Honeymoon Adventures Part II
Day Four: Exploring Malta
Thanks to jet lag we had a bit of a late start. Jet lag is the worst in the morning. It's almost impossible to wake up as your body thinks that it is 3:00 am. We decided to try to make it to a beach, but unfortunately it was much easier said than done. Malta has a vast network of busy and dangerously driving buses that carry you across the island in a web-like network of bus routes. The bus drivers fall into three categories: 1) young guy who is mean 2) old guy who is mean 3) old guy who is nice. All Maltese speak English but some better than others and some with very, very thick accents. The bus drivers are impatient with tourists with their inane, ceaseless questions -- including Gavin and myself who were told to take three different buses to the same beach, all leaving at different times. Sometimes the bus driver responses were completely unintelligible. I felt really bad for being that dumb English-speaking tourist, but the bus routes seriously are confusing and this is from someone who has used all forms of public transportation from Europe, to Japan, to Cambodia. In short, we had no idea what we were getting ourselves into.
We did board a crowded bus and about an hour later we did end up at a beach, but it was too windy and cold to get into the water. The Mediterranean is freezing! I don't remember it being so cold when I was in Ibiza a few years ago. We ended up lying out in the sun and having lunch with the view of the ocean, which was lovely in and of itself because the ocean has such an intense blue color and it's simply enjoyable to be out at the beach. I may have also eaten some ice cream. We caught the bus back to Valletta and spent the rest of the afternoon walking around the small city which was suddenly alive with tourists and locals. It was a completely different scene from when we had arrived the night before when the town was closed up and sleeping (even at 9:00 pm!) The sky was a brilliant blue and we noticed that you could look down the steep, rolling alleyways and see the ocean sparkling out on the horizon.
Valletta sort of juts out into the Mediterranean so it offers some very nice views. I took a lot of pictures of the narrow alleyways and the quaint wooden balconies for which Malta is known. The balconies sit on stone plinths and are painted in a variety of colors and they come in many shapes and sizes. Some wrap all the way around the corners of buildings, like verandas three, four, or five stories up on the city streets. Many are peeling paint, draped with ancient lace curtains, faded Virgin Marys presiding over the window frames -- all giving a very charming effect to the streets of the city.
We had dinner at the same restaurant as the evening before, this time settling for more traditional food and not a plate of fried American snacks. Gavin had some kind of pasta and I ate some Italian dish with beef on top.
Day Five: Stone Age Relics
At this point, I had formed an unhealthy addiction to cafe lattes, which are espresso with a thick layer of steamed, frothy milk on top. Total amazingness. I am somewhat hesitant to believe that American coffee shops can do this coffee drink justice, but maybe I'm just being elitist. Please tell me I am wrong, because I am going to need a lot of these when I get back home.
Anyway, after a full English breakfast (eggs, toast, baked beans, stewed tomatoes, sausage, etc) and a cafe latte, Gavin and I were off again for the bustling insanity of the bus depot where 17 different quays awaited us with buses veering off to all corners of the island. This time we were on a mission, one that was time sensitive. You see, back in February I had purchased tickets to a place known locally as the Hypogeum. It is a neolithic (i.e. Stone Age) underground necropolis, in fact the only known underground neolithic temple in the entire world. It is carved from the living rock and arranged into three different levels, each created at a different time period. When discovered it was estimated that it contained the remains of around 7,000 people. They were not stacked neatly, but the bodies were left out to decay, the bones collected and all deposited into little "rooms" carved beneath the ground -- all remains were simply deposited into collective piles. Eventually it was all filled with mud and dirt and forgotten until the early 20th century when it was rediscovered by accident. Farmers were trying to create cisterns for their newly built homes and broke unto the second level of the temple complex. Now it is a very delicate tourist attraction that only allows some 50 people to visit per day. As such, the tickets sell out months in advance. In fact, it is currently sold out until the end of July. We had a tour booked for 1:00 pm and were not going to risk being late thanks to the unreliable bus system.
