You’re reading that title and saying whhhhhaaaaat? Malta = Sun, man. Yeah, most of the time it is sunny (like 300+ days per year), but if this was the week you were spending your holiday time in Malta it would not be on your list of the sunniest vacation you’ve ever had. Good thing we are here way longer than one week, huh? But before the weather went nuts on us we did get something pretty cool done😁
Saturday morning dawned, bright and sunny. We got out first thing and walked over to Birgu. Here you go to get you oriented:
And, because I know you have been waiting for it, here’s your brief history lesson…Pretty much every civilization in the ancient world wanted, and needed, Malta. Something about where it is in the Mediterranean and the current of the water. This mixing of many cultures is reflected in the Maltese language: ancient Arabic (Phoenician, Aramaic), Latin, Italian and a little English! Most Maltese speak English fluently too, with many speaking Italian as well. The three ancient cities of Malta are Birgu, Cospicua and Senglea, with Birgu being the main one. The history of Malta goes even farther back, but I will tackle those time periods as we go to different locations! Anyway, so by the 1500s the islands belonged to the Holy Roman Empire. At this point the Knights of St John were looking for a new home and the emperor gave them Malta. The Knights immediately set about improving the ancient defenses around the island – some of the structures dated back to the Romans, in particular Fort St Angelo at the tip of Birgu. They had made Birgu their base, and knowing how often other entities came along to help themselves to the islands, increasing the defensive abilities would be very important. Okay, trying to keep this short…in 1565 the Ottomans show up, but the Knights were ready. With the assistance of about 400 local people 2,000 knights were able to stave off the Ottoman military force. The siege began on 19 May 1565 and the Ottomans gave up on 8 September 1565, after Spanish and Italian troops arrived to help the Knights. That was super simplified – the cool thing is most of the forts still exist! They were improved over the centuries, but a lot of the medieval parts are still there. Why all this explanation? Because we went to Fort St Angelo.
Like I mentioned before, it was sunny and beautiful when we set out. Funnily enough, we had no problem finding where we were going – it’s rather huge!
And, since this is a fort it wasn’t just a matter of walking into it…we didn’t take a photo of the path to get to the path to get in, if we had known what was coming we would have!
The place is massive. I would imagine that it is another place normally busy on a Saturday but we had it pretty much to ourselves. It was awesome! But rather than boring you with my ramblings, here’s some photos:
All of the fort was fascinating, but the very top was my favorite. This is the portion that was granted to the organization that is the modern day Knights. Parts of the old palace (late medieval period) were damaged in WWII, but most of it is intact.
After touring the fort we headed for some lunch. Like other patrons we were seated in an open air area with umbrellas for shade. About halfway through our lunch we were incredibly grateful for those umbrellas as the skies opened. Rain is not a strong enough word…torrential deluge perhaps? It rained and rained and rained. Water was coming down the road like a river. It was impressive! After about 30 minutes it finally lightened up enough for us to go to our next destination – The Inquisitor’s Palace.
My knowledge of inquisitions extended to the Spanish one of the 1400/1500s. If you don’t believe what we say to believe in you will be tortured, burned, etc. Not a high point in Church history. The Inquisition in Malta was of the Roman variation and occurred late 1500s-1700s. It was more of an educational reform than forced conversion. I felt a little better after knowing that!
There were several surprising exhibits within the Palace – one was nativity scenes from all over the world. Another exhibit was wax figures telling the story of Christ. This was a very interesting place to walk around.
Yeah, I know those were briefer than previous pictorial displays of our places visited. I’m working on not overloading anyone reading with three dozen photos…
I did want to include a few from around Birgu though –
The rain finally stopped. The sun came out again. We thought “well, that’s over”. HA! That night we had thunder so loud it made the teeth rattle. The light and water continued off and on for the next four days. On the plus side, there’s no rubbish anywhere. The minus? It’s all washed into the Med😐 Malta is fairly clean but there was litter here and there. And the plants all look super happy now that they are not drowning.
New things to explore this weekend!! YAY!