Gold and Glory
Malta is an island steeped in history. Due to its position at the naval choke point of the central Mediterranean, it has been important from the Crusades all the way to World War II. With all that warfare and all that history, it’s guaranteed to be an interesting place to visit. Anyone who has been there says how wonderful it is. How did it hit me? Sort of half-and-half.
Since the 1960s, when Malta had more people of native blood in the rest of the world than remained on the island, the economy has grown, mainly through tourism. Population has risen from 150 thousand to over 400 thou. Even as early as April, Valletta Harbour is graced with huge cruise ships. Besides our little four-master, there was one hulking 3000-passenger liner on the dock and another one in dry-dock across the harbour.
Architecture
Well, how about 52 churches and a cathedral with the third biggest dome in Europe? Outside the capital city, the population is spread into small villages of 10,000 inhabitants or so, each with its church. When I suggested to a tour guide that if the first industry of the island was tourism, the second must be religion, she did not disagree. And I cannot help but be aware of the source of the income which built these churches. First from their Roman Catholic heritage, and second, from the piracy of the Hospitallers in the late Middle Ages.
One ne day in the 1920s a local woman heard Saint Mary talking to her from a small chapel on the roadside. So many people came to worship and give donations at this new miracle site that they built a whole brand-new church there.
This attitude is particularly notable in the Valletta Co-Cathedral, so called because it was erected by the Hospitallers, not the church, and has remained in the possession of the civic authorities ever since, rented out to the Roman Catholics for religious services. A tour of this cathedral leaves one with the distinct impression that it was built, not for the glory of God, but for the glory of the various Heads of the Order and the money they paid for the famous artists who decorated it. Like the rest of its flock, this building is not prepossessing on the outside, but makes up for it inside.
One also can’t help but notice that these glorified people were all foreigners. From the Knights Hospitallers in the 1500s till independence from the British Empire in the 1970s, the island and its people have been tools for, and victims of, colonialism.
It is interesting to note the general look of all the buildings, mostly constructed of local limestone. As long as limestone has a polished face, it retains its shine. Only after the surface has been breached does the water get in to soften the stone and erode it. Add to this the lack of rain and the constantly blowing red dust from the Sahara, and the result is that all the ancient buildings look scrubbed new. However, water is at a premium, mostly produced by desalination of seawater, so cars are not washed often. Many of them are covered by a layer of this red dust.
Saharan Dust
Accommodation
Our group of five had a roomy, fully furnished three-bedroom apartment for Can$200 a night. The wi-fi even worked, as long as you didn’t sit in the kitchen. It was situated below the city wall, just above harbour level, and about twenty flights of steps from the old town above. Not a city for the faint of cardiovascular system.
The elevator to the Old Town was a couple of hundred metres away, and cost one euro round trip. The property manager was available to help us out with various little details, and the in-house taxi driver gave prompt, friendly service and a low-priced, informative half-day tour around the island. The suite had the usual combination of too-soft furniture and the lack of lamps and electrical outlets typical of renovated suites all over Europe. It’d rate it 4.5 out of 5.
Our Street: Lunch is Up There!
Our final day on the island. Linda and I took the elevator up to the main center of town and walked south, out of the Old Town towards newer buildings. We were sitting in a coffee shop on a square when I noticed a Lexus parked on a side street. The sign on the post above it said, “Prime Minister,” and the next sign said, “Leader of the House.” I guess that must have been Parliament.
Just Any Street
The old really meets the new at the City Gate, where another elevator has been fitted onto the old city wall, I suppose to allow attackers easy access to the city from the bottom of the dry moat. Remember that tourist revenue.
Old Meets New
Is Malta Wonderful?
Well, from my five days’ experience, it’s pretty darn nice. Positives include architecture, sidewalk restaurants and harbour views. For the wandering visitor, Valletta is the equal of any hill town/fortress I have seen in Europe. There seems to be plenty of accommodation, although it isn’t cheap. Less impressive was the service and the food.
I know it seems strange to put the restaurants and the food in separate categories, but so it was. It’s fascinating how much the town changes as the day progresses. A street that was stark and bare at eleven in the morning is jammed with umbrellas and customers at five in the evening. On the steeper streets, the tables and chairs have shorter legs on the uphill side to keep them level. On some stair/streets the drinkers sit on cushions on the upper step, with the table one step down.
As far as the service was concerned, I don’t know whether it was general practice, COVID or just early in the season, but it seemed everyone was in training. Orders were misplaced or misunderstood, bills were charged to the wrong people, (and one time charged twice to two different members of our party) and the food, while of an enormous variety of local and other ethnic choices, also varied in quality from great to reasonable.
One element that we didn’t miss much; there were relatively few tourist and souvenir shops. Inured as we are to tourist frenzies like Le Mont St. Michel in France and the markets of Mexico and Egypt, Valletta was positively low-key. The merchandise we browsed through seemed moderately expensive but decent quality. Ask me in five years how my beautiful blue t-shirt holds up.
The Bottom Line
Malta has pretty well everything you want. Sights and tours all over the place. Sidewalk cafés and bars, museums, history and architecture, and enough discomfort to let you know by your aching legs that you’ve had an adventure. But I probably wouldn’t go back. Been there, done that, bought the t-shirt. With a neat little Maltese cross embroidered on the front. Very classy.