In my occasional series about people represented on statues, I had hoped to find out more about this individual. All I know is that he lived from 1912 to 1980 (that bit was easy to work out) and he came to serve the church in Mgarr in 1954. Beyond that, I couldn’t establish much, but I’m guessing that he was a popular local member of the Catholic Church.
Located behind the church is Bohini, a cafe which opened last year in the town of Mgarr (the one on the main island, not in Gozo).
Appetising cakes, which were all well presented.
In an attempt to come across as a millennial, I ordered the avocado and egg bagel. The bagel was crispy, but I like a bit of texture to them, and the egg was freshly made. The avocado was smooth and had a richness of flavour and the tomatoes actually had some taste to them.
The latte was served at a temperature something akin to the centre of the sun, I’d rather they didn’t serve it so hot. It also kills some of the taste to me, although it wasn’t an unpleasant or overly bitter flavour. I had finished the bagel well before the coffee was at a temperature that I could drink.
I had a dilemma with the sugar. I had already used the spoon served with the coffee so I couldn’t dip the spoon into the sugar. Given that self-created problem, I decided that I needed to elegantly tip just a little bit of sugar out onto the plate, which I would then transport to the latte. To cut a long story short, I spent several minutes cleaning off the sugar which spread itself out over a wider area that I had anticipated.
Service was friendly and attentive throughout, and the environment was comfortable. It was a bigger location than I expected from the outside, with around ten tables, and it stayed pretty busy during my stay. I wasn’t sure whether to order at the counter or at the table, so I faffed about a bit and guessed correctly that it was an order at the table situation. There’s also a small outside terrace which I’m sure is rather delightful during warmer months.
This cafe has a more modern feel to it than some of the others in the locality, but the prices have remained reasonable. All rather lovely.
There are several dining options in Mgarr and this restaurant specialises in local dishes, pizzas and food from the grill. The branding is a little confusing from the exterior and if I hadn’t already looked it up on-line, I’d have been unsure what style of food it was offering.
The restaurant was fully booked when I went in, but the manager mentioned that a few tables weren’t booked until 13:00, so I could have one if I would be finished by then. Since it was only 12:00, I was hopeful of achieving that target, although I did drop my plan to have the octopus starter (I haven’t had octopus in a long time).
The wine menu was prohibitively expensive, and seemed out of all proportion to the food menu pricing, so I went for an orange juice, which was very affordable at just over €1.
The meat pizza, which had a deluge of toppings on and was not insubstantial in terms of its size. I like the leopard spotting on the pizza, although it might have been slightly over-done for some people. The toppings were generally of a high quality, especially the Maltese sausage which was packed with flavour. The beef was less impressive, but the chicken was tender and moist. The tomato on the base was quite sweet, but the base was a little too wet and was probably inevitable given how the toppings had been quite generous. The portion size was large and the pizza base wasn’t too heavy, but the volume of toppings certainly made it a challenge to finish it. However, I battled on and finished it all successfully.
I would have ordered another drink but no-one asked. It’s obviously a popular restaurant given their reviews and how busy it was on a Sunday, although the atmosphere was just a little over formal for me. Overall the pricing was reasonable though, just under £10 for the pizza and drink.
I didn’t expect to find this cave, it wasn’t marked on my map and I was just walking by it. It was originally a Punic-Roman burial tomb, although it has also been used for human habitation. It was turned into a grotto in 1931 and remains in use for religious services. Fortunately there is a sign explaining this, otherwise I’d have found the site just a little confusing.
The entrance to the cave, with a seating area.
There was someone using the site for contemplation, so I didn’t disturb him by wandering around getting in the way as it wasn’t really large enough to do that. Such is the delight of Malta though, caves and religious sites such as this are commonplace. Apparently they set up a Christmas crib scene during the festive period, and I can see that the location is appropriate for that.
Just photos in this post, my walk from the hotel at St. Paul’s Bay to the Skorba Temples. It’s warm without being too hot and fortunately there’s also a breeze, which helped me not overheat on the hilly bits of the walk.
