May 23, 2023

May 23, 2023

Yesterday was a long exhausting day getting to Malta so we slept in. After several cups of coffee we set out to explore the capital city of Valletta. It is a small city on a peninsula completely enclosed within a massive stone fortress. Our first stop is around the corner at St John's Co-cathedral. This was the main church of the Knights of St John that ruled the island. The knights were a religious order charged with defending the Holy Land. In the face of the advancing Ottoman Empire, they became a naval force to protect Christian shipping and harass Turkish fleets.

The exterior of the cathedral is plain but the interior is richly decorated Baroque. The most striking feature is the floor; it is completely covered in marble tombs from past knights.

We followed the audio guide to learn more about the ostentatious decoration. The perimeter is a set of chapels dedicated to each of the different ‘langues’ or regions represented by the Knights. Each chapel is lavishly decorated to their patron saint and usually features several tombs from the leading knights. A common theme is some military conquest over the slave armies of the Ottoman Empire.

The tour finishes in the oratory that contains two masterpiece paintings by Caravaggio. While a gifted artist, known for his dramatic use of lighting, he was always getting into serious trouble and had to move around often to keep ahead of the executioner. He spent a year here.

The weather is warm and sunny so we decided to visit some outdoor sites. We start in the Lower Barrakka Garden. Surprisingly, in the center is a Greek Temple styled memorial. We thought we had left the Greeks behind in Sicily. On a platform beyond the edge of the garden is the Siege Bell War Memorial. It is dedicated to Malta's second great siege during WWII when the British fended off attacks by the Axis powers. There is a film crew working on the memorial.

We then walked to the Upper Gardens just west of our hotel. It contains a Cold War memorial dedicated to the Malta Summit meeting of Bush and Gorbachev officially ending the Cold War. The garden also overlooks the Saluting Battery. We think about watching the noon cannon firing, but the crowds are too thick.

Instead we walk through town to Fort St Elmo at the far tip. One of the defining characteristics of Valletta is the colorful enclosed wooden balconies adorning most buildings. This harkens back to Malta’s Arab roots where ladies used these to peer out windows without being seen.

We finished at the National Archeology Museum. The main floor is devoted to the rich Neolithic history of Malta. This small island has an astounding number of megalithic temples thousands of years older than the pyramids. Only one site in Turkey can claim to be older. We start with the simple temple decorations that include basic animal figures and geometric shapes. We then move into the artistic artifacts found during excavation. The most fascinating pieces are those of human depiction. Typical is an obese female. Most are very small, but there are a few that are human size. The most peculiar piece is a reclining woman. This would not be a typical artist pose for another 5000 years.

On the upper floor, there are a couple rooms devoted to the Phoenician merchants who established a colony here. These first seafarers from Lebanon used their plentiful supply of Cedar wood to build ships. They probably got started supplying luxuries to wealthy Egyptian Pharaohs. They specialized in glass, wine, and a purple mollusk dye but eventually built a trading empire across the entire Mediterranean. Interestingly glassware was initially produced by laboriously winding beads of molten glass around a mold. The art of glassblowing wouldn't be invented until Roman times.