The weather didn’t really allow for great photos, but there’s a spot at the end of Manoel Island which looks out onto the centre of Valletta. It’s an excellent way to see the country’s capital city, although it’s just a little bit of a walk to get there.
Work on this fort started in 1722 and it was completed just over a decade later. It was later taken over by the British who used it as a naval base until 1906. It came back into use during the Second World War and it was damaged by air raids. This is the entrance into the site, although it’s unfortunately locked shut.
Restoration on the site is on-going as it had started to fall into disrepair and had also been vandalised in places. This included the crypt under the fortifications where bones belonging to the Knights had been scattered around.
Apparently the interiors are now secured in a generally good state and there are occasional special tours which take place. Hopefully over the next years something more substantial will be done here, perhaps a museum, which allows greater public access. I hope that it doesn’t become a housing development, but the developer paying for the restoration does seem to have that intention. They’ve put up a lot of photos of the site at http://www.midimalta.com/en/fort-manoel.
Manoel Island is quite a quirky place and takes its name from the Grand Master who built a fort here in the early eighteenth century. At the entrance to this island, which is connected to Sliema by a small bridge, is Duck Village. I’m not quite sure what to think of this little arrangement, but there were some children there who really enjoyed it. It can all be seen from the road and there’s the option of leaving money for the owners to pay for duck food.
The ducks, chickens and cats all seemed to be living alongside each other quite happily, and it’s a harmless little enterprise. Well, so I thought until I went to TripAdvisor and saw this:
“Ramshackle run down junk compilation of scrap that is an insult to the ducks, primarily designed to relieve idiots of there hard earned pennies”.
The ducks looked quite happy to me, and if it keeps children happy, then I’m unsure why people have to throw comments around such as “idiots”. But, such is the world we live in. Photos of this experience below:
