‘If Dubrovnik and Venice had a beautiful baby, it would be Valletta!’
Valletta, Malta, April 24 — As our cruise director said as she started her Malta Port Talk, ‘We’re in Europe!!’ Specifically, the city of Valletta, which is what would result if ‘Dubrovnik and Venice had a beautiful baby.’ We shared her pleasure, even though we were only there 1-1/2 days before we debunked for a day back in Africa, in Algiers.
The view coming into the harbor at Valletta, known for its honey-colored limestone walls and edifices...
We were docked right in the city... the vertical mesh at the right is part of the Barrakka Lift that whisked us from the port level to the lovely Upper Barrakka Gardens and the main part of the city. Valletta is named for Frenchman and 49th Grand Master of the Knights of Malta Jean De la Vallette, the ‘bad ass’ profiled here: http://www.badassoftheweek.com/valette.html.
Some little known (to me) facts about the Mediterranean:
• It is saltier than the Atlantic due to evaporation due to the hot, sunny Med climate. • Ten percent of the world’s tsunamis occur in the Med.
• The Vikings got this far south.
• At the time of Augustus, all the countries around the Med were within the Roman Empire.
• Roman warships were christened with blood — they rolled the ship over the bodies of a few slaves.
• Caesar’s fleet was the largest to cross the English Channel until D-Day. (At one point, Caesar had been captured by pirates!)
• Today 50% of the Mediterranean basin is Muslim.
• The area’s main modern challenges are migration, climate change, and terrorism.
Malta
First to welcome us to Valletta... my, what big feet you have!
I only saw the city of Valletta but: What a wonderful island! Actually, it’s an archipelago of 7 islands (3 are inhabited) that warrants a return trip, especially since it’s only a ferry ride away from Sicily. The entire city has been declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site and has been named the 2018 ‘European Capital of Culture.’ Being strategically located in the very middle of the sea, between the Christian and Muslim worlds, Malta was controlled by, in this approximate order: Phoenicians, Greeks, Carthaginians, Romans (500 years), Vandals, Goths, Byzantine Empire (500 years), Arabs (221 years), Normans, Spanish (Aragon), French and, finally, the U.K.; it was a British crown colony from 1813 until their independence in 1964. During the Crusades, it was a Christian enclave within the Islamic Empire.
The unique part of their history — the Knights of Malta — is explained by this visit.malta website: ‘It was [Holy Roman Emperor] Charles V who bequeathed Malta to the Sovereign Military Order of St. John of Jerusalem [aka the Knights Hospitaller], who were founded to treat sick pilgrims in the Holy Lands during the Crusades, but evolved into a mighty fighting force...
...‘The Knights ruled over Malta from 1530 to 1798, taking the island through a new golden age and making it a key player in the cultural scene of 17th- and 18th-century Europe.’ The 8-pointed ‘Maltese cross’:
The Maltese language, which is 40% Arabic, is the only Semitic language that uses the Roman alphabet. Fortunately, most Maltese understand Italian (except for our waiter). Their cuisine is heavily influenced by the Moors: figs, almonds and spices. Yum.
There be pirates! I was reminded (if I ever knew) that once upon a time the U.S. fought two wars against the Barbary pirates, aka corsairs (both occurred during the early 1800s). Besides booty, pirates also captured 1,000,000 Christian slaves for the Ottoman slave trade. They were so bad, parts of the Spanish coast were abandoned out of fear of pirate attacks. It was the aforementioned Knights of St. John [of Malta] who finally eradicated the pirates.
Their Cathedral of St. John in Valletta is one of the finest examples of European High Baroque. And if the interior isn’t enough to impress you...
... they also boast two Caravaggios. The artist (one of my favorites) spent some time on the island and completed ‘Saint Jerome Writing’ and this, ‘The Beheading of Saint John the Baptist’...
It takes work to keep the cathedral looking good. No power sanders allowed, it’s all done lovingly by hand.
A floor mosaic... the toes are for scale.
In time the Maltese grew weary of the rule of the Knights and appealed to Napoleon to free them. In 1798 he and his 29,000 troops landed and the Knights surrendered. The French stayed for two years and made many changes. Our lecturer said that, in 6 days on the island, Napoleon installed a new education system, a new code of laws, and opened a chain of pastry shops specializing in mille feuilles desserts bearing his name. Frankly, I don’t remember all the details, and I think the very entertaining lecturer exaggerated just a bit. (The pastries were my idea.) Let’s just say M. Bonaparte used his administrative skills to rid the island of the Knights and whip Malta into shape.
He then sailed over to Egypt... where he was roundly quashed by Admiral Nelson in the Battle of the Nile. (Haydn wrote his Nelson Mass in honor of the British victory.)
Malta’s economy boomed with the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869. But by the 1930s, when the British Mediterranean fleet decamped for Alexandria to get away from Italian bombers, Malta’s economy declined.
Hitler knew he had to control Malta’s airspace in order to control Africa, and the island was bombed 3,000 times by Germany and Italy from 1940 until 1942, when King George VI gave the George Cross to the entire country of Malta in honor of their suffering and perseverance.
After St. John’s we went to the Grand Masters Palace and Armoury to see a special exhibit of works by Picasso and Miro.
The ceiling of one of the palace’s main corridors was a bit confusing, don’t you think? The blank white semicircles on either side are waiting to be renovated with copies of the original artwork.
View out a corridor window...
For once, I wasn’t on an organized excursion. Instead I was ambling about with four friends. We lunched at an outdoor table in a shady little side street, eating risotto with chicken, mushrooms and Gorgonzola cheese sauce, with wine and real European coffee = bliss! Even their loo was charming...
My discovery was the 16th-century Casa Rocca Piccola, a 16th-century nobleman’s pallazzo right on Republic Street, the main drag. It’s still lived in by a descendant and his family — he’s the 9th Marquis de Piro, a member of the still extant Knights of Malta and a prolific author of books mostly about Malta. The Marchioness was leading the other group in the house at the time we were. They open the piano nobile to the public but live upstairs, which we didn’t see.
View from one of the Casa Rocca windows...
The family pet was vociferous... he didn’t look like he wanted to be petted.
The house tour included a visit to the extensive WWII bomb shelter.
The palazzo miraculously escaped bomb damage, though a great many other buildings were destroyed or seriously damaged and had to be rebuilt.
A walk up Merchant Street... the enclosed porch is prevalent in Valletta houses: the dressed-up and coiffed ladies sat there to see the world — and be seen.
I didn’t have time to go to the bus-ride-away medieval walled city of Mdina, one of the best examples of such in the world, or the island of Gozo, which they say is beautiful. Another trip here is definitely warranted! #
