Here we are at the end of one stage of the holiday, and the beginning of another. Today being marked by a stop over in Valletta.
We are going to be here slightly longer than expected which means we can take a look at our plans. It turns out that there is a problem with at least one flight resulting in the passengers not reaching the ship until 0100 on Friday morning. The captain, who had been expecting to sail between 7 & 9PM had to wait. The benefit of that for us was an extended stay in harbour.
That was good because we had booked an early trip to Mdina, from which we would return at about 1400 and still have plenty of time to go into Valletta, which in turn meant that we would not have to rush at the end of the holiday.
On then to Mdina. We only had a guide for the 45 minute transit from the boat to the ancient walled city, after which we would have some time to explore by ourselves.
The guide gave us a potted history of the city, the defences of which were built by Arabs, it then changed hands to Europeans who added to the defences, only to be besieged by the ottoman Turks, possibly changing hands again (this is all related for effect, and is not by any stretch historically accurate, it just that my memory and ability to search are limited).
What I can tell you is that todays version of the city is quite beautiful. Built from the honey white limestone that is characteristic of Malta, it stands like a beacon on top of its plateau in the middle of the island. Surrounded by a deep ditch dug out by the Arabs to add to the defences, this feature has now been turned into a lovely, well kept garden that one can walk through.
There are only three gates into the city. We enter via the main gate, but in a slightly unusual way.
The only modern motor vehicles allowed to enter the city are those of the one hundred (yes, that figure is correct) people that live there and service vehicles. The next alternative to walking is to take a Karozzin. A horse and buggy. In our case the horse Bobby and his driver Steve. We had only gone a few yards before we’d worked out that we didn’t have enough cash to pay Steve the agreed and regular price of €35. Of course, we told Steve that maybe he should stop and let us off. “Not a problem” he replied “there are several ATM in the city, we will stop at one”. The ride continued. It was a lovely if slightly unnerving method of travelling the streets which in places were so narrow, it was possible to reach out and touch the walls.
Bobby would plod along whilst Steve told us about the various sights, including photo stop at the furthest point so that we could admire the view from the city walls. Whilst I dashed for cash, Steve told Elayne that he had seven horses, three of which he used for working, and the other four living out their retirement. Bobby would break into a brisk trot to go up the very slight inclines that were on parts of our route. We were returned to the main gate.
We had about two hours from there to have a wander around. The streets of Mdina were built to be narrow not in straight lines, be weaving gently, making the place easy to defend, hard to attack. With a gentle stroll, pausing to look at places I reckon we could walk the length of the Main Street in about twenty minutes. The place is not big, but it does have a cathedral, hence its status as a city (apparently one cross is a church, two a cathedral and three a basilica).
We did the Mdina Experience this started with a 3d film about the establishment of the Knights of St John a mostly peaceful group separate to the more violent Knights Templar and were devoted to treating the sick. I don’t recall ever hearing of the Knights of St John before, but the link between them and St John’s Ambulance becomes obvious as they both use the same eight pointed star of Malta as their symbol.
The experience continued with a walk through series of wax models in dioramas depicting the struggles surrounding the history of the city. With hindsight, interesting. I think would rather have walked around the city a bit more, given the limited time we had. Perhaps a little bit too soon, we were back on the coach for the trip back to Azura.
Back on board ship, the flight delay problems had got worse. Our departure time from Valletta was now expected to be 0100 on Friday. The knock on was that last passenger on time was now 2300, if we were of a mind we could have experienced a bit of Valletta’s night life.
We were not of that mind! We had lunch and decided we must go into Valletta to at least say we had experienced it. The lift to take us up to the Barrak Gardens was a six or seven minute walk from the ship taking us what felt like a couple of hundred feet up to the city.
A walk through some lovely memorial gardens led us on to South Street, not one of the main shopping or historical areas but still with plenty of cafes. As we walked along the grid layout of the city allowed us to look along the main streets the main characteristic was the steep hill leading down to the lower levels. Sadly, that really did put us off exploring any deeper. Hot and bothered and hurting knees made the prospect of climbing steep hills very unattractive. We very slowly made our way back to the lift.
The approach to the lift was crowded and we realised that people were there to see the firing of the 1600 hour time gun, a once a day event. I would quite like to have seen that. I went to investigate and with the crowds being five deep, even with my height I gave up and feeling a little sad we made our way back to the lift, which at least was empty. Life sometimes has its little rewards. The lift is glass fronted, I stepped to the back of the lift just in time to have a perfectly unobstructed view of the soldier stood at attention, heard the shouted command “Fire” saw the soldier reach to the cannon and saw and heard its firing. The lift started its descent. We returned to the ship.
Our first sea-day of the second cruise was a write off. Bad weather, quite a heavy swell apart from meals we stayed in the cabin. After my bold assertion in my intermission post that I wouldn’t pay for the internet, I did damned expensive, but the speed was good. I think that’s all I’m going to say about that day.
Bills Posts 