Refreshed after our day at sea doing nothing but blogging and reading, we are ready for Malta. Today’s agenda is another tour with Cruise Critic folks – once again featuring wine. The sail in, is as always, stunning. The whitewashed city seemingly rising up out of the ocean like Atlantis, under picture perfect blue skies, makes photo taking easy, although the pictures can never quite capture the whole experience – at least we try.
We meet our guide Victoria on the pier, and hop in our van, driven by Vittorio (cute – the two Vic’s!). Victoria is a vivacious, intelligent guide and we know she will be fun to be with throughout our day. We’ve been all over this island before, but never on a guided tour, so we are looking forward to really getting to know the country’s history and understanding what we’ve seen. The first thing we ask her is about the buses. We loved those old Maltese buses, with all the old character and style. We rode them around the island on a couple visits and had told everyone about them – only to find that there are now modern style buses and a re-styled bus station. Victoria explained that because of the EU and pollution standards, the old buses had to be replaced. Aw. What a shame. While we completely agree with the environmental issues, those old Jalopies added so much character to the island, it seems sad that they are all retired now.
On with the tour, our first stop is the upper Barracca Gardens and the main entrance to the city. The gardens are magnificent, and there is a beautiful look out point across the harbor to the other side of Valetta (whose history now escapes me).
Victoria does explain how the entire walled fortress of Valletta was built very quickly, in 5 years, in order to protect the island from the Ottoman siege. All the buildings were basically one story and very plain. The additional levels and Baroque features were added later as the city matured. We wander through the gardens, making a pit stop at just the right time, before the hordes from bus number whatever descend on the toilets, then meet the group outside for a quick walk in town.
We walk past the ancient square which has now been turned into a concert venue, and past the New Parliament building which has been designed to compliment the existing baroque architecture in a modern style. It’s really quite a good job – using the same white stone, but adding the window features to reflect the shadows of the sun (or something like that).
We continue our walk down the main avenue, dodging through the teeming streets. There are tons of people out today, it is Friday morning and the place is packed. Heaven only knows what this would look like in high season. Nutso!
Our next stop is the St. John’s Cathedral where we will tour the church, and also view the Caravaggio paintings on display there. Ed and I debate over whether we’ve been here – I tend to believe that we didn’t come in when we were here with Maggi and Richard, but Ed thinks we might have, but not seen the Caravaggios. Regardless, we’re here now. After paying our 10 Euro (7.50 E for Ed because for once they are giving senior rates abroad), and clogging up the works a bit while we wait for our audio guides (Victoria is not happy about this little predicament), we finally enter the cathedral and wade through the hordes to be able to view the stunning interior, with the repeating archways, frescoed ceilings and amazing tile crypts on the floor.
We watch one of the workers doing some restoration work…
…and wander around the inside of the nave, avoiding selfie sticks and wandering tour troupes. Even though it is uncomfortably crowded, we can still marvel at the opulence and gold leaf filled interior.
We finally make our way through the cathedral proper, and stand in line to view the Caravaggios. This area is crowd controlled, which makes for a much better visiting experience. Two large Caravaggio paintings are displayed at either end of the room – The Beheading of the Baptist (Caravaggio’s largest canvas) and The St. Jerome Writing (the first painting he created after arriving in Malta). The paintings are intense, and his use of light is amazing. It appears there is a spotlight on each painting, but there isn’t any light directly on either - it is only Caravaggio’s talent shining through.
Escaping from the insanity inside the cathedral, we dive right into the insanity outside by strolling further into the city, marveling at the architecture and listening to Victoria’s stories about building features and purposes (like the balcony in the photo that was built for the women of the palace to get fresh air, outside, without being seen).
And with that we walk back to the van, taking pix of the various statuary and neat architecture along the way…
…then make our way out into the countryside for lunch and the winery.
As we are driving around the city Victoria points out various historical and archeological monuments. She also explains that the word “quarantine” originated here, because the ships had to spend 40 (quaranta) nights in the creek outside the fortress before they were deemed safe and allowed to come in and unload. Interesting fact!
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