And yet, of course, something had to go wrong. Traffic. Traffic was backed up in all areas and all directions. A trip that should have taken 20 minutes took over an hour. Only later did we find out why: a local man was murdered a few streets away in broad daylight! Malta is a small island so this type of tragic news really was the talk of the town. I guess it makes sense now because at the time I had no idea what could have caused such insane traffic at a relatively innocuous time of day. Thankfully we did make it in time, with five minutes to spare, and so had the privilege of viewing a very unique piece of Maltese and world history. No photography was allowed, which I suppose is fine because it was so dark anyway. The light damages the remains of red ocher paintings on the ceilings, mostly ornate spirals and hexagons. The necropolis was really a marvel of human ingenuity as it was carved from the living rocks only with stone and bone tools. And the thought of it being utilized for a thousand years and discovered with a number of beautifully carved/sculpted depictions of people-- ancestors, deities? The most famous is a tiny figure known as the "Sleeping Lady" -- a voluptuous Venus of Willendorf-esque woman lying curled on a platform which seems to sag beneath her weight. She may represent a fertility goddess or perhaps even the sleep of death itself. We will never know! But the fact she exists and was created so artfully is really amazing. I bought a souvenir version to keep in my classroom. I can't wait to share my stories of the Hypogeum to my next round of world history students next semester!
After the Hypogeum we took a ten minute walk to another set of Stone Age ruins, this time above ground -- the Tarxien temple complex. This site was discovered with some very ornate carvings that are now housed in the Museum of Archaeology in Valletta -- including spirals, a scene with domesticated animals, and the bottom half of another voluptuous woman wearing a skirt with dainty little feet. They were removed from the original site in order to protect them but were replaced with replicas. On the way we noticed the small town we were walking through was preparing for some sort of patron saint festival. The streets were bedecked with colorful banners and wooden pillars painted to look like marble. There were several statues of Mary and Jesus waiting to be positioned. We reached the Tarxien temples in the heat of the afternoon. It was not nearly as moving as the Hypogeum but really cool nonetheless. There is something to be said in walking within the remains of a stone temple complex erected around 3,000 B.C.E.
While waiting for the bus back to Valletta Gavin and I had a chance to sample one of the local delicacies: a pastizzi. It's a buttery, savory pastry filled with either ricotta cheese or a seasoned pea mixture. Both are delicious but I favor the cheese variety. They are so delicious and basically flake apart into buttery bites as you eat them. Wash them down with an ice cold Coca-Cola and it is truly bliss.
Eventually we go back to Valletta just in time to visit Saint John's Co-Cathedral in the center of the city. Malta is also known for being the home of the Knights of Malta who took up shop there to keep the Muslims in Northern Africa at bay. Gavin, who read a book about crusader knights, was totally engrossed in the audio tour of the cathedral. I've seen many European cathedrals but this one was certainly something special. The entire interior was completely covered in ornately carved and painted designs. There are alcoves dedicated to the knights from each of the main countries: Portugal, Spain, France, and Germany. The English knights had their own order elsewhere (not on Malta), but I'm not sure about the history. The floor is covered in beautifully detailed marble tombs (the coolest ones depict skeletons) where 375 knights are buried. We were essentially kicked out of the cathedral as they were closing, but still had time to visit the Museum of Archaeology which was just a few minutes away by foot. This is where the actual "Sleeping Lady" statue is housed along with lots of other relics of the past -- neolithic pottery shards, tools, and carvings, Phoenician urns, Roman jewelry. It all gave a great overview of the colorful and vast history that Malta and Gozo have experienced. So much history on such a small island!
We had dinner out in the city that night. I had some delicious king prawn risotto and Gavin had beef tortellini. This was our last full day on Malta as we were heading to the smaller sister island of Gozo via the ferry the next day, but not before checking out Mdina, the "Silent City."
