Walking. Gossip. Travel.

Tag: Malta

  • Malta – Gozo – Victoria – HOG

    This medium-sized cafe had an inviting selection of cakes and it also had a welcoming environment. It seemed quite popular in terms of the number of customers and it served a wider selection of hot meals as well. They don’t accept card payments which is a little unusual for Malta, although perhaps just a little less so for Gozo, and I noted someone tried to pay by card and got refused.

    A latte and slice of cake, all well presented. The cake was dark chocolate orange, with a suitably rich flavour as could be expected. The price wasn’t too bad, a little over £4 for both the coffee and cake. The service was efficient, if not particularly engaging, but it was a clean and comfortable environment.

  • Malta – Gozo – Victoria – Old Prison

    This prison was first established in Victoria, inside the Cittadella, by the Knights of the Order of St. John in the mid-sixteenth century. One of the early inmates was Jean Parisot de La Valette, who went on to become an inspirational leader when as Grand Master he resisted an attack on the islands from the Ottomans.

    There’s a larger common cell, which is now the museum’s ticket office, and then six smaller cells in the older part of the prison. It was all once connected to the Courts, which are still located next door. Above is a recreation of a prisoner sitting in one of the smaller cells.

    The cells remained in use until 1962, although they had been used in conjunction with another prison from the late nineteenth century. There was also another floor of cells located above the original block which were added at a later date, and towards the end this prison was primarily just used for those awaiting trial.

    Visitors can go in two of the prison cells, the others are visible only through the little windows on the doors. The sanitary conditions in the prison were actually of a decent standard, especially given the period in which they were in use, with inmates allowed to shower frequently and they also had access to a doctor.

         

    Above are images of the graffiti which are visible all around the cells, etched into the limestone. This must have been a frustrating situation for the prison guards, who would have found it difficult to stop the graffiti given how soft the rock is. There is today a large sign telling visitors not to add any graffiti to the walls, something which the Cittadella itself is suffering from.

    However, the graffiti made by the prisoners is interesting, especially when it’s dated. Above are photos with some examples of the graffiti, such as hand prints, ships and also lines which indicate how long a prisoner has been incarcerated. The graffiti lasted so long as there was a thick layer of lime whitewash pasted over the top of it, which has only recently been removed.

    I visited with my Heritage Malta pass which I obtained on my first trip to the islands, but the entrance fee is relatively cheap, costing €5 for all the museums in the Cittadella. I was suitably amused by some reviews of the site on-line complaining that the museum isn’t very big. Quite how some people expect the museum to magic up more space in a nearly 500-year old prison is a mystery to me, but such is the delight of reading these reviews….

  • Malta – Greggs

    I’m now rueing that I don’t have access to an oven in Malta having discovered that the Iceland shops on the islands stock the Greggs range. Including chicken bakes. Priced at €2.59 for two, what a bargain. I could live in Malta knowing this…. (well, during the winter, it’s too hot in spring, summer and the autumn).

  • Malta – Ferry Back From Gozo

    And since I got the ferry to Gozo, I had to come back again… There was a friendly chap on the bus to the ferry who was a Rambler from Wales, in his 70s, and he had been exploring Gozo on foot for the day. Lovely man, he was really enjoying his stay on Malta but is going home via Manchester tomorrow.

    The boarding process was efficient and professional, as it had been earlier in the day. Customers can buy tickets at the desks using either cash or card, with another staff member offering assistance at the ticket barriers.

    View from the ferry.

    I really should have brought my camera with me on this trip, my phone struggled with this one. It was a memorable view though during the ferry journey.

  • Malta – Ferry to Gozo

    I didn’t go to Gozo in my first week in Malta, so today I went to the north of the main island to take the short 25 minute or so journey across on the ferry. It’s free to get the ferry when going to Gozo, the charge is only applied when returning to the mainland (€4.65 which seems reasonable to me for a return fare).

    Setting off. It was a much larger ferry than I had expected, it has a capacity in the hundreds and there’s a cafe on board and lots of space to sit or stand. The organisation of the whole ferry was professional and although the bus timetables don’t entirely coincide with the ferries, there are sufficient buses to mean that delays aren’t excessive.

    Leaving the main island….

    There’s Gozo…..

    And the harbour town of Mġarr in Gozo, where there have been ferry services of some kind since 1241. In the background is Fort Chambray, which was designed to be the Gozo equivalent of Valletta. This meant that it would have been a new city and would have replaced Cittadella as Gozo’s capital, being well fortified and designed to a modern standard. However, despite work starting on this project in the eighteenth century, the threat of attack started to fall and so it was never completed to the scale that had originally been planned.

