Christmas in Malta, Part II
Report 12, 12 February 1990

I left off with Christmas day.

Christmas was low key.  We decorated the apartment, and opened presents
in the morning.  Kaye also bought the kids their own box of crackers.
These had better toys but more obscure jokes than the ones the night before.
We booked Christmas dinner at an Italian restaurant located in a British
fortress from the last century, located right on the rocks on the waterfront.
This was probably the best meal we had in Malta.  After we went for a
walk along the oceanfront, then returned to the apartment, where I took
the kids to the TV room to see if there was some English TV on.  We watched
a bunch of American cartoons, and then watched a syrupy Christmas special from
a few years back featuring ??? (the singer who always wears sweaters but
isn't Perry Como) in Finland.  Sarah loved it, because it had a lot of kids
in it.  The commercials were mainly in Maltese and were pushing the national
lottery.  After supper, we played a game of Monopoly for Luke's benefit.
(It was a French set--we now have French, British and Italian versions.
Didn't see a Maltese one.  Maltese would be a great language for Scrabble--it's
the only language where double X occurs.)

Not much was going to be open on Boxing Day, so we thought it would be a
good day to take a cruise around the island.  Going clockwise around the
island, one of the first things we saw was one of the largest tanks in the
world for filming ocean scenes.  With the proper angle, you can use the
Mediterranean itself as part of the backdrop.  All along the parts of the
coast that aren't cliffs you see watchtowers.  Some date from the Knights
of Malta, the rest are from WWII.  Sometimes you saw the two types next
to each other.  The basic architecture is the same.  The recent vintage
towers have smaller opening to look out of, probably corresponding to the
better accuracy of modern projectiles.  We cruised past Marsaxlokk Bay,
where the naval vessels for Bush and Gorbachev tied up during their summit.
(Who remembers that Roosevelt and Churchill met on Malta before going to
Yalta?)  From the sea you can see the terraced farms (some in disuse), stone
quarries, a giant receiving/broadcasting antenna, 100 meter cliffs and a
desalinization plant.  You also so the $21 million set for the movie Popeye,
which is still there and can be visited.

We saw Gozo from the distance, and then tied up in the Blue Lagoon in Comino,
where we were served lunch.  After lunch we went for a quick trip by a small
but very speedy little boat to go inside some of the caves of Comino.  One
was so small that the guide used his hands on the ceiling to push us in.
Another was where the octopus sequence of Popeye was filmed.  The way back
from Comino to the starting point was less interesting.  We did see the
rocks where St. Paul is said to have been shipwrecked, called St. Paul's
island, but it is questionable that this was the actually location he
came ashore.

Time for another history lesson, this time on the Knights of Malta.  They
started out as an order of the Catholic church in 1113.  (The Knights
Templars & the Teutonic Knights were founded six years later, but only
the Knights of Malta still exist as an order.)  They were originally called
the Hospitalers of St. John and were based in Jerusalem.  Their mission was
to provide care for Christian pilgrims to the Holy Land.  (The other two
orders seemed more involved with protecting pilgrims along the route, and
holding on to Jerusalem.)  Events of the day soon forced them to become
a military order as well (Knights Hospitalers).  They were eventually chased
out of Jerusalem to Acre to Cyprus (1291) to Rhodes.  They stayed on Rhodes
for 200 years, and became experts at navigation and sea battles, harassing
Arab shipping wherever they could.  In 1522 the Ottoman Turks chased them off
of Rhodes.   They knocked around for seven years or so, until in 1530 the
Holy Roman Emperor Charles V gave them Malta to rule, in exchange for a rent
of 1 falcon a year to the Viceroy of Sicily.  (The original Maltese Falcon.)
So 1530 marks the coming of the "Maltese" cross to Malta (it had existed
from the beginning of the order) and a name change to "The Holy Order of the
Knights Hospitalers of St. John of Jerusalem, Rhodes and Malta," the fullname to this day.

