Land and sea

The entire recorded history of Malta could be presented in a series of pictures of buildings, caves and seascapes. The caves featured in an earlier post, so only the buildings and seascapes remain. Many of the buildings are churches and this needs no explanation beyond dates, which go back to somewhere around 1640 and the early days after the island became home to the Knights of St John. For someone who has never been to Rome, Malta seems like an excellent second choice.

Fabulous baroque palaces serve as a reminder of how the aristocracy lived - and still live in some cases - outside the church compounds.


The art of dry stone wall construction is visible everywhere outside the city centres, and Roman aqueducts still stand in various cities leading into the capital.


New building is intensive and designed to service a growing tourist industry. Offshore, the island's natural harbours service all kinds of seaborne transportation.
This all too brief stopover in the central Mediterranean proved to be surprisingly informative and thoroughly enjoyable on many levels. Not least of which were the time to reacquaint with aging parents in a place they lived as newly weds, and a prompt to explore history older than anything previously encountered. The long days of uninterrupted sunshine were a bonus.