chocolate malta

i was just talking to a friend who wants to visit malta for her honeymoon, and so this blog post is dedicated to her- the writing is a bit choppy, but i'm leaving it as is. it was written April 16, 2001:

...(deletia)
malta is actually made up of three tiny islands, malta, gozo and comino. the trio is found to the east of tunisia. it's one of the smallest countries in the world. the bus system in malta is very efficient, but the bus drivers reminded me that there is a little bit of egypt in everyone. at one point f almost fell out a bus on a particularly jerky turn! never a dull moment ;)

since malta is an island, everywhere we went we could see the sea. our second day there, we took a boat ride around the blue grotto, which is this area populated with several cliffs and caves. we rode into many of the caves, and saw why the area is called the blue grotto. the sunlight reflects off the walls in the caves and turns the water a deep blue- it's beautiful. there are tons of stalachmites hanging from the roofs of the caves as well, and we could get very close to all of it because the boat we
were in was so tiny. it was wonderful- i felt very isolated there, out on the sea, zipping in and out of these caves, looking up to see nothing but cliffs and clouds. it was great.

that day we also walked up to dingli, the highest point in malta. the view from this cliff was worth the climb, but in the pictures we took i know i look like i'm wheezing ;) on the way back from dingli we actually got hopelessly lost. we ended up following a group of german girls back down from the cliff, and they got us even more lost. we did finally end up back on a bus to valletta but by the scenic route ;)

we also went to mdina, the medieval walled city named after the arabic word for city. this was interesting, actually- having read a bit about maltese history i understand better why their language is an odd mix of arabic and italian. there were many words i recognized from both languages. in fact, they actually say "assalaam ciao"! i didn't believe this until i heard it. so. mdina has been called the silent city, the noble city, the old city. mdina played a part in history, actually- during the great siege, mdina sent
a cavalry out to attack the turkish base camp just as the turks were about to seize victory. this attack shook loose a muslim stronghold. interestingly enough we were in mdina on good friday, and so we caught the religious procession. it was good timing- i had just read about the great siege and now i had a chance to think about it as i watched this procession in honor of good friday.

we visited many ancient temples- all of them were built around 3500 BC, give or take a few hundred years. this makes them all older than the pyramids of giza. the gganantija temples in gozo were pretty interesting, but i liked calypso's cave better. the legend goes that homer's ulysses was captured by calypso, a nymph, and kept in that cave for seven years before being allowed to return home. going down into that cave was a slippery adventure but once down there the view was nice. i could see ulysses lounging there, pampered by a nymph and eating grapes for seven years ;)

on the road away from the cave f bought some cheese and fruit, both maltese specialties. the fruit was interesting- it looked like a pear and tasted like an apple. the cheese was laden with pepper and not that great.

we saw more temples at hager qim and mnajdra; these are both ancient structures as well. but honestly what preoccupied my mind this trip was the untamed beauty of it all- this was the kind of thing i'd been hungry for lately. to get lost in some stunning landscape. i've had a lot of city lately and although malta definitely has its share of urbanity we had the option of just going to the seaside, sitting on a cliff, looking at the water. it was refreshing.

this said, by far my favorite part of the entire trip were st paul's catacombs. these catacombs made the ones in alexandria seem paltry. this underground chamber went on and on and on, twisting into hundreds of different rooms... it was awesome. there were so many dark little alleys and holes, many of which i ventured into. it was so indiana jones ;) the areas for the bodies themselves were cut into every available space, and in many you could see the indentation were the head must have lain. some of
the spaces were stuffed with many more than one body, as well. it was just an incredible place. every niche had a grave cut into it. i kept expecting to find a skeleton in some of the darker places i explored- there were so so many graves i couldn't imagine they'd excavated them all! wow. the catacombs were just wonderful. i was in awe of the whole thing.

so. that was malta. i wanted desperately to have a chocolate shake there just so i could say i had a malt in malta but alas i didn't get a chance to achieve such heights of cheesiness ;)