Morocco Malta and the Med: Concert at St. John’s Co-Cathedral in Malta
This was a lot of fun, mostly because it also involved walking along Malta’s main street at night.
A concert in one of the most beautiful and unusual churches in the world – Saint John’s Co-Cathedral, and everyone’s first question is “what is a co-cathedral?” I don’t pretend to understand this explanation from Wikipedia:
St. John’s remained the conventual church of the Order until the latter was expelled from Malta with the French occupation in 1798.[12] Over time, the church grew to equal prominence with the archbishop’s cathedral at Mdina. In the 1820s, the Bishop of Malta was allowed to use St John’s as an alternative see and it thus formally became a co-cathedral.[13]
It seems to have to do with two bishops sharing a church.
Yes. This church is spectacular and unusual and has a Caravaggio. The squares in the floor are vaults where Knights of Malta are buried.
The concert was truly lovely, instrumental and vocals, beautifully done.
I was fascinated by this very manly, muscular John the Baptist.
Caravagio’s Beheading of John the Baptist:
I love the whole idea of this. Malta attracts a lot of large cruise ships with young people and has a lot of active things for them to do. Creating a good orchestra and choir attracts also an older crowd, and gives us a chance to support the Valletta community in a meaningful way while we get a chance to sit and absorb the music in a beautiful cathedral we might be rushed through during the day. This gives us time and space to truly appreciate our time in Malta.
Morocco Malta and the Med: Malta!
First, real life. “Two days in Malta” is not two days. The first day, we arrive mid-morning, and have tours scheduled which allow us a large overview of the Isle of Malta:
You might wonder why there is a line from Valetta to Mdina that shows it takes two hours and 39 minutes (on today’s roads) to walk from Valetta to Mdina. This is because at lunch, AdventureMan, who is reading The Sword and the Scimitar, expresses skepticism that a young girl could walk from Valetta to Mdina, as she does in the book. On our tour, it seemed like a very long way. So I looked on Google Maps, and it gave me the walking time.
Then, as best I could remember, I figured our where our bus panoramic trip had taken us, which is this:
Last, the geography of Valetta is astonishing, and fascinating, so this is what the harbor of Valetta and Birgu (across the harbor from Valetta) looks like. I want you to try to imagine this geography from the point of view of Ottoman warriors who want to take Malta (back; they had once occupied Malta.)
These are things to be thinking about as we start our day.
Sunrise, still on the open seas. While we arrive in Malta around eight in the morning, our tour will not leave until 10:40.
My guilty pleasure, a thin slice of Norwegian breakfast bread with an almond cream filling.
We are coming in between Fort Saint Elmo and Fort Ricasoli and heading towards the Valetta Waterfront (you can see them on the map above, if you care.)
Doesn’t Valetta just knock your socks off already? It is SO beautiful. The is the only day of the entire trip where we have rain, and it’s like five minutes of rain. A mere blip.
We have breakfast while we wait for our tour.
This is a thrill. We are docked right in the middle of town. We can walk where we want! We see a lot of Hop On Hop Off kinds of buses go by – and here, in mid-November, these buses are packed. We begin to be happier we will have a tour of our own.
I think this is Fort Saint Elmo. Look at those sheer walls!
Malta has been discovered. We are not the only ship in town.
Finally, our tour begins. I am embarrassed to tell you, I don’t always know what my photos are. There was so much information. I remember this is a port, and it is very costly to moor a boat here.
We are headed up the coast, and this is one of several watch towers built which were within eyesight of one another so if invaders came, the entire island could be warned very quickly.
I’m pretty sure this is Saint Paul’s Bay, where Paul got all the crew of the ship he was sailing on safely to shore, and stayed here until he could continue his journey to Rome.
We spent quite a bit of time here.
We had a rest stop in this restaurant.
I think this is the anciety city of Mdina, where the nobles of Malta lived and live still.
Mdina was thronged with people. It’s one of the Hop On Hop Off stops.
The very Arabesque kinds of window balconies many of the buildings have.
There are walls like this everywhere, blocks of stone without mortar which divide properties.
Hagar Qim archaological dig. This is the trip I really wanted to go on, but it was already booked when we tried to sign up for it. We found items from Hagar Qim the next day at the National Museum of Archaeology, many of which came from this dig.
f I had known how small Malta is, and how easy it would be to get to this dig, I would have booked a private tour to get us here. I found many online, but was concerned about the time, and the boat departure.
