Malta: Part 5 (Last one!)

We were in Malta over Christmas, and that made the second half of our vacation a lot slower-paced than the first few days, though no less enjoyable. Since our first few days took us all over the island, we elected to stay somewhat closer to home over the actual holiday.

On December 23rd, we braved public transit (so easy!) to Valletta after our falconry adventures, with the intent of exploring the capitol city and finding some good food. Malta is known for its rabbit dishes, so that's what we both had. Tony had a traditional roast rabbit and I had rabbit stuffed with asparagus and spinach; each dish came with a white wine and garlic sauce. Mwah! Deeee-licious. We also visited the archaeological museum, which was only about 5Euro and quite well done. There were some original artifacts from the temples we'd visited earlier in the week, including the fat lady statuettes, and just a host of other interesting things. We saw a sarcophagus and a really neat exhibit of Malta through the ages as represented by a hundred different artifacts.  Valletta has several different museums, and I only wish we'd budgeted more time for some of these cultural explorations.

Christmas Eve was somewhat uneventful, but we took public transit again to check out the former capitol city of Mdina, or Imdina. It was on my "must-do" list, and I'm glad we went, though I do wish we stayed for dinner as well. Hands down, this city had the best urban views on the entire island! We took a bus from our hotel directly to the old city, and walked through one of the arches in the medieval wall surrounding which surrounds it. The former moat has been made into a park, and it looked really beautiful, though we didn't walk down there at all. I believe Mdina is connected to the city of Rabat, which is a lot larger. Though Mdina is technically its own city, it really is more like a neighborhood. It was very quiet, and no cars are allowed unless you are a resident with a special permit.

Park in the moat

Since we arrived on Christmas Eve, somewhat late in the afternoon, not many places were open. In fact, a few places closed just before our arrival or just as we got there. Too bad, as I was really interested in some of the glass shops and the medieval dungeons!

Mdina, aka King's Landing

The dungeons, which we sadly did not get to tour.

We passed the main church square, in front of St. Paul's Cathedral. Though the site has been occupied since 4,000BC, the church was rebuilt in the 1600s. For some reason, there were two cannons out front and we got a kick out of watching some little tourist boys crawl all over them. We also noticed a police booth directly next to the St. Paul's convent, which was also pretty amusing. Tony pretended it was a T.A.R.D.I.S. and took a picture inside of the booth; it literally looked like an old phone booth and I cannot imagine what possible practical use the local police get out of it. We went into the church and were astounded at all the marble work. The entire floor is covered in grave markers and monuments to local families, and in one of the alcoves to the side there was a magnificent model of Bethlehem. We didn't stay very long, as it appeared they were getting ready for mass.

Convent + Police Booth = Good Idea??

Boys and a universal love of artillery

Part of a Christmas display in St. Paul's Cathedral

Inside St. Paul's

After passing through the church square, we went to a scenic overlook portion of the city, right near the top of the wall. It was breathtaking; you could see many other towns, and got a good feel for the topography of the island, and got a really good look at the river adjacent to Mdina. We were able to correctly identify the road we traveled on to enter the city, and I was quite proud of our skills until I remembered Tony has tons of experiecne looking at places from an aerial view...It seems there are several restaurants and cafes which take advantage of these views, plenty with outdoor seating. Some of my favorite moments exploring Mdina came from glimpsing hidden gardens and peeking down tucked-away alleys, and I could not get over how clean and quiet it was, especially when compared to the dirty and crowded tourist-trap that is Venice. We compared it to our imaginary versions of King's Landing, from the Game of Thrones stories. So much limestone! I could just picture Cersei prancing about in disdain, or a-hole Joffrey cantering a horse through the stone streets. We left just before sunset, and cuddled on the bus ride home.

Mdina just before sunset

Christmas Day was pretty quiet. We stayed in our room and watched the Grinch, drank some wine, and cooked a decadent brunch. We walked on the beach again, and then enjoyed a dazzling Christmas buffet at one of the hotel restaurants. We also goofed around with some photo props, and took pictures with reindeer antlers, Santa statues, feather boas, and Santa hats. You gotta enjoy the little things in life, right? That pretty much concluded our Malta trip; we ate breakfast at the hotel on Friday and then flew back to Italy. We had a six hour layover in Rome, which was marked by a harmonica player at our gate and some really amazing pastries. We landed in Venice around 10pm and hitched a ride home with our wonderful friend Fay and her mom. Unfortunately, we came home to a freezing cold house, as the power was out, and lost everything in our freezer. Back to reality!