MALTA Wed. Dec. 26, 2018

It was a busy day today trying to see what wasn’t open on Christmas Day since only churches and some restaurants were open then.  Walt insisted upon a few more churches today since they were packed for Christmas services yesterday.  One that stands out is Our Lady of Victory, since this small church has withstood a great deal of damage and repair and still stands. It is also the first church of Valletta.  The facade is rather plain but the inside is very nice.  The St. John Co-Cathedral, however, was in another league, since it was just oozing with gold and glorious Baroque.

The rest of day was spent checking out the Armour Museum from the time of the Knights of Malta as well as numerous other stops.  The cool weather kept us moving, even up some of the small height steps that the knights would have had to be able to maneuver with their heavy armor.

The culmination was Sleeping Beauty the Panto which was a silly play/musical/comedy/whatever else you can think of.  It was held at Teatru Manoel, which was a very old but lovely theater.  We of course got very very poor seats, almost bleacher seats in the last row.   We wanted to get into the theater, so that was our only way, plus seeing that silly production was fun.

 

MALTA Dec. 25, 2018. CHRISTMAS DAY

We were lucky enough to catch a nice Christmas concert performed by the Police on Christmas Eve.  They played lots of neat Christmas carols.  We have checked out the life-sized huge manger several times, but thought it was fitting to see it once again on Christmas Day.  It has been displayed in Bethlehem and at the Vatican which is quite an honor.  It has numerous Malta folks depicted even a town drunk.  Christmas lights brighten up the main streets by overhanging with lots of designs and colors.

 

Breakfast began with us toasting with our champagne and then walking around in the windy drizzly weather.  The weather has been cool but nice and sunny since we have been here, but today it was totally different.  It looked like it was 7 PM at 8AM with the heavy clouds filled with Sahara sand. :-)
We still were determined to see what we could.

T

MALTA Monday Dec. 24, 2018

Malta may be small but it sure has its fair share of churches.  Malta consists of 3 islands and there are 359 churches on these 3 islands.  It means that there are approximately 1 every square kilometer.  Needless to say, Papa is really excited to take lots of photos of these Baroque beauties.  Most are very plain on the outside but really over the top with gold, silver, velvet, lovely engraved wood and lots of saints of all sorts with relics to spare along with cherubs galore.  A plethora of holiness which Walt was only able to scape the surface.  We would need to be here no less than one month to even come close to seeing half of them.

We did have the opportunity to tour the The Knights Hospitaller which was an infirmary or hospital originally set up for the Knights but became the main male hospital of the time.  It had special doctors, nurses and its own pharmacy.  Surgical techniques were somewhat better here than elsewhere considering the times,  and their medication often did work.  In fact there was and still is a special fungus or herb that grows high on a cliff on the island of Gozo. It was protected and collected just for them because of its special healing qualities.  The building had a very long hall where hospital beds      were lined up and each bed had its own bathroom-that was for the wealthy.  The lower long hall had one big bed which held 4 or more poor patients and 1 bathroom per bed.  This was an interesting place to see with tunnels which were also used during WWII.   The larger room could hold 563 beds and 914 in an emergency.  The beds were under normal circumstances on only one side of the room.  The history behind this building is way too extensive to explain here but was a really neat experience.

MALTA-Sun. Dec. 23, 2018 (Also Emily’s 7th Birthday)

We went on a tour to a huge market area which was also a large fishing village (Marsakala).The small fishing boats were abundant and looked well-worn.  We had more than enough time at the market since we did not have a shortage of shoes, pjs, ladies’ underwear and just plain junk.  The next stop was the Blue Grotto where we went on a small boat in and around caverns where jellyfish

swarmed along with different colors of water. (mostly blue)  The cliffs above were being used as fishing perches as well as rock climbing. The water was beginning to become quite choppy as we were ending our excursion, so I was more than happy to disembark our small craft.   Next we went to an old walled city (Qrendi) that was walled for security against pirates.  The streets were curved and narrow (arrows should shoot straight) and the windows and doors were very small.  This was all for the protection of the inhabitants.   Our guide was a knight of the Order of Malta.  That was pretty neat  in itself.