Thanks to jet lag we had a bit of a late start. Jet lag is the worst in the morning. It's almost impossible to wake up as your body thinks that it is 3:00 am. We decided to try to make it to a beach, but unfortunately it was much easier said than done. Malta has a vast network of busy and dangerously driving buses that carry you across the island in a web-like network of bus routes. The bus drivers fall into three categories: 1) young guy who is mean 2) old guy who is mean 3) old guy who is nice. All Maltese speak English but some better than others and some with very, very thick accents. The bus drivers are impatient with tourists with their inane, ceaseless questions -- including Gavin and myself who were told to take three different buses to the same beach, all leaving at different times. Sometimes the bus driver responses were completely unintelligible. I felt really bad for being that dumb English-speaking tourist, but the bus routes seriously are confusing and this is from someone who has used all forms of public transportation from Europe, to Japan, to Cambodia. In short, we had no idea what we were getting ourselves into.
We did board a crowded bus and about an hour later we did end up at a beach, but it was too windy and cold to get into the water. The Mediterranean is freezing! I don't remember it being so cold when I was in Ibiza a few years ago. We ended up lying out in the sun and having lunch with the view of the ocean, which was lovely in and of itself because the ocean has such an intense blue color and it's simply enjoyable to be out at the beach. I may have also eaten some ice cream. We caught the bus back to Valletta and spent the rest of the afternoon walking around the small city which was suddenly alive with tourists and locals. It was a completely different scene from when we had arrived the night before when the town was closed up and sleeping (even at 9:00 pm!) The sky was a brilliant blue and we noticed that you could look down the steep, rolling alleyways and see the ocean sparkling out on the horizon.
Valletta sort of juts out into the Mediterranean so it offers some very nice views. I took a lot of pictures of the narrow alleyways and the quaint wooden balconies for which Malta is known. The balconies sit on stone plinths and are painted in a variety of colors and they come in many shapes and sizes. Some wrap all the way around the corners of buildings, like verandas three, four, or five stories up on the city streets. Many are peeling paint, draped with ancient lace curtains, faded Virgin Marys presiding over the window frames -- all giving a very charming effect to the streets of the city.
We had dinner at the same restaurant as the evening before, this time settling for more traditional food and not a plate of fried American snacks. Gavin had some kind of pasta and I ate some Italian dish with beef on top.
Day Five: Stone Age Relics
At this point, I had formed an unhealthy addiction to cafe lattes, which are espresso with a thick layer of steamed, frothy milk on top. Total amazingness. I am somewhat hesitant to believe that American coffee shops can do this coffee drink justice, but maybe I'm just being elitist. Please tell me I am wrong, because I am going to need a lot of these when I get back home.
Anyway, after a full English breakfast (eggs, toast, baked beans, stewed tomatoes, sausage, etc) and a cafe latte, Gavin and I were off again for the bustling insanity of the bus depot where 17 different quays awaited us with buses veering off to all corners of the island. This time we were on a mission, one that was time sensitive. You see, back in February I had purchased tickets to a place known locally as the Hypogeum. It is a neolithic (i.e. Stone Age) underground necropolis, in fact the only known underground neolithic temple in the entire world. It is carved from the living rock and arranged into three different levels, each created at a different time period. When discovered it was estimated that it contained the remains of around 7,000 people. They were not stacked neatly, but the bodies were left out to decay, the bones collected and all deposited into little "rooms" carved beneath the ground -- all remains were simply deposited into collective piles. Eventually it was all filled with mud and dirt and forgotten until the early 20th century when it was rediscovered by accident. Farmers were trying to create cisterns for their newly built homes and broke unto the second level of the temple complex. Now it is a very delicate tourist attraction that only allows some 50 people to visit per day. As such, the tickets sell out months in advance. In fact, it is currently sold out until the end of July. We had a tour booked for 1:00 pm and were not going to risk being late thanks to the unreliable bus system.