The Knights were organized into 8 Langues: 4 French, 1 each Spanish, English,
German and Italian (going by modern boundaries).  Each Langue had its own
Auberge for knights to stay in while on the island, each had a portion of
the island to defend, and each had a special concern: treasury, armory,
hospital, etc.  The Grandmaster position rotated among the Langues.
The Turks were not pleased with the Knights still being in Mediterranean,
and found subtle ways to insult them, such as carrying off all the inhabitants
of Gozo in 1551.  In 1565 came the Great Siege of Malta by the Turks.  The
siege lasted many months, and pitted 48,000 Turks against 540 Knights, 4000
Maltese and 3500 Spanish and Italian mercenaries.  This was a great victory
for Europe, as it reversed the progress of the Ottoman empire towards
western Europe.  La Vallette was the name of the Grandmaster of the time,
and after the siege was lifted, he started the construction of the city of
Valletta, to have better defenses if there was a repeat performance.  The
city was begun in 1566.  It is completely walled, and was possibly the largest
city in the world at that time with streets laid out in a rectangular grid.

After Valletta and the rest of the island were fortified, there were no
serious attacks against the Knights for a couple hundred years.  They grew
rich, and built some wonderful cathedrals, churches, palaces and a hospital.
The hospital was probably the best in the world at the time.  Patients were
served from silver dishes, and every knight was expected to spend some time
ministering to patients.  (Funding of hospitals seems to be the main purpose
of the order today.)  Where did they get their money?  Some came from grateful
rulers in Europe after the Ottomans were turned back.  The Knights themselves
came from rich families of Europe, and were expected to donate all their
worldly possessions to the order on their deaths, except for their swords.
Thus the order had much land throughout Europe to give them a steady cash
stream.  In addition, the military side was involved with harassing and
seizing Turkish shipping in the area, which gave them considerable booty.
The Knights also encouraged culture in Malta, sending talented native
musicians and artists to study in Italy.  (Italian emerged as the language
of the upper class during this time.)

Unfortunately, by the end of the 18th century, the Knights were a bit of an
anachronism, at least as a military entity.  The days of chivalry were passing,
and their style of battle went out of style.  (Only grudgingly did they add
firearms to their arsenal.)  The young knights were acting less and less
"monkly", and were given to carousing and dueling, neither of which pleased
the local populace.  The French revolution resulted in the seizure of their
lands in France, cutting into their income.  Things slowly trended downhill
until 1798, when Napoleon, with some inside help from one of the French
Langues, took over the island, basically without a fight.  A deal had been
cut to respect the property of the Knights, but from June until September
(when the Brits chased the French away), there was widespread looting of
the Auberges and churches.

The order still exists today, and had a diplomatic mission in Rome where
the Grandmaster presides, but is no longer sovereign over any territory.

End of lesson.

On the 27th we visited the cities of Rabat and Mdina, which are inland.
Mdina is a walled city, the former capital of Malta.  The Knights moved
the capital to Valletta, which was basically okay with the inhabitants of
Mdina, as real estate inside the walls is strictly limited, and they didn't
relish getting evicted to make way for the Knights.

Rabat is the site of the Roman city of Melita (which means "honey", I think--
honey from Malta was famous in the Roman Empire).  In Rabat we visited
St. Paul's Church.  Is located over St. Paul's Grotto, a cave carved out
of the rock, where St. Paul is said to have lived while in Malta.  St. Paul
and St. Luke were on Crete, on the way to being taken to Rome for Paul to
be tried, in 68 AD.  The captain of the ship he was on decide to take the
ship around to another harbor on Crete where they could winter over.  However,
the wind was going the wrong way, and after 18 days the ship was wrecked
on shores of Malta, though no lives were lost.  (St. Luke recounts most of
this in the book of Acts, where he remarks on the hospitality of the Maltese.
How many vacation spots do you know that are recommended by the Bible?)
Paul washed up near a farm of Publius, the Roman governor of Malta at the
time (I believe), and was taken to see Publius in Melita/Rabat.  Publius
put him in the Grotto, and Paul managed to convert Publius to Christianity.
(I heard different stories.  Some say Paul was imprisoned in the Grotto,
others say he chose to live their in imitation of Christ in the tomb.)
Paul made Publius first bishop of Malta, and Malta has been Catholic to
a greater or lesser degree ever since.  (Current estimates put it at 125%
Catholic.)  During Arab rule, the church fell into disrepair, but the Normans
restored it when they took Malta from the Arabs.  The Grotto leads to
a small catacomb from a few centuries later, which we poked around.