MALTA Dec. 22, 2018

After a hearty breakfast at our hotel we met our small tour bus at a nearby hotel and then transferred to a larger bus for our cave and temple tour.  The large cave (Ghar Dalam) was used for living at one of the early time periods and excavation in the site has proved there were extensive amounts of prehistoric bones and such from lots of animals.  The cave ended up being a bone deposit when the river overflowed and the animals had no way to escape and eventually they became fossilized.  The next group of people used it for living purposes since human food remnants from plant and animal were discovered.

The temples that we visited (Large Megolithic Structures) are 1000 years older than the pyramids.  The one temple was on the top (Hagar Qim Temple) and the (Mnajdra Temple) was at the bottom near the water.  They were both very impressive as to how they were constructed with only basic tools and without the invention of the wheel. The huge slabs of limestone rock were gotten from a nearby quarry where they were dragged on logs to the areas where they were constructing these buildings.   The entrance had a snake figure etched in the rock but not sure of what that significance is.  It does seem to appear in various places on other temples.  The entrance where the sun strikes the sides of the entrance indicates either the Winter and Summer Solstice.  Of course the fertility statues were very numerous since they needed to have people to work and live in these huge structures.  They have discovered that there were numerous plants in the area at the time and that they did have animals which were used for milk and food.  

The sun would strike either the right or left side and the rock would be sort of orangish from the sun’s glow.  This would indicate either the Winter or Summer Solstice.

Snake-like figure etched in doorway of temple.

Malta or Bust....Dec. 20 -21, 2018

Severe weather with tornadoes and 6 hours of intense rain hit the central FL area as we were trying to leave the country.  We had Zed standby flights for Lufthansa and made it to Frankfurt without too many issues.  We didn’t have a great deal of choice of seats, but we did get on.  The flight from Frankfurt to Malta was another problem.  There were 19 seats to be filled by an incoming flight which would have made the flight oversold when those passengers got on. Lufthansa must have different guidelines for holding a flight since they kept the doors open after the departure time and let numerous folks run and get on this flight.  We were waiting along with another couple.  We were the absolute last ones on the flight and were able to get our small suitcase squeezed into an upper compartment.  Whew!  We aren’t sure what we would have been able to do if we had missed our Malta flight.  Papa would probably have indulged his spirits in the nearest pub for the remainder of the day, since he had booked a tour for us the following morning.  Hmmmm.


We did end up in a very nice small hotel in the old area of Valletta with a nice balcony overlooking the water as well as various buildings including numerous domes.

Memories From Brussels

Wednesday Dec. 14, 2016

We did enjoy Brussels for numerous reasons.  We originally had planned to go there because I wanted to enjoy a European Christmas Market.  There were other unintended consequences that took place.  Walt had hooked up a tour of Art Nouveau sites so we were aware of some buildings in the area.  When we got there we also checked out a building that happened to be Art Nouveau style which housed the Comic Museum.  The Comic Museum made us aware that there were lots of Comic Murals within the city that we could walk around and see also.

The whole area was festive as far as the downtown city streets and shopping areas.  Nothing on the homes, which we had noticed in Europe before.  Even the Mannekin Pis figure had a special uniform.  It looks like it may have been a mountain climbing outfit.  

The Art Nouveau sites were really neat.  Brussels is one of the main areas where Art Nouveau flourished from 1900-1914.  Albert Horta was one of the main architects of the time that made it flourish for as long as it did.  His style with more of the curves and the whip like hook are considered the Organic Art Nouveau.  The Geometric Art Nouveau which had straighter lines and forms became Art Deco which came about in the 1920s and 1930s.  Both of these were in evidence in Brussels.  

The Comic Murals were a very nice way to recognize comic designers from way back.  Most of us know of the Smurfs but there are a whole lot more that were before our time.

So much for the comic murals.

We bid Brussels a fond farewell.  It was a nice getaway.