Every town has it’s own patron saint, and there is a festival for a saint in some village almost every weekend.
This was a disappointment; this is a fishing village famous for it’s blue boats, and we were supposed to stop here but we zoomed through.
Coat of arms for one of the Knights of Malta
Panoramic trips can be hit or miss. This one was good in that it covered a lot of ground, and disappointing in that we didn’t really always know what we were seeing and (probably in the interest of time) we zoomed right by some of the most interesting things to see (the fishing village with the painted boats, the Blue Grotto, Hagar Qim,Mdina).
Fort Sant Angelo, in Birgu, just across the waterway from Valetta.
We are not concerned about the panoramic tour; we are going to a concert this evening at Saint John’s Co-Cathedral and the evening is great fun and a wonderful experience.
Morocco Malta and the Med: Thank God, A Day at Sea
Actually, the “day” in Rome did not end as expected. After the lecture, we ate dinner, and the captain announced we would be departing early (thank goodness we didn’t plan on dinner in Rome, as the first departure time was 10 pm) due to upcoming bad weather. Other cruise ships were also departing, trying to get out of Dodge (so to speak) before the heavy winds and tumultuous sea hit.
Sea day means time to do laundry, and realizing there would be a lot of people wanting to do laundry, I grabbed our bag right after dinner and was able to find a washing machine that was free. Another woman was actually quicker than I was, and had two washers, but even with my one, there was still one left. The instructions appeared simple, lots of pictures, but I still had a problem figuring out how the detergent works (you have to press a button in another place). When I got back, just in time, there was one dryer and zero washers, and people waiting for my washer, so I felt really good about my timing, and getting it done. Now my Sea Day is all mine!
And, of course, on the first morning in a week that I could sleep in, I have adjusted to local time and I am wide awake at 5 a.m. when I normally get up to swim. There is NO ONE else up at 5 a.m. except the people who make coffee, thank God, and are busy getting breakfast ready. I had the Explorer Lounge all to myself for the first hour while I caught up on my Lectionary readings, my e-mails, and the news. And captured the rising sun 😊.
I truly need a sea day. While my normal life is active, it is not as quickly paced as this week of travel days has been, and I need time for absorption, for processing what I observe, what I see, and what I experience.
I have found an old book about Malta, The Sword and the Scimitar, by David Ball, which has tiny print, but oh, I loved reading this book which starts in Malta with two Maltese children and the Knights of Malta, and takes us from there to the slave markets of Algiers, and the Ottoman Empire in Constantinople, Pirate ships, and the great battle for Malta! I am a fast reader, and this book took me weeks to finish, but I found it memorable and addictive. My husband is reading it now, equally addicted. At last, I have time to read, and to nap!
We have also signed up for the tour of the Bayeux Tapestry murals aboard the Viking Saturn with resident historian Knut Nesse, which was fascinating, and we all learned so much from him because it was limited to eight people who asked excellent questions. I had read David Howarth’s book 1066 which covers the eventful year from beginning to eventful end and refers to the tapestry, among many sources, as he sketches out how narrowly William the Conqueror achieved his 1066 victory.
And with no time at all to lose, we had another lecture at 3:00 with Professor David Rohl discussing “The Bones of Saint Peter and Saint Paul.” You know you are on a Viking ship when you have such great lectures that you can’t resist attending, and, in fact, the lecture hall was packed for Doctor Rohl’s presentation.
Have I told you about the Viking Spa? It’s our favorite luxury on board, this highly heated pool with bubble massagers and waves and an attached hot tub? It is surrounded by flat lounge beds with thick warm thirsty towels, cold water in nice glasses, a snow room, a moist steam room, and a water wall that creates a white nose to lull you into sleep. So relaxing.
The sea is rolling. Not all passengers are feeling well. We didn’t entirely escape the rough weather. As we prepared for this trip, we kept seeing projections for rain, but we haven’t seen any rain until today, just droplets, not a storm.
I’ve never been to “Tea” on a Viking ship, so I talk my husband into going with me – only to discover that it’s too late, every table is taken, every chair occupied. I think this is God’s way of telling me I didn’t need tea today, LOL, so we head for the bar and a quick espresso to celebrate our day at sea. Tomorrow we start two days in Malta; we are excited.
Sunset over the Tyrrhenian Sea
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