And yet, of course, something had to go wrong. Traffic. Traffic was backed up in all areas and all directions. A trip that should have taken 20 minutes took over an hour. Only later did we find out why: a local man was murdered a few streets away in broad daylight! Malta is a small island so this type of tragic news really was the talk of the town. I guess it makes sense now because at the time I had no idea what could have caused such insane traffic at a relatively innocuous time of day. Thankfully we did make it in time, with five minutes to spare, and so had the privilege of viewing a very unique piece of Maltese and world history. No photography was allowed, which I suppose is fine because it was so dark anyway. The light damages the remains of red ocher paintings on the ceilings, mostly ornate spirals and hexagons. The necropolis was really a marvel of human ingenuity as it was carved from the living rocks only with stone and bone tools. And the thought of it being utilized for a thousand years and discovered with a number of beautifully carved/sculpted depictions of people-- ancestors, deities? The most famous is a tiny figure known as the "Sleeping Lady" -- a voluptuous Venus of Willendorf-esque woman lying curled on a platform which seems to sag beneath her weight. She may represent a fertility goddess or perhaps even the sleep of death itself. We will never know! But the fact she exists and was created so artfully is really amazing. I bought a souvenir version to keep in my classroom. I can't wait to share my stories of the Hypogeum to my next round of world history students next semester!
After the Hypogeum we took a ten minute walk to another set of Stone Age ruins, this time above ground -- the Tarxien temple complex. This site was discovered with some very ornate carvings that are now housed in the Museum of Archaeology in Valletta -- including spirals, a scene with domesticated animals, and the bottom half of another voluptuous woman wearing a skirt with dainty little feet. They were removed from the original site in order to protect them but were replaced with replicas. On the way we noticed the small town we were walking through was preparing for some sort of patron saint festival. The streets were bedecked with colorful banners and wooden pillars painted to look like marble. There were several statues of Mary and Jesus waiting to be positioned. We reached the Tarxien temples in the heat of the afternoon. It was not nearly as moving as the Hypogeum but really cool nonetheless. There is something to be said in walking within the remains of a stone temple complex erected around 3,000 B.C.E.
While waiting for the bus back to Valletta Gavin and I had a chance to sample one of the local delicacies: a pastizzi. It's a buttery, savory pastry filled with either ricotta cheese or a seasoned pea mixture. Both are delicious but I favor the cheese variety. They are so delicious and basically flake apart into buttery bites as you eat them. Wash them down with an ice cold Coca-Cola and it is truly bliss.
Eventually we go back to Valletta just in time to visit Saint John's Co-Cathedral in the center of the city. Malta is also known for being the home of the Knights of Malta who took up shop there to keep the Muslims in Northern Africa at bay. Gavin, who read a book about crusader knights, was totally engrossed in the audio tour of the cathedral. I've seen many European cathedrals but this one was certainly something special. The entire interior was completely covered in ornately carved and painted designs. There are alcoves dedicated to the knights from each of the main countries: Portugal, Spain, France, and Germany. The English knights had their own order elsewhere (not on Malta), but I'm not sure about the history. The floor is covered in beautifully detailed marble tombs (the coolest ones depict skeletons) where 375 knights are buried. We were essentially kicked out of the cathedral as they were closing, but still had time to visit the Museum of Archaeology which was just a few minutes away by foot. This is where the actual "Sleeping Lady" statue is housed along with lots of other relics of the past -- neolithic pottery shards, tools, and carvings, Phoenician urns, Roman jewelry. It all gave a great overview of the colorful and vast history that Malta and Gozo have experienced. So much history on such a small island!
We had dinner out in the city that night. I had some delicious king prawn risotto and Gavin had beef tortellini. This was our last full day on Malta as we were heading to the smaller sister island of Gozo via the ferry the next day, but not before checking out Mdina, the "Silent City."