Down the street are the St. Paul Catacombs, but they date from the 4th
century AD, and so it is unlikely St. Paul had anything to do with them
(though possibly they connect somewhere to the catacombs leading off the
Grotto).  I loved exploring these.  Kaye says they are quite different
from the catacombs in Rome--those are located at the edges of the city,
and are laid out in a linear fashion.  These are right in the middle of
town, and are laid out 2-dimensionally (with multiple floors in some areas).
In addition to the tombs, each carved with a pillow for the deceased's head,
there a several large rooms for church services.  A couple of these rooms
had low circular tables around which people would recline to have
Holy Communion.  Unlike the Roman catacombs, there is no evidence that the
Maltese Christians went underground to escape persecution.  More likely to
escape the heat.

Going from Rabat to Mdina, we stopped at the reconstruction of a Roman
villa.  It had some architectural elements on display, and a huge olive
press, but the most impressive things were large mosaics covering the
floors, which have a 3-D illusion in the design.  They villa was later
overlaid in part by an Arab cemetery, and we saw some Arabic tombstones.
Compared to today's models, these are much lower and say much more sensible
things.  (Rough translation of one: "You are going to be in the same situation
as me before too long, so clean up your act.")  These headstones were the
only signs of Arab occupation we saw.

In Mdina we had lunch, and strolled around after admiring the door-knockers:
dolphins, lions' heads, snakes and, of course, Maltese crosses.  We then
went to the Co-cathedral museum (Malta has one bishop but two cathedrals).
Some religious garments, reliqueries, manuscripts and music scores.  The
best part was their collection of Albrecht Durer prints.  Luke was especially
interested in a series on the life of Mary, and wanted us to wait while
he read all the captions.  After the museum, we visited the cathedral itself
--the Cathedral of St. Peter and St. Paul.  It is supposed to be on the
site of Publius's house.  The style in this cathedral is remarkable.  It is
Baroque, but not completely typical of the period.  There is no bare wall
space anywhere.  All the walls are textured, sculpted or painted.  Lots
of color through the use of different materials.  The floors are almost
completely covered with tombs, whose covers have intricate designs and
writing made out of various colors of rock.  I felt bad walking on them,
they were so wonderful, so I tried to tread in the margins.  After the
cathedral, we happened by the Natural History Museum, and poked our head in
because we had combined museum tickets that let us in for no extra cost.
While some of the exhibits deal with the flora, fauna, geology and sea life
around Malta, it seems to be more a general science museum for the education
of students on the island.  There were representative collections of mammals,
minerals, birds, bird eggs, bugs, butterflies and fossils from around the
world.  On the way out, while looking for the WC, Luke and I found our
way to the dungeons.  (The museum is in some kind of former palace, and I
guess you need somewhere to put up your in-laws when they come to visit.)
I thought the surroundings were rather civilized for a jail--fairly large
rooms with some light and fireplaces.  Then I figured out that I was in
the jail*keepers'* quarters, and the cells were further down a hallway.
Not much light, heat or headroom there.