    There’s talk, even this month, of building a tunnel  between the main island and Gozo, but that would come at an enormous expense and for visitors at least, the ferry is an interesting little adventure. I imagine for the locals, they’re probably fed up of it though….

  • Malta – Malta International Airport – VIP Arrivals Lounge

    Malta is a relatively small airport, but they have an arrivals lounge, a luxury usually limited to larger airports. It’s not a very big lounge, and it’s actually rather small with just a few tables, but it’s a handy little option for those arriving into the country.

    There are a few pre-packaged snacks, cans of drink, coffee, teas and the like, and the environment is comfortable. It’s included in the Priority Pass scheme, and no doubt most similar lounge schemes, and it was spotlessly clean and tidy. Although I don’t think that the lounge is particularly heavily used, so it’s probably one of the easiest lounges to keep clean.

    The lounge is located at the rear of the baggage collection area and it relatively well signed. I only stayed for around forty minutes, but it’s possible to stay for three hours should anyone wish.

  • British Airways (Gatwick South to Malta) – Second Time

    The BA plane having arrived in Malta, this is G-DBCK, which is a former BMI A319 aircraft. I understand that this one might not be in the fleet for much longer.

    The flight load was very light, only 32 passengers across both cabins, meaning I had the row to myself. The seats aren’t the best in the fleet, although it’s inevitably comfortable when there’s no-one in front and no-one else in the row. A light load means customers want to change seat, but a crew member had to stop customers moving about the cabin for take-off on the instruction of the pilot because of the trim.

    The menu for the flight.

    I thought that the crew were meant to go front to back to take food orders, but they seemed a bit erratic in how they took orders. No matter, I got what I wanted, the meat platter which was as I had enjoyed before. Although it was served cold, and I know it’s meant to be cold, but it wasn’t far off being frozen. Those strawberries were rather pleasant, and all told, it was a nice light meal.

    The crew were polite, but they didn’t have the engagement of the crew member I had from Luxembourg the other day. I spent a lot of the flight asleep though so it all seemed to go quickly.

    I moved to the window seat when the pilot mentioned that we were flying over Sicily.

    Back in Malta.

    Disembarking, or deplaning as the Americans call it, via the steps. All on time, this was a comfortable flight. I’m aware it’s January, but it did seem a much lighter flight in terms of customer numbers than I’d have expected.

  • Malta (South Eastern Region) – Valletta – Old City Steps

    Now closed off, this is an original part of Valletta’s defences, as constructed by the Knights of the Order of St. John. It’s not particularly interesting in itself, but in its unrepaired state it feels like a little bit of a connection with the Valletta of the sixteenth century. Well, I say sixteenth century, it might be slightly later, but I don’t want to ruin the magical idea that I had given myself that it was sixteenth century….

  • Malta (South Eastern Region) – Valletta – Flame Which Never Dies

    This is the ‘Flame Which Never Dies’ sculpture which looks over the city of Valletta which was unveiled on 7 July 2017. It was designed to mark the country’s Presidency of the European Council and was designed by Valerio Schembri.

    The sculpture is designed to “reflect the enthusiasm and continuous work of the Maltese to decide their own future while improving their standard of living”, so a recognition of those who contributed to ensure that Malta could determine its own future.

  • Malta (Southern Region) – Birżebbuġa – Borġ in-Nadur

    Borġ in-Nadur is a temple arrangement dating back to 2,500BC located near to the town of  Birżebbuġa. The site was then turned from a religious site into a Bronze Age village and numerous buildings were constructed around it. I thought it was interesting that they also fortified their settlement, a forerunner to the later efforts of the Knights of St. John which were on a much larger scale.

    The villagers were concerned about an attack from the land, rather than the sea, and this site is the oldest fortification in Malta. The complex was discovered again in the sixteenth century, with numerous digs taking place in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

    I didn’t expect this site to be open, but was I told at another Heritage Malta site that they were opening it up for the day, so I trekked off down here. There was a lady at the entrance who was friendly and gave me an A4 laminated sheet to help me understand the site. I was the only person at the site and she did say that it hadn’t been very busy.

    This is the A4 sheet explaining the site. I didn’t understand any of it as I couldn’t work out what rocks on the ground related to this plan. I think I vaguely worked it out towards the end, after tramping about the publicly accessible part of the site, but I didn’t exactly feel like I knew what I was doing.

    Entrance was free with the Malta Heritage Pass and although I didn’t really understand the site in its entirety, it was pleasant to see something which was so old and was still standing.