost every tourist (including yours truly) buys that pass. Very often one sees the tourists rummaging through the contents of their purses / wallets / handbags to look for the little stub of paper.
Malta’s capital, Valetta, where I based myself, seems to be straight out of 1930s britain and Is predictably small (about a km long and not more than 600 metres wide, with a princely population of 7000). I was staying at ‘The British Hotel’ which was very conveniently located and I congratulated myself on a booking well done on tripadvisor.com. This joy was shortlived when I was shown to my room to get to which I had to climb over 150 stairs. Reminded me of a hostel I once stayed in in Florence. When I made the booking I got an email from them saying that they did not encourage people over 35 years (which I was). When I called them to ask why, they coolly said, “we’re on the third floor and there is no lift so we don’t encourage middle-aged people”. Ouch!!!
Ok back to Valetta.
Prior to the great siege of 1565 (did you read my previous post?) only Fort St. Elmo (at the tip of what is now Valletta) was inhabited. After the siege, Grand Master la Valette (of Knights of St. John) ordered the building of a new city, which was subsequently named after him. How grand indeed.
Valetta is supposed to be one of Europe's first planned cities. Given the harsh mediterranean climate here, the city is built in straight lines (to allow cool sea breeze to waft through) and the buildings are tall so that sunlight is kept out. Thus though the temperature might be quite high (early 30s when I was there), the breeze makes it pretty comfortable.
The National Museum of Archaeology is an interesting place to start my exploration of Malta I didn't know about the fascinating pre-history of Malta and this museum gave a nice overview about the neolithic sites of Hypogeum, Tarxien, Ggantija, Hagar Qim, and Mnajdra. Most of the treasures discovered at these sites are now placed at the museum - the Venus de Malta and the Sleeping Lady and the fat ladies!
One of the largest structures in Valletta is the St. John's Co-cathedral. That is a funny name you ask. So did I. Apparently its status as a cathedral was, at some point, raised to be equal with that of St. Paul's Cathedral in Mdina. Hence the prefix 'co-'.
Built in the 16th century (1573-8), the interior of this cathedral is embellished in baroque style. The floor of the cathedral is littered with tombs of knights of the order (which order? you haven't been paying attention!). The jewel of the cathedral is the painting 'beheading of St. John the Baptist' by Carravagio. It is an amazing painting - and the usual brilliance of Carravagio is at display - the subtle of use of light ('chiarascuro') and the limited palate. Carravagio spent a year or so in Malta (1607-08) when on the run for a murder in Rome. He was made a knight of the Order here but not long before he again got into trouble and had to flee Malta too.
Across the Harbour from Valletta are what are known as 'the three cities' - Senglea, Vittoriosa, and Cospicua. On my first day in Malta I took a bus to visit these cities which portrude like three fingers into the Grand Harbour. The first town is Senglea (formerly Isla). Calling it a town would be quite a strech as it is only 823 metres by 320 metres (no I did not measure it). Senglea has some really old houses (some apparently from the 13th century). The other city is Vittoriosa (formerly Birgu) which has a fort (St. Angelo) that bore the brunt of the attack during The Great Siege. I hopped from one city to the other (remember I had the 12€ bus pass!) admiring the views of the sea that would peek in through the buildings every now and then.
On my second day in Valetta, I queued very early in the morning for tickets to the Hypogeum (more on that later). Entry to the site is restricted - only 60 visitors per day of which 40 are sold on the internet (these sell out months in advance) and 20 are sold the previous day across the counter. Now this counter (in the Fine Arts Museum in Valletta) opens at 09:00 in the morning. I was told that the queing starts at 08:00. Being an Indian, and instinctively trained to beat queues, I reached there at 07:30 smugly believing that I would be the first one. Of course, I was wrong. But fortunately, I did get my one ticket.
So the next day, armed with my precious ticket, I made way to the Hypogeum (which actually means ‘underground’ in Greek). I never know that Malta had so much pre-history. This structure, a necropolis dating from 3000-2500 BC, is an underground structure where the remains of over 7500 people were found. The Hypogeum was discovered in 1902 when workers working on some residential construction discovered its roof by accident.
Along with the few other tourists we were given a guided, and well-controlled, tour of the Hypogeum which has three different layers and lots of different kinds of rooms. Thanks to the draft that kept on sweeping the structure, I was reminded of an interesting story from the 1940s when a British lady visited and claimed to have seen a few hunched human-like figures with white hair. Then her candle went out and she felt something brush against here in the dark. I felt a similar sensation every time cool wind gushed past us. Fortunately I survived.
PS: The language spoken is Malti which is an interesting mix of Arabic and Italian. Hello is derived from Arabic (Marhba) and Thank You is derived from Italian (Grazzi).