I decided to walk to Skorba Temples from the hotel, which was just over an hour walk, as it’s one of the last historic sites I’ve yet to visit from my Heritage Malta pass. It’s a relative recent discovery, with the archaeological dig dating back only to the 1960s, but the site dates back to 4,850BC. For something that dates back 6,000 years that’s quite special and it was soon after listed as a UNESCO World Heritage site.
There isn’t really much to see here in terms of the scale of the site, with nearly everything visible by just looking through the fence. The ticket buying process is a little convoluted for those without passes, they have to buy them at a different location or go and hunt some farm in the village down. There is a ticket desk at the site, but I imagine that they want it to be cash free, hence the no ticket purchase policy.
The main temple area, which was added around 1,200 years after the first settlement at the site.
This is one of the tallest standing stones remaining at the site. Much of the stone has gone missing over the centuries, likely reused for buildings and walls over the course of time.
There hasn’t been much messed about with at the site in terms of some form of modern reconstruction, although there’s a limited amount for them to mess about with. For a site this old though I’m surprised there’s not a greater protection in the form of some sort of overhead canopy and the information boards could perhaps be improved a little in terms of their positioning.
A site of this age and importance does perhaps warrant a small museum of its own at the location, although I assume that the visitor numbers would be too low to justify this. Anyway, it’s marvellous that anything has remained standing for this long and I’m glad it’s here.
This was the first building that I saw when entering the ancient walled city of Mdina, and it looked a fascinating building. It was included in my Heritage Malta pass, so I went in without really being aware of what it was. The whole visit was rather surreal, a fascinating building clearly packed with history, and a museum which was, to be honest, in the way of seeing the historic interiors. The building is the Vilhena Palace, originally built between 1726 and 1728, built as a grand residence, but later used as a hospital before it was converted into a museum.
One of the supporting columns under the floor in front of the museum entrance. I liked how this history was revealed, although it wasn’t a theme of the rest of the visit. The nearby toilets were located in an old cellar part of the complex, although there was no explanation of what all the rooms used to be.
Some of the building is sealed off, I’m not sure what the non-museum part is used for.
The view out of one of the upper windows, although visitors couldn’t access this.
I must take Dylan and Leon to another museum of dead animals. Anyway, this is a jaguar.
And an owl, another of Dylan’s favourites. Although I think he prefers living ones.
More owls.
A dead snake, with a dead giant lizard behind it.
A mackerel shark.
A turtle of some kind, but the descriptive plaque has fallen off and bits of the skeleton have also fallen off. It’s a little bit symbolic of the whole museum.
A bat.
An early Homo Sapiens skull which was found in Kenya.
Glassware which was found from when the building was used as a hospital, which was between 1909 and 1956.
A piece of lead shot which was likely fired in battle that was found in the south facing walls of the building. These small displays were some of the more interesting to me, as they had a relevance to the building itself. The collection of dead animals and rocks was no doubt of some importance, but it could have really been housed anywhere.
Perhaps in the future much more could be done with this historic palace building itself, rather than just using it as a location to house a museum which has no relation to it.
A photo taken in the 1940s in front of what it looks like now, it hasn’t really changed very much.
Mdina is the former capital city of Malta, but the Knights of the Order of St. John moved it away when they constructed Valletta, which was designed to be easier to defend. Above is the main gateway into the city, which is also known as Città Vecchia and Città Notabile. This isn’t the original entrance way into Mdina as it was re-constructed in 1724 with a Baroque design and it was also designed to be easier to defend.
The map at the entrance to the walled part of the city shows just how many buildings were located within it.
The city was never as well defended as Birgu, which was where the bulk of the action took place during the Great Siege, but the defences are still formidable. During the Great Siege the Ottomans did come to try and seize Mdina, but the local governor was able to fool them into thinking there were more troops than there actually were, so they decided not to attack. There’s a story that I’ve read in a few books that the governor also got the females in the city to dress up as troops, as part of the plan to pretend it was better defended than it actually was.
Of very little importance, but I just quite liked this photo of some steps which go from the harbour area up to the main road. I’m fairly sure that these were wider, but a new frontage has been added to the old harbour walls which are centuries old, with the steps now being much narrower….
