Miserable Malta, Well Kind Of

An Island Country of the Mediterranean

We had a miserable stay on Malta.  It’s not to say that Malta is a dull island filled with nasty inhabitants.  In fact I think Malta would be a lot of fun and offer many enriching activities to visitors under the right circumstances.  The circumstances we visited the island under, between overcast weather, the day of the week (a Sunday when much is closed), and being sold a tour that wasted most of our time, Malta marked a down point on our tour of the Mediterranean. 

The new cities of Malta look typical of the Mediterranean.

Malta for those who have never heard of it, is a small island nation about sixty miles south of Sicily.  Malta like so many islands of the Mediterranean was inhabited and thus influenced by other countries, most recently (until 1964) by the United Kingdom.  The result is an island that has retained its own history and culture, such as the Maltese language, while attaining attributes of other cultures, such as the second official language of English and food that is eerily similar to Italy. 

Glass blowing on the island of Malta; larger pieces seemed to be more popular here than in Venice.

Our cruise ship was to dock in Malta adjacent to the city of Valletta for a substantial amount of time, from ten in the morning until nine-thirty at night.  With so much time in port, I thought we could be flexible with our time to see as many sites as possible and still make it back to the ship with plenty of time before setting sail. 

Mdina, the ancient silent city, is in a defensive position on the highest point in the center of the island.  Pirates seemed to cause all of Malta's architectural unique characteristics.

I did do a bit of research up front and downloaded an app to my phone that supposedly offered walking tours of Cagliari.  I turned it on as soon as we got in to port.  To my supreme disappointment, as useful as the iRhodes app was for Rhodes, the Cagliari app was a complete failure for Cagliari.  Not only did the supposed routes lack directions, but every time I clicked a link within the app it froze and told me to turn on my data.  Out of home country data is extremely expensive, and I was not going to run up a hundred dollar bill on my phone plan to use a little walking tour app.  The app also would not need data if it contained directions as in the iRhodes app.  So with a useless app (which cost double the very useful iRhodes app), I was open for finding an alternative activity once we left the port. 

The entrance to Mdina, a narrow gate meant to keep out pirates.

At the port entrance we fond our alternative, a hop on hop off bus.  It cost ten euro, and its two routes encircled pretty much all of the island.  We were told the buses stopped running at five thirty in the evening, and as it was only eleven in the morning, we thought we had plenty of time to complete both routes.  After all we have had such success with using similar bus companies, in Cartagena, Athens, and Dublin.  The bus system seemed easy enough; jump on a blue bus to go on the blue route and a red bus to go on the red route. 

The narrow winding streets of Mdina allowed its inhabitants a chance to hide from pirates.

We boarded a red bus since it would visit some sites I had seen on a documentary about Malta, most notably megalithic structures (much like Stonehenge) dating to the Neolithic and a cave and associated museum where fossils of ancient animals unique to Malta (including mostly miniaturized animals found on the African continent, such as pygmy elephants).  We plugged in our complimentary head phones and listened to the supposed audio tour, although it seemed for every twenty minutes of bus riding we heard only two minutes of audio. 

From the heights of Mdina, it's easy to see the ocean.

It therefore took us about twenty minutes to realize that though we were on a red bus, we were going along the blue route in the completely different direction.  It was still early we reasoned, and so we decided to make the best of the situation by visiting the more famous stops along the blue route, most notably the ancient capital of Mdina, also known as the silent city. 

An empty mote surrounds Mdina, more protection from pirates.

As much as other cultures, Malta has been influenced as much by piracy.  This is no clearer than in Mdina.  Evidence of efforts to thwart piracy attacks from nearby Africa and Europe is everywhere.  The medieval cities all lie miles inland on high ground, with Mdina perched on the highest point of the island.  Large walls encircle the city with only a few small gates allowing entry, forcing pirates who have made the long trek from the sea to bottleneck in on narrow bridges.  Once inside the narrow and twisting streets of the city provide residents a few extra precious moments to hide from the swashbuckling intruders. 

David waits for the bus in Saint Paul's Bay, a bay where the apostle Paul was shipwrecked on his way to Rome.

Indeed running and hiding was the main strategy of the medieval Maltese.  Although fortified towers encircle the island, they were for monitoring purposes only, not battle.  At the sighting of a pirate vessel, watchmen stationed at a tower would light a fire or fire a cannon that would inform the nearest watchtowers of the threat.  The watchmen would then mount their trusty steed and high tail it to the fortified medieval cities of the interior, notifying farmers along the way. 

