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….
It’s important for me to visit a McDonald’s in a country that I haven’t been to before just in case Dylan and Leon ask me about it. It’s definitely essential to be able to answer any critical questions about the various features of non-UK McDonald’s…..
A Big Mac meal, which I’m delighted to say tastes exactly the same as the ones throughout the rest of Europe. Isn’t globalisation marvellous…..
Of note though in this McDonald’s is the charming view over the local bay and I can’t recall visiting a better terrace in any other restaurant in this chain.
And another photo from the terrace, although it was unfortunately raining at the time. There’s not much else to say about McDonald’s, the service was efficient, the restaurant was clean, there was working wi-fi, power points for customers and the food tasted as it should. A meal worked out at around £5.50, so marginally more expensive than in the UK.
A photo of American troops on the island during the Second World War who defended the Italian fleet which were brought into St. Paul’s Bay after Italy surrendered in September 1943. As the sign points out, there’s a baseball bat in the middle of the photo showing how the troops could amuse themselves between air raids.
My photo taken from the same spot.
These stone constructions are bathing pools which are around 1.5 to 2 metres tall. They’re also an archaeological mystery, as no-one knows how old they are. The sign near to them states that they might date to the Roman period, others suggest that they were owned by wealthy families in a later period of history. They don’t give a time estimate for this latter option, but I assume that they mean in the sixteenth to eighteenth century time period as it’s also mentioned that locals believe they’re been there for “time immemorial”.
The imposing, but still beautiful, frontage of Mosta Rotunda where work started in 1833 and was finished after just 28 years…. Great civil engineers they had there. Anyway, they built this building around the existing church, and then demolished the church when they had finished it, so that must have been a giant construction site for three decades.
Wikipedia tells me that this was the third largest unsupported dome in the world when it was constructed…. The frontage was also modelled on the Pantheon in Rome, a noble endeavour for a town in Malta to want to recreate.
The domed ceiling, although photos can’t really do this justice.
The altar in what felt a spacious and elegant environment.
Visitors can visit the sacristy at the rear of the church, this is one of the connecting corridors and there are tombs on one side.
One of the elegant tombstones on the floor of the church. I say (well, type) church although it was elevated to the status of a minor basilica in July 2018.
I feel very slightly cheated by this, the church proudly signs internally their unexploded bomb. This was an amazing piece of good fortune, not that the bomb fell through the roof in an bombing raid which in itself is bad news, but that it didn’t explode. Anyway, I thought that this was the bomb. But it isn’t, the actual bomb was chucked in the sea by the Royal Engineers who didn’t want it to explode. However, the story is still marvellous because there were 300 people inside the Rotunda when the bomb fell through the roof, so it could have been one of the worst tragedies of the war if it had gone off.
The pulpit and view across the interior of the Rotunda. The church was quite busy with visitors, but everything was organised and well signed. I got a joint ticket with the war shelter for €3, which was perfectly reasonable value.
Statues of politicians are quite useful in a country that I don’t know, as they give me an opportunity to find out more about them. Freddie Micallef was a Government Minister for a few years in the 1970s and a representative in Parliament for a much longer period, from 1966 until 1996 (serving in the country’s second to seventh legislatures).
I’m not sure that he had any standout policies, certainly the country’s Labour party didn’t mention any when commenting on his death, but they said “he was a man of whom one could never speak badly and was always on everyone’s good side. He also never held back from mixing with anyone, no matter their background or history” which is rather nice.
I thought that it’d be easy to find out more about this sculpture, located near to the Rotunda in Mosta. But I’ve failed to find anything useful, although I think it’s related to when they opened the government offices nearby. I’m entirely guessing, but the local stone often takes on a soft of honeycomb effect when it’s weathered, so perhaps the sculpture is a representation of that. Although it probably isn’t.
I don’t normally get a window seat on aircraft, but since on my return from Malta I had, these are some photos of the islands.
Valletta is the strip of land jutting out at the rear.
Valletta is at the top right, showing the urban sprawl in front of it.
Buġibba on the right hand side of the bay, my hotel was on the edge of bay itself, at the mid-left of the photo.
Towards the north of the main island, much of this is a nature reserve.
This is the ferry terminal on the main island where I crossed over to Gozo, with the island of Comino at the rear.
The island of Comino on the right, and Gozo on the left.
It’s not the grandest entrance to a museum that I’ve ever seen, but that’s because they’ve taken over a former farmhouse. The museum has the second largest set of catacombs in Malta, the largest being those at St. Paul’s. There was a friendly welcome from the staff member at the entrance and I also get the impression that this isn’t the most visited site that Heritage Malta operate.
The section of the catacombs is the other side of the road to the farmhouse and it was thought that the road building had destroyed a chunk of the site. However, all was well, the engineers either hadn’t bothered to dig down very far or they carefully avoided the catacombs (likely the former) and they had just put the road over the top in the 1930s.
The first part of the site is where visitors can enter the catacombs themselves, something better for shorter people than taller people. This section is located underneath the former farmhouse and the catacombs were repurposed as animal pens.
These catacombs felt much drier than the ones at St. Paul’s, which all seemed to be quite damp.
This is how much of the site is presented now, but it would have once likely have been on the edge of a valley side.
The triclinium, where relatives of the dead would have a final meal.
This is where they think that the Romans were cutting stone to use in building projects, but just didn’t get any further at this particular point.
This apparently is where the fortunate body was given their own drinks stand, in the hole behind the two headrests.
One of the few blocking stones which was still in place when they completed the archaeological dig. Interestingly when they completed an archaeological dig relatively recently, they found entire sections which had been missed at what they thought were comprehensive excavations in 1933.
Although this site isn’t as extensive as St. Paul’s, it’s better explained with numerous informational panels. There’s also a short introduction video, but otherwise very little in the way of exhibits. The extra challenge has been in trying to explain the damage done to the site when it was re-used, particularly the farmers who turned sections into animal pens. At least though the road didn’t destroy much history, so there’s plenty to see at the site.
Just a photo of the valley which is at the entrance to the town of Mosta. As a scale, Mosta is the third largest town in Malta with a population of around 20,000 people, less than twice the population size of the metropolis that is North Walsham in Norfolk.
