Monday June 17 – Malta

What a beautiful island!

We spent time in both the capital, Valletta, and Mdina today.  By far the most outstanding thing we saw was St John’s Co-Cathedral.  It would have to vie with St Peter’s in Rome for its opulence and sheer baroque beauty.  It took one man forty years of his life to complete its interior.  The vaulted ceiling depicts the life of St John.  It is not a fresco but the stone was sealed with linseed oil and then the paintings were done straight onto this.  The walls are highly carved with the carvings done directly into the rock and then covered with 23 carat gold. The floor is a cemetery with 400 graves of the knights of St John.  The church contains two paintings by Caravaggio.  One of the beheading of John the Baptist and the other of St. Jerome.  The first of these was painted by Caravaggio within five days.  All of this cathedral was paid for by the knights of St. John.  They began as a group of rich gentlemen who looked after pilgrims and nursed them back to health.  In the second half of the twelfth century, they took on a military role to protect pilgrims on their journeys.  In 1522 they were driven out of Rhodes and were given Malta as a gift.  They then moved the capital of Malta from Mdina to Valetta.  They made Malta a fortress and took on the job of building Valetta into a renaissance city and keeping Islam out of Europe.

During the second World War, Malta was the most bombed place in the world.  The remains of the opera house which was bombed in 1942 can still be seen.

We also saw The Grand Master’s Palace.  The outstanding thing here were the ten tapestries which were made by French weavers in the eighteenth century.  This set of tapestries was given to the knights by the Grand Master and the set depicts the flora and fauna of the new world.

It was a picturesque sail in and sail out of Malta as it is a well fortified and walled city made of limestone which looks honey coloured as the sun shines on it.  The town of Mdina is made up of many winding streets with some of them having dead ends.  This was done to confuse invaders, but today it can get tourists lost.  Quite a nice way to get lost.    

Tonight we had another show by the singers and dancers.  The singers have beautiful voices and the dancers are unbelievably good.  We are so lucky to have such wonderful entertainment.