Aside from the constant threat of pirates medieval Malta was a miserable place to live.  With no lakes or rivers and an extensive dry season, careful rationing of water was necessary to the survival of the inhabitants.  Much of the plants adapted to the drier climate, although they don’t keep as well as other varietals elsewhere in the world.  An entire crop could be lost if harvest was not conducted at breakneck speed.  Proprietary Maltese dishes are usually rabbit based, as rabbit is the largest meat native to the island.  While my trip to Malta may have been riddled with speed bumps, at least I did not visit in the middle ages.

Cagliari is beautiful at sunset.

Back to our time in Mdina.  We only spent thirty minutes inside the city of Mdina.  It is a relatively small city, with quiet deserted streets.  At its edges, the ramparts of Mdina offer a view clear to the sea.  It was a quaint model of a city, but we were getting hungry. 

These beautiful gardens are what the Cagliari lift opens up to.  Beneath them are the war rooms where visitors can see old weapons and other military paraphernalia.

We decided to save time we should grab some food to go and munch on the bus.  Three food stands were situated outside Mdina’s walled, and despite the seeming variety of takeaway food in their display cases, they all lacked vegetarian options.  So we climbed back on board deciding we would grab a bite back at the cruise terminal when we could finally get on the red bus. 

Mdina can be seen from Cagliari.  Its silhouette is off in the distance to the right.

I decided to read the timetable and see when that would be.  To my dismay I discovered that it would not be for another hour and a half, the entire route requiring over two hours to complete.  I also discovered that the last red bus left the port at three in the afternoon, and returned to the port at five-thirty.  Yes indeed the buses ran until five-thirty, as we were informed when we bought the tickets.  With the extensive route of the blue bus, we would not make it back to the port in time to catch the last bus.  Even if we did catch it, we could not get off at any of the stops we wanted to.  It appeared the rest of the passengers were realizing the same issue as us.  In total we would spend over two hours bumbling along in an old uncomfortable bus to spend thirty minutes in Mdina, what a waste.  The bus employees told us we could do both routes, but they lied.  We didn’t have the time, and they were aware of that.  With a little talking and a fast transaction they sabotaged our day.

The cruise terminal has a lot of nice restaurants on quaint promenade below the cliffs of Cagliari.

About an hour into our ride back to port, we entered a larger city along Saint Paul’s Bay, so called because Saint Paul was shipwrecked their for months on his way to Rome.  His preaching brought Christianity to Malta, where it is still the main religion.  We did not see a lot to do in that city, but there were a lot of restaurants.  Since we were starving and not going to make it back to the port in time for the other bus, we got off in search of lunch.  The beer was good and the food rich.  I got a pizza and David chicken wings.  The restaurant called them buffalo wings, but unlike buffalo wings in the US (where they were invented) these wings were drenched in a sauce primarily composed of tomato paste and cayenne pepper.  It was hot without a lot of flavor.  My pizza was of the Italian style, that is to say about twelve inches across with not a lot of sauce.  The crust was thicker than I had encountered anywhere in Italy though.  The food was sufficient, but the service slow.  We waited fifteen minutes before we even got a menu, wasting more of our precious time.

The streets of Cagliari awash in the light of dusk.

As we ate lunch is started drizzling on and off.  This rain pattern would continue through the evening.  Eventually we boarded the bus back to the ship, where we arrived at about sunset.  Having arrived back at the port David and I decided to try anew.  We would put the buses (which were no longer running) behind us and enjoy our remaining time exploring Caglirari. 

A street of Cagliari on Sunday night, despite the abundance of people most shops and restaurants were closed.

Caglirari is set high above the harbor, with stone walls several stories high setting it apart from the water below.  We took a lift (elevator) from the harbor up to the city at the cost a euro round trip.  The top of the lift opened up into a beautiful garden with magnificent views and the streets of Cagliari.  Walking around Cagliari was pleasant, especially with the cool night air settling in.  Its streets are picturesque and mostly pedestrianized.  Unfortunately, I cannot tell much more than that.  Being a Sunday evening most every store, restaurant, museum, and bar was closed.  I checked out the hours of a few stores and saw many closed as early as two in the afternoon.  It seems to experience Cagliari, its better to visit on any other day than Sunday. 

Why climb up to Cagliari when for a few dollars we could take an elevator?

We headed back to the cruise harbor, which was still alive with life.  The cruise terminal is set up nicely, in the style of many gentrified areas in the US sporting trendy stores and restaurants.  We had a few more Maltese beers before getting back aboard and saying adieu to the island country.  Malta is not easy to get to for most Americans, and I probably won’t be back, at least for a long time.  

The lift of Cagliari is dramatic against its steep walls.

It’s a shame; I was really looking forward to visiting Malta.  David put it well when he said every port cannot be a home run.  Malta will just have to be a strike out for now.  If I go back I will be sure to not make the same mistakes.