A Golden Outpost of Courage
I confess, that all I knew about Malta, before this cruise, was that I liked the low budget 1941 film, The Maltese Falcon. The movie starred Humphrey Bogart as Private Detective Sam Spade, who leads a murderous hunt for a valuable gold statuette of a falcon - the Maltese falcon. Of course, the movie has nothing to do with Malta at all, John Huston's screenplay is an adaptation, based on Dashiel Hammett's 1930 novel. Incidently, the movie is much better than the novel.
The real Malta, it turns out, is quite a fascinating place. It is, I discovered, a golden outpost of courage. The island nation of Malta is located at the heart of the Mediterranean, a dangerous crossroads between Europe, Africa and the Middle East that has made these islands one of history's great takeover targets. Man first arrived in Malta nearly 7000 years ago, about 5200 BC, and Malta has been under repeated attack and occupation since.
In relatively recent times, 1530, The Knights of the Order of St. John began their 250-year rule. They gave the Islands one its best-known symbols, the eight-pointed Maltese Cross, and they built Valletta, the Baroque, fortified city that is the "modern" capital.
Upon waking I stepped onto the balcony of our stateroom to get my first glimpse of Valletta. I was immediately struck by the golden hue of most buildings. Later, I was told that most of the buildings were built from the local limestone, which is a golden yellow.
It was time to shower, dress and head up to the Lido for breakfast - the golden city of Valletta beckoned.
Mdina: The Medieval Capital
[Yes, the spelling is correct, it is Mdina not Medina, although it pronounced Medina.]
We decided to visit Mdina, the medieval capital of Malta and a World Heritage Site, which can trace its history back more than 4000 years. The Apostle St. Paul lived here after being shipwrecked on the island in 60 A.D. (Acts 28)
We disembarked the Oosterdam, chose and paid for a taxi tour package at the kiosk on the pier and were immediately assigned a taxi by the taxi supervisor. This civilized experience, was in stark contrast to the attack of the cabbies with their flexible pricing that we experienced in Palermo, yesterday.
On the way, we stopped briefly at the famous Mdina glass factory located in a field below the ancient city. The glasswork was beautiful, colorful and quite ornate. The factory and gift shop was well worth a brief visit. Fortunately, we escaped with little damage to our credit cards.
I must admit that I wasn't expecting much from our visit to Mdina. When you tour Europe, seeing old buildings and ruins is a daily experience and you can become quite jaded. If I hadn't heard of Mdina before, I thought, it can't be that impressive. Wrong.
For defensive purposes, the fortified city was built atop a hill with a view of most of the island. The Phoenicians built the first wall around the city in 1000 BC. Rabat, which means suburb, sits adjacent to Mdina and was once part of it. The Saracens, medieval Arab Muslim invaders, gave both Rabat and Mdina thier current names, dug a moat separating them and fortified Mdina's walls in 870 AD. Since then, Mdina's parameters have remained unchanged, although there have been changes to interior structures.
As we crossed the bridge over the moat I looked over the side, imagining a time when the moat might have been filled with water or even alligators (OK, I've seen too many Hollywood movies) and discovered an orange grove. The current city gate was built in 1724. Compared to Mdina's long history, I found this quite recent and needed to remind myself that 1724 was over 50 years before the United States was founded in 1776, and over 100 years before Canada became a country in 1867. Perspective restored, I walked through the gates.
The baroque architecture is magnificient. St. Paul's Cathedral, built between 1695 and 1702, was the crowning achievement of renown Maltese architect Lorenzo Gafa, who earlier, in 1609, also designed St. Paul's Shipwreck Church, in Valletta. Tradition holds that the site of St. Paul's was selected because it was the location of the house where St. Paul stayed after he was shipwrecked in 60 AD.
About 400 people still live in Mdina and all the palaces are inhabited. Cars are restricted to residents. The streets are narrow but are great for walking and Mdina is relatively flat so exploring was easy going. Some buildings had overhead walkways between them. At one outlook point we saw the thickness of the walls (3 to 4 feet) and a panoramic view of the island, at another we saw the height of the walls.
Mdina remained the capital of Malta until the mid 1500's when Grand Master Vallette of The Knights of St. John, a military and religious order, decided to build the new capital, Valletta.
Mdina, in the middle of Malta high atop a hill, had served the purpose of its time - defense. Now, proximity to the port had become important too. Valletta is a fortified city as well and its bastions represent some of Europe's greatest military engineering but is located right on the coast at the port.
posted by Larry Anderson at 7:00 PM
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