Buzzing Around The World With Fellette & Doug

Valletta, Malta...

If you couldn't locate Crete on a map, I am darn sure you can't find Malta. It is 72 miles south of Sicily. If you can't find Sicily, I don't know you.

A beautiful sail-in at 7 in the morning as the low sunlight bathed the sandstone buildings in a soft yellow glow.

Yes, it was that nice folks. As soon we were docked, a rather plainly dressed band played rousing music, as two Maltese women dressed in traditional clothing handed out flowers as the passengers disembarked for strolling or tours. It always makes the morning a bit nicer when there is a welcoming party there for us, no matter how small. In a few ports all that have been there are sullen dock workers looking at us and men with guns.

We had chosen a half-day run-about in jeeps, a bit of a change from pavement pounding and walking the ruins the last few days. We were paired up with a couple that we have never met nor seen on the ship for 88 days, Bill and Thelma from Pennsylvania.

We were buckled in and for the next 3 to 4 hours we bumped and rattled all over this little island.


There was not any one spectacular sight or event that stands out about Malta for me. What I liked about it was the pace of it and really I think, just being in the country again. After leaving Valletta, which is on the high ground above the harbour, we were soon out in the country.



There are no rolling fields or vast farm areas. What there is are miles and miles of little plots of land

highly cultivated and planted with healthy looking crops of artichokes, tomatoes, potatoes and other simple crops. Each field is separated with rock walls, some a foot or two tall, some six feet tall.

These are rocks that have been picked out of the soil over the centuries. Some plots are less than 30 x 30 feet. Yet all tilled and weed free. Hard workers the Maltese I would say. Their water has to be desalinated, even for irrigation.

The tourist business seems to be thriving, although things are not cheap. We are paying European prices now, Malta is in the EU. It is not some little backward forgotten Island in the Mediterranean. I believe the Brits and Europeans come here in the season.


We were back on the ship at 1.30 for lunch and then walked to the city itself, just to check it out on foot, even though we had driven through earlier.






The St. John's Co-Cathedral is very impressive. Completed in 1577, and dedicated to St. John the Baptist, it was the church of the Order of the Knights of St. John. The knights were nobles from the most important families of Europe. Their mission was to protect the Catholic faith and Europe from the attacks of the Ottoman Turks. We have been in many churches and cathedrals, each has its own beauty and story. This one is somehow different, and very impressive.


The floors are covered in marble slabs, each covering a long-deceased knight and each a work of art with marble inlay, that must now be a forgotten art.

There are scores of Flemish tapestries over 350 years old, hanging, unprotected, some over 15 feet high and 10 feet wide. Eventually we made our way to the museum that took some footwork to get to. At the end of the line is a vault displaying a silver and gold "monstrance", intended to hold the relic of John the Baptists forearm.

By this time my feet were telling me that we had overdone it again today, and would soon need there own "monstrance". Fellette navigated us and my Tai Chi teachers back to the ship down ancient steps that seemed to go on forever.

Upon stumbling back to the ship, there on the dock was a "farewell guard"


doing some ancient parade drill and firing off muskets in volleys as we prepared to sail away to Sicily. What a beautiful scene out the dining room windows as we headed out to sea in the same sun, only this time it was casting a warm evening glow on all those beautiful yellow stone buildings.


One of the more interesting personal things that happened today was getting a chance to chat with Bill and Thelma, our jeep partner for the day. The subject of fellow passengers came up. Bill had told his tour escort earlier that he would not be going on any more tours unless he could pick the passengers! A joke of course but it attests to the problems that a few of us had earlier in the cruise. Bill has the right attitude, although at least my age he does not consider himself in the same league as the grumps that we both can now joke about and now know how to cope with. It was a breath of fresh air today, literally and figuratively bumping around Malta.

Sicily tomorrow, and I am off to bed, tired again, but happy, I am enclosing a smattering of pictures that I hope conveys a sense of Malta, at least for us today.

posted by Doug and Fellette @ 9:29 PM