Kate and I went to Malta for a one week holiday. Kate had organised to meet up with her relatives from both Malta and Brisbane. I was excited because I knew a little bit about the history of the island of Malta, so I knew there would be old buildings involved!
A short history on Malta.
It’s thought that the Maltese islands were first settled in 5200 BC. There’s a few Neolithic sites to suggest the island’s importance to many early civilisations. But let’s get to the juicy stuff. Knights!
Being part of the Roman empire until its demise, Malta was shuffled between rulers depending on the emperor at the time. At the end it was passed to the Byzantine Empire but fell under the rule of the Vandals and the Goths for periods (no, not the modern Goths, the older ones, almost Visi…)
Passing to the Arab rule of the Fatimids, the Christians were still allowed to keep their faith – even if they had to pay for the right. Luckily for them, the Normans, as part of the conquests, took Malta in 1091 and Roger I was most welcomed, giving them their country and faith back by re-instating the Catholic Church as the state religion. This was a good time. Prosperous and productive. The result included a heap of Norman architecture (which I enjoyed!).
After shuffling between whoever thought they should be ruling Malta (rebellion, rebellion, arguing, rebellion) and some rulers not being favoured for their high taxes, the Spanish eventually got hold of the islands and tried a few different sorts of ruling classes. Some worked for a while, but others weren’t too popular with the locals (ie more rebellions).
Eventually, in 1530 Charles I, the King of Spain, handed Malta over the Order of the Knights of the Hospital of St John of Jerusalem on a loooong lease. These knights were a military religious order, fighting monks if you will. They did a pretty good job and keeping the islands safe. Eventually, the Ottoman Empire (who was quite keen to grab up the islands for trade purposes) laid siege to Malta in 1565. The knights, along with the locals (who quite liked the military guys being around) fought side-by-side to beat the Turks in what was to become known as the “Great Siege of Malta”. Yes the Knights and Maltese won with far fewer numbers (about 8000 locals and 500 knights versus about 30,000 Turks). This is when things got interesting (for me) because the knights and Maltese agreed that increasing fortifications couldn’t be a bad thing. The Turks were likely to want to have another stab…
All was reasonably well until the little short French bloke came along on his way to Northern Africa in 1798. Napoleon captured Malta after tricking the Knights into giving him a safe place to stop and resupply. The locals weren’t too happy with their new rulers, so they brought about a rebellion like they hadn’t tried for years. After a quick word with the English and Italians, the Maltese got help to kick the French off their islands for good.
Being quite happy with the English (they must have brought fresh tea bags with them) the Maltese handed their country over to England.
Everyone was reasonably happy until WWII came along. Malta was still a really neat spot between Europe and Africa and everyone knew it. There was another siege of Malta, this time the Germans tried bombing the utter ding-dong out of the country (Malta was the most bombed area in the entire war!). The Maltese resisted with amazing vigour resulting in then King George VI of Britain awarding the entire country the George Cross for their people’s heroism and devotion to the allied cause.
In 1964 Malta gained its independence and became a republic. This said, there are still remnants of British rule everywhere. The mail boxes are British, with the British marking ground off and some telephone boxes are still the standard British Red telephone boxes. Personally, I noted that the mail system is still as backward as that of Royal Mail, so there are many things that still run (or don’t run) like British things do!
Our trip
Ok, that said, we were there for a holiday, not a history lesson. But as you can guess, I was also interested in the history!
We arrived into the airport and caught a taxi to our accommodation. We made it there too. Surprising as it was. We learnt very early on that the driving in Malta is “different” to the rest of Europe. Normally, when there is a road and it is divided in two by a line that means one set of traffic in each direction right? In Malta, this also means that if you can fit up the middle between the two standard lanes of traffic you do. And our Taxi driver did. Further lesions included the golden rule : “approach a roundabout with enough speed to head straight through the gaps between the traffic in the roundabout”.
Taxi, not ours, but one none-the-less
We were amazed that the entire time we were in Malta we didn’t see a single accident… maybe their rules work?
Another point of interest is the Maltese public transport system comprises a heap of old Bedford buses left over by the English. They are all painted up and look spanking even though some buses must date from the 1940’s! They were truly wonderful to travel on. Unlike British buses, they run frequently and are *way* cheaper than any form of transport I’ve seen in many years. Most trips cost a mere 47 cents!
After spending some time wandering around Valletta and other outlying villages, we met up with Kate’s relatives, mainly the family of Kate’s Grandmother’s sister. They are a wonderful bunch of people with fantastic stories to tell. We enjoyed their hospitality and offers of local knowledge.
We also did a couple of touristy things. We saw the Knights of Malta’s cathedral, St John’s Co-cathedral. We were actually staying opposite this cathedral. It was an amazing building lined with gold and more artefacts than I could photograph. While I did try to photograph them all, I’ve only included a small sample here as not to bore the eyes off you. This cathedral was divided up into 8 chapels which served each arm of the Knights. The Knights were divided up into their 8 orders based on the languages spoken by the knights.
St John’s Co-cathedral
Our second tourist attraction was the State Rooms and armoury. The state rooms were an amazing set of palace like rooms with the appropriate furnishings and sets of knight armour spread throughout.
View in one of the state rooms
The armoury was full of everything that you could think of from the Knight’s reign. My highlights were the array of decorative (yet functional) armour and the firearms, cannons and swords.
Decorative armour
Funny looking things (and helmets)
While in Malta I also got sidetracked from sightseeing long enough to ask Kate to marry me. I had been carrying around a ring for about 8 months waiting for the right moment. I really thought I was going to ask her when we were skiing in the French alps in February, but she decided to try tackling a pole and we had a week-long stay in a little village while she lay down in a hospital bed instead. Anyway, Malta proved to be an excellent venue for the question. As Kate was not expecting the proposal, we’re yet to sort out any sort of plan for the wedding… lots of internet research to be done yet!
Us from our balcony
Another nice thing to do while in Malta is swim in the Mediterranean. Given that we’ve not been back to Australia for ages, we thought the temperature was excellent for swimming. There are many pools cut out of the rock along the coast which give you a less wave beaten area to swim, so we did loads of swimming and relaxing by the water. A real summer holiday. While I thought it was really hot (figuring it was in the mid-30’s) I was happy to swim. I was shocked to find out the temperatures were only around the high 20’s. Maybe I shouldn’t ever return to Australia…!
Kate swimming about in a cut out pool
Anyway, Malta was a great place for a holiday. Easy to get to, easy to get around as well as great for food, swimming and touristy stuff. We will return!
Many more photos can be found here