We have been incredibly spoilt by being able to stay in Cospicua/Bormla. We have walked and walked [my btm thanks me!], have had a couple of gorgeous days and quite a few days of rain too!! We have been freezing!! Living in a heritage house with concrete floors and walls, and gorgeous tiles throughout the house you wouldn’t say that it would meet the insulated standards we have in NZ!! But regardless of the cold, we have had a delightful time and feel very privileged that we were trusted to look after ‘Misu’ the cat and this interesting home in such a beautiful area.
Over the next couple of days we visited the Inquisitors Palace, did a harbour cruise and explored Senglea and Mdina. The Inquisitors Palace was built over 500 years ago and is one of the only buildings of its type open to the public. It survived has survived earthquakes and wars.
I just loved being here and being able to glimpse at the past. The stairs were worn with hundreds of years of history. The Knights of Malta roamed here. The kitchen may have been my favourite place if I had been there all that time ago …. it had the wine and it would have been warm 😂. We visited the jail and the torture room – it is hard to believe that with such cruel punishments that crime even existed!
With so much to see from the water we did a harbour cruise, but the weather packed in, so didn’t really see a lot. We have also explored Senglea which is part of the ‘ Three Cities’ and again is fortified. From this point you can see Valletta, Birgu and the shipping docks. We walked around the walls of the city at a leisurely pace and just enjoyed exploring.
The guards tower has the eye, the ear and the crane and was to make the people feel safe. It has spectacular views over the Grand Harbour. It is a looooooong way down, so none was climbing in here!
One of the streets in the Three Cities – I just love that the people who live here ‘own’ it and keep it looking like this. There is room for cars on this one!!
We took the bus to Mdina one afternoon – WOW what a fabulous place, so medieval. This fortified city on the highest hill and you can see back to Valletta and the Three Cities. It was just amazing and there are hardly any cars – well there just isn’t room. St Paul’s cathedral stakes its pride of place and the streets are just like a story book. It was the Phoenicians who fortified the city and ‘back then’ it was the capital.
On a wild, wet and windy day [our last day] we headed to the Malta classic car museum. It is only small but it had a reasonably interesting collection and of course we took ‘our petrolhead’ with us.
So, I have talked about rubbish more than once! I am saddened to report that Malta is no different!! We walked to the supermarket out through St Helen’s gate [built in 1736] and into just everyday life, where tourists don’t roam! I wanted to walk along the wall, as it is just so interesting being inside the fortified walls – I will leave the pictures to say my ‘thousand words’ 😔
So, while Malta has been absolutely gorgeous – like any big city it has its darker spots. When you ‘live like a local’ of course you experience the wider communities – all the good things and the not so good things. I would definitely visit here again, there is much to see and do and I will continue my quest of picking up rubbish everywhere I go – I figure it all helps. And not to finish on a negative, one more picture of the delightful streets. 💖
So that’s us from Malta. We are flying to Manchester for our next ‘Mr & Mrs Smith’ assignment [which is in Wilmslow]. But before that begins we will be seeing our bridesmaid Louise [and her lovely family] with whom we haven’t seen since we got married. We are so looking forward to finally catching up with them again after all this time. I am sure that we will have lots of adventures to share with you from Warrington and the Manchester area. Until then take care.
“the earth is what we all have in common … lets look after it”
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