Dry Stacked Rock & Rockfish

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Malta
29 degrees Celsius, clear skies, no breeze
October 21, 2004

In case you didn’t notice the temperature above, it’s hot. Malta is the only repeat port between our cruise last year and this year. Last year we were enthralled with the ancient walled city of Mdina, and the stories of knights, saints and battles. In the archives on the left, October 2003, you can read about our visit last year, in the posting Golden Outpost of Courage, and view photographs of Mdina and Valletta, the modern fortress city.

This time, we decided to visit the countryside and a fishing village for an authentic local fish lunch. Our travel agent, Addelaide Botticelli, arranged the tour. Out tour guide was a native Maltese woman in her 70’s (see photo) who had never left Malta, except for vacations. She talked quickly and continuously throughout the tour sharing both her enthusiasm for and knowledge about Malta. Malta with a population of 400,000 at has 360 churches, predominantly Roman catholic, the most churches per capita, anywhere.

Malta is an independent island state of 95 square miles and 143 miles of coast, 60 miles from Sicily. There are no lakes or rivers on Malta so water is a precious resource, every home is required to have a flat roof and collect rainwater in a cistern, and every home has a well. To supplement the water supply, Malta has a reverse osmosis desalination plant, which provides Malta about 50% of their drinking water.

Malta has three crops of potatoes a year and exports potatoes and onions to other parts of Europe. Farming is done in tiered gardens created by dry-stacked rock walls that terrace up the mountainside to preserve water and maximize arable land. Soil removed from lots for construction of homes or commercial buildings is brought to the countryside to be used in farming. They grow pumpkin, but don’t eat pumpkin pie they use it as a thickening agent in minestrone soup or fry it as a vegetable.

Few people, even farmers, live in the countryside. Most live in Valletta. In the past, it was against the law for even farmers to live in the countryside because of the risk of attack.

Post-secondary education is free, and the students are paid a stipend by the government while attending. The Maltese, our tour guide told us, believe that the minds of their young people are their most precious resource.


On the southeast coast of Malta we stopped for lunch at a small village. It was a nice restaurant and another tour bus arrived at the same time and I wondered how long this would take. Our fixed menu lunch include 1/4 bottle of wine or a soda pop and 1/2 bottle of mineral water with the lunch. Nearly as soon as we sat down we were served excellent brushetta, Jan thought it was too garlicky, not, is that possible? Next we had salmon soufflé, followed by our entrée of local rockfish over warn salad and French fries. Lunch was excellent and not something I would have ordered on my own. Dessert was a baked apple pie with espresso.

We walked around the fishing village looking at local crafts of lace and embroidery for sale and were amazed at how small and colorful the fishing boats were. All boats had eyes painted on the front to ward off evil spirits. It was very hot, even the locals and our bus driver were complaining. I was glad to get back aboard the air-conditioned bus and return to the ship. Still, we enjoyed our second visit to Malta and got to see another side of this unique place.