28 December: We went back to Valletta to see the other cathedral, St. John's.
As you might guess from the name, this was the Knight's cathedral, while
the one in Mdina is more Malta's cathedral.  The styles are similar.  While
the Mdina cathedral is older, it was mostly destroyed by an earthquake and
rebuilt about the same time as St. John's was constructed.  Again, the colorful
materials and the treatment of all surfaces.  Even more wonderful pieced-stone
tomb covers.  (I'm having a hard time describing these.  Imagine you could
cut designs and letters out of colored paper, paste them down as you like,
and have them turn into rock.  Sort of the effect of inlay or marquetry in
wood.)  This cathedral had side chapels for all of the Langues.  It also
has an altar grill of silver that escaped looting by the French through
someones trick of painting it black to look like iron.  There was a very
bad organist playing while we were there, who I later realized was really
an organ tuner.  We visited the museum of this cathedral as well.  Lots of
tapestries, and a Caraveggio badly in need of a cleaning.  We did see a
restorer working on cleaning another painting.  It is a very slow process,
and you must frequently stop to talk to your friends who come by.

This was supposed to be our last day.  We got back to the hotel, a bus took
us to the airport, and I knew I was in for trouble when I saw all the people
and no clerks at the check in counter.  This was around 2pm.  It was a strike
by baggage handlers and clerks of Air Malta.  This one had started at 7am,
and as the last one had lasted for 12 hours, we stuck around until 7pm.  We
thought better of staying longer when we saw the baggage handlers all head
out for a drink.  One of the tour agencies arranged a cheap rate at a nice
motel, so we boarded a bus and headed over to St. Paul's Bay.  It was a ritzy
hotel, and had the best Christmas lights along the street we had seen on Malta.
We got an apartment, got some food, fed the kids and had just drifted off to
sleep when the phone rang.  11:30pm--everyone back on the bus, the strike
ends at midnight.  They had forgotten to call us earlier, so they wanted
us downstairs in five minutes.  Got the kids dressed in record time and
back on the bus for the 40-minute ride to the airport.  At the airport, someone
gets on the bus.  The good news: the strike is indeed over.  The bad news:
Paris is fogged in.  40 minutes back to the hotel.  Kaye dubbed this
maneuver the "Maltese Fire Drill."  We had the advantage of
having a room already; many of the others just eaten and not booked a room,
hoping for the strike to end.  We slept the rest of the night.  The next
day was saw what a beautiful spot we had, but couldn't do much exploring,
because we didn't know when the flight would be rescheduled.  Finally, they
called us to the bus a little before noon; our flight was scheduled for
2:15p.  We got checked in and cooled our heals in the departure lounge until
around 4.  Got losts of jealous stares at the leftover pizza we brought along.
Into a leased UTA (Belgian) jet for the flight back.  Open seating, but
each of us managed to get by a kid.  No napkins on the flight.  (I could
handle the rest, but no napkins...)  Halfway there, the pilot announces more
fog at Paris--onward to Lille.  (I think he just wanted a shorter drive home
to Brussels.)  This news was greeted by laughter and sobs.  We arrive in
Lille and sit for a long out on a runway while someone looks for a bus to
take us to the terminal.  We clear customs and get back in busses for the
2 hour or so ride to Paris.  When we get there, Kaye amazingly manages to
outflank the French and get us the first taxi that came by.  We were home
well before midnight.

A great trip.  The kids still talk about it.

Extra tidbits:

-Kaye noticed a warning on the bus tickets that if you are caught without
a bus ticket, you can be forced to buy one.

-Honking when you approach a corner revokes the right-of-way of other
drivers.

-The fuel truck filling up the planes was labeled "ENEMALTA".  Kaye speculated
it also evacuated the toilets.

-There are no traffic lights that I could see on Malta.  All major
intersections are traffic circles.

-We saw a number of poinsettias in full bloom.  (I know, I know, the red
things are really leaves.)  But they aren't these dinky things in the pots
we get.  They are evergreen (I know, I know, except for the red parts) on
Malta, and grow to heights of 2 or 3 meters.

[Aha!  ??? = Andy Williams]