Malta

We travelled to Malta, staying in Qawra and using it as a base from which to see both the main island and Gozo. Malta is small in area but has rather more history than its size would suggest, having been occupied or contested by Phoenicians, Romans, Arabs, the Knights of St John, the French and the British, amongst others. This has left a considerable range of prehistoric remains, fortified towns, churches and military sites within relatively short distances of one another. Malta had been on our list of places to visit for some time, so we were pleased to finally be on our way there.

Mdina is Malta’s ancient walled capital, standing on high ground near the centre of the island. The site has been occupied since antiquity and the present city retains a mixture of medieval streets, Baroque buildings, palaces, churches and substantial fortifications. It is commonly known as the Silent City, although during the day the number of visitors means that the description is not always entirely accurate. Only around 100 people still live within the walls, while thousands of tourists may pass through each day. This creates obvious difficulties for residents: the narrow streets become crowded, ordinary services have been displaced by restaurants and souvenir shops, and a council funded according to its very small population must deal with the wear caused by one of Malta’s principal attractions. The residents are understandably not best pleased with all the visitors coming through and there is a sign where they convey that (last photo).

The country of Malta is an archipelago. The main island is Malta and to the north west are Comino, then Gozo. We went over to Gozo to explore some of the sights and scenery there.

Tal-Mixta Cave is a natural limestone opening high above the eastern end of Ramla Bay on Gozo. Reached from the direction of Nadur along a winding country road and then on foot, the cave is not especially large or elaborate; its principal attraction is its position. The broad entrance acts almost like a stone frame around the landscape below, revealing the full sweep of Ramla’s distinctive orange-red sand, the surrounding terraced fields and the sea beyond. From beach level it is difficult to appreciate the shape and scale of the bay, whereas from Tal-Mixta its geography becomes immediately clear.

The Blue Hole lies at Dwejra, close to the former Azure Window. It is a natural pool in the coastal limestone connected to the open sea through an underwater arch. It is one of Gozo’s best-known diving locations, although it can also be viewed from the rocks above without having to put on diving equipment and disappear beneath the surface. The water is strikingly clear and the dark opening of the hole contrasts sharply with the pale surrounding rock. Dwejra as a whole contains an unusual concentration of coastal features, including the Inland Sea, where we had a nice swim and snorkel, cliffs, caves and offshore rock formations, created by the gradual erosion and collapse of the limestone.

The Ġgantija complex at Xagħra consists of two Neolithic temples constructed between approximately 3600 and 3200 BC. They are among the earliest surviving free-standing stone monuments in the world and were already ancient long before Stonehenge or the principal Egyptian pyramids were built. Some of the limestone blocks are enormous, which led to the traditional belief that the temples had been built by giants; the name Ġgantija derives from the Maltese word for giant. Their exact ceremonies and beliefs cannot now be recovered but the scale, repeated internal arrangement and effort involved make it clear that they were important communal structures rather than ordinary buildings. What is particularly striking is not merely their age but the organisation and engineering required to construct them using the limited tools and resources available on prehistoric Gozo.

The Citadel rises above Victoria, Gozo’s capital, and occupies a position that has been used and fortified for thousands of years. Its height gave it an obvious defensive value as well as views across much of the island. For long periods the people of Gozo were expected to take refuge within its walls at night or when raiders approached, so it functioned as more than a fortress: it was also a place of safety for the island’s population, their possessions and sometimes their animals. The surviving buildings include the cathedral, former law courts, houses, museums and military works, with later fortifications enclosing much older remains. Walking around the walls gives a clearer impression of Gozo’s scale and landscape than a map does, while the streets within retain the compact character of a small fortified town.

There are also cisterns and store rooms underneath which can be visited and where water and grain were kept in antiquity.

The Basilica of Ta’ Pinu stands in open countryside near Għarb and is Gozo’s principal place of pilgrimage. A much smaller chapel existed on the site for centuries, but its importance increased after Karmela Grima reported hearing the voice of the Virgin Mary there in 1883. The present Romanesque Revival church was begun in 1920, completed in 1932 and built largely from local limestone, giving it a monumental appearance despite its relatively isolated position. The shrine has since been visited by several popes and contains offerings left by people who attribute recoveries or other answers to prayer to Our Lady of Ta’ Pinu. Whatever one’s view of the reported miracles, the basilica is significant both as a building and as evidence of the continuing importance of Catholic belief to Gozitan identity.

Xerri’s Grotto is beneath a private house in Xagħra and is reached by descending a narrow spiral staircase. It is not a vast cavern, but it contains a dense collection of stalactites, stalagmites and other limestone formations created as rainwater slowly filtered through the rock over a very long period. Some have acquired names because they resemble familiar objects or figures, although this generally requires varying amounts of imagination. The domestic entrance makes the place rather different from a conventional visitor attraction: one begins in an ordinary residential street and shortly afterwards is below ground among natural formations which long pre-date the house above them. The custodian was as interesting as the grotto. He told us how his grandfather (Xerri - for whom it is named) found the grotto when he was trying to dig for a well in his basement. He was a character and expressed his displeasure at the European rules on immigration and other issues which are apparently changing the social landscape.

There are nice views from Gozo across the Gozo Channel, from where one can see Comino and Malta beyond it.

Back on Malta, Għar Dalam is one of Malta’s most important prehistoric sites because the layers within the cave preserve evidence from very different periods of the island’s past. The lowest deposits, some more than 500,000 years old, contain the bones of animals including dwarf elephants and hippopotamuses which once reached Malta when sea levels were lower and were later isolated there. Higher layers contain deer remains and the earliest known evidence of human settlement on the islands, dating back around 7,400 years. The adjoining museum retains long cases of bones arranged in an old-fashioned manner which is now almost an exhibit in itself. Only part of the cave is open, both for safety and to protect its ecology, but the visible section is sufficient to show why the site is important to the study of Malta before its recorded history.

We decided to approach Valletta by ferry from Sliema. That way the fortified city could first be seen across Marsamxett Harbour. The route then continued through Floriana, whose gardens, monuments and broad open spaces form a rather different introduction from Valletta’s tightly packed streets. City Gate marks the transition into the capital, accompanied by the modern Parliament building and the remains of the defensive works protecting the landward approach. Valletta was founded by the Knights of St John in 1566, after the Great Siege of the previous year, and the strength of its entrance makes clear that it was conceived as a fortress as much as a city. Seeing it first at a distance and then passing through Floriana gives the arrival a useful sense of progression which is lost if one begins immediately inside the walls.

Valletta’s streets follow a planned grid across a steep peninsula, producing long views which frequently end with the sea, a bastion or a sudden flight of steps. Within a relatively small area are auberges built for the different langues of the Knights, churches, palaces, government buildings, squares, gateways and later additions from the British period onwards. The enclosed wooden balconies are one of the city’s most distinctive features, introducing colour and domestic detail to otherwise severe limestone façades. Valletta’s architecture is not preserved as a single historical stage: modern buildings, altered uses and ordinary shops sit among the structures of the Order. This makes it feel more like a functioning capital than a museum, although the fortifications and the repeated views through narrow streets ensure that its original military purpose is never far from sight.

Beneath Valletta is a network of tunnels, chambers, reservoirs and shelters cut into the same limestone on which the city stands. Some underground spaces were created to store water, grain and other supplies, while passages assisted movement within a capital designed from the outset with siege and defence in mind. The system was expanded and reused over several centuries, most notably when additional shelters protected civilians during the heavy bombing of the Second World War. The carved walls and uneven chambers are far removed from the ordered streets above, but they reveal an equally practical side of Valletta’s construction. It is easy to regard the underground tour as a separate attraction; in reality, it is another part of the fortified city, showing how survival depended upon what could be stored, moved and protected below ground as much as upon the bastions above it.

The guide for our underground tour was another character. Within the first few minutes he had expounded upon the problems of Italians. He explained how the original networks were used to shelter almost the entire population of Valetta and had capacity for more. The network underground follows a similar pattern to the streets above and many residents spent many months and years sheltered there in cramped, damp quarters away from the near constant bombing which was still very audible above. There are religious carvings in the limestone, as well as things to make it more homely, such as salvaged floor tiles and decorative items. Large families would be confined to a single small room.

The Upper Barrakka Gardens occupy one of Valletta’s highest positions above the Grand Harbour, with the Saluting Battery immediately below and an extensive view across the water. From here the shape of the harbour and the relationship between its different fortified settlements become much easier to understand. Valletta’s bastions dominate the near side, while Senglea, Cospicua and Birgu form the Three Cities opposite. Fort St Angelo, although conspicuous in the view, stands at the end of the Birgu peninsula and is therefore part of the Three Cities side rather than Valletta. This distinction matters because the harbour defences were an interconnected system rather than a collection of forts belonging to a single city. The gardens provide shade and a formal setting, but it is the elevated view which makes them particularly useful: geography which seems complicated at street level becomes much clearer when seen from above.

St John’s Co-Cathedral was completed in 1577 as the conventual church of the Knights of St John. Its comparatively restrained exterior gives little warning of the elaborate Baroque interior, where gilding, painted vaulting, chapels and monuments cover almost every available surface. The marble floor contains the inlaid tombstones of knights from across Europe, making it both a work of art and an unusually crowded record of the Order’s membership and ambitions. Each langue had its own chapel, decorated in a manner intended to express status as well as devotion, and the result is impressive without being remotely understated. The building is one of the clearest demonstrations of Valletta’s dual character: behind an exterior suited to a disciplined fortified city lies an interior displaying the wealth, international connections and religious identity of the Order which created it.

The final image is from the interior of the Basilica of St Dominic, formally the Basilica and Matrix Parish Church of Our Lady of Safe Haven and St Dominic, also known as Our Lady of Porto Salvo.

We visited Valletta on a Sunday which meant we saw these houses of worship in use, not just as tourist attractions. In the Co-Cathedral, there was a choir singing and worship taking place. There were services from different denominations in different churches, including an Ethiopian service taking place.

Birgu, also known as Vittoriosa, is one of the Three Cities on the opposite side of the Grand Harbour from Valletta and became the principal base of the Knights of St John after their arrival in Malta in 1530. Fort St Angelo stands at the end of the Birgu peninsula, served as the Order’s headquarters and played a central role during the Great Siege of 1565. Birgu’s narrow residential streets, old palaces, churches and fortifications retain the character of the earlier maritime stronghold. Our visit also coincided with the festa of St Lawrence, whose church is one of Birgu’s principal landmarks. The flags, red decorations, crowds, coloured smoke and fireworks belong to that celebration and to Birgu, rather than to Valletta, adding a much noisier layer of living tradition to streets whose history might otherwise appear rather solemn. The participants in the Festa all seemed to know the words to the songs and to really be enjoying themselves. It had more of a football celebration vibe, than religious. The majority of the celebrants were wearing red clothes of different descriptions, waving flags, drinking and singing, setting off coloured smoke and showering the area with red confetti. All good fun and good spirited.

Marsaxlokk is a fishing village on Malta’s south-eastern coast, best known for the brightly painted traditional boats moored throughout its harbour. Many of these are luzzus, whose colours and painted eyes have become one of the most recognisable images of Malta. The waterfront contains a market, restaurants and the usual collection of visitors photographing the boats, but it remains a working harbour rather than a scene preserved solely for tourists. This produces a mixture of the picturesque and the practical: fishing gear and working vessels sit alongside souvenir stalls, while the industrial structures around the wider bay are difficult to ignore. Its name combines marsa, meaning harbour, with xlokk, the south-easterly wind, and the sheltered bay has been used as a landing and anchorage since antiquity.

Ħaġar Qim and Mnajdra are two Neolithic temple complexes on Malta’s southern coast, built more than 5,000 years ago and now included within the UNESCO listing for the Megalithic Temples of Malta. Ħaġar Qim occupies the higher ground, while Mnajdra lies about 500 metres downhill nearer the sea; their proximity suggests that they were used by the same community, although their precise functions remain uncertain. The buildings use very large limestone blocks arranged around curved chambers and passages, demonstrating a degree of planning and construction which sits awkwardly with any assumption that prehistoric societies were necessarily simple. Whilst the modern protective canopies are not especially beautiful, they protect the soft limestone from the sun, wind and rain.

Before excavation, most of Ħaġar Qim remained buried, with only the highest stones projecting above the ground. Clearance began in 1839 and gradually revealed the much larger temple complex visible today, although the early work was closer to clearance than modern archaeology and recorded its finds rather imperfectly. Pottery recovered from the site included fragments of bowls and jars, together with small oval-based vessels thought to have held liquid offerings. There were also figurines of rotund women which may have had some specific religious significance. The early pottery collection was reportedly rediscovered in 1902 in two baskets in a Public Library storeroom—which at least ensured that it survived, even if the paperwork had been less fortunate.

Malta’s cart ruts are pairs of parallel grooves cut into the exposed limestone, with the largest and most complicated concentration commonly known as Clapham Junction because the intersecting tracks resemble a particularly confused railway layout. Their date and purpose remain disputed. They may have been created by repeated movement of wheeled carts or sledges carrying heavy loads, but suggestions have ranged from the Neolithic period to considerably later times, and no explanation accounts comfortably for every example. Some tracks cross one another, disappear beneath later deposits or run towards steep slopes, which makes the puzzle more interesting but not easier to resolve. They are not visually grand in the manner of the temples, yet they provide a direct physical trace of repeated activity whose users, cargo and destination have all been lost.

The nearby viewpoint of the Dingli cliffs has a church and other building and provides another nice vantage point.

St Paul’s Catacombs at Rabat form Malta’s largest surviving burial complex from the classical period, with underground cemeteries used during Punic, Roman and Byzantine times. Despite the name, there is no evidence that St Paul himself had any direct connection with the catacombs; the title reflects the long association of Rabat and nearby Mdina with the saint’s traditional presence in Malta. The passages contain different forms of tomb, carved tables used for commemorative meals and evidence of Christian, Jewish and polytheistic burial traditions within the wider complex. Only part of the extensive system is accessible, which is probably sufficient for most visitors because the low passages and repeated chambers can become disorientating. The site is significant not simply for its scale, but for what it reveals about burial, belief and coexistence in late Roman Malta.

We stayed at a resort close to the seafront in St Paul's Bay, within easy walking distance of the promenade. There were nice views from the hotel, particularly the infiniti pool at sunset.

The final photographs were taken on our journey home.

Our time was sufficient to see a varied selection of Malta and Gozo. We got a sense how the islands' history is disproportionately large for their geographical size. The trip ranged from structures built before the pyramids to fortifications, churches, fishing harbours and the remains of more recent British rule, often with several periods occupying the same small area.