Malta for Herbstferien

Valletta's Old Town streets, Malta

October Herbstferien (Fall) break: we've used this in the past to go to:

• Geneva/Lyon (2016): Met up with Seattle friends Jason & Ashley to stay in an ancient guesthouse on the side of the mountain in Lyon, hiked around an 1800's French army based drilled into a mountain in Grenoble, played at cafes on the shore of Lake Geneva and explored Georg's hometown of Basel when he and Kath were in Switzerland for a year.

• Croatia/Bosnia (2017), Hiked the trails of Plitvice Lakes and gaped at Diocletian's palace and spectacular harbor sunsets from our flat's balcony in Split. In the former UN enclave of Bihac in northwest Bosnia, we adopted three dogs for an autumn dayhike in a quiet mountain reserve, while back in town the kids learned what civil wars leave by sticking their fingers into recent bullet holes in the town's buildings. 

• Pyrenees/Basque Country (2018), Hiked from a Refugio on the French Pyrenees border, stayed with Pam & Hank in a 14th century farmhouse owned by Seattle acquaintances outside Besalu, explored Catalan separatist towns, drank local vermouth at Hemingway's Cafe Iruña in Pamplona, hiked around the Peace Park in Guernica and finally threw ourselves at art at the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao. 

So the Herbstferien trips have been pretty legendary. This year we went to Malta before meeting up with some friends in Rome. Here's what we learned about Malta.

Valletta view from the Sliema neighborhood where we stayed.

Malta's geographic location, like other Mediterranean islands we've visited of Cyprus and Sardinia, ensures a lengthy historical record of alternating cultures settling and fighting over the place. Originally settled in the Iron Age by peoples sailing south from Sicily, the island's position in the middle of the Med's ancient trade routes compelled successive waves of Phoenicians, Carthiginians, Normans, Romans, Arabs and finally Christians to visit. 

In 1565 The Ottoman Turks were the last major force to attempt to invade and conquer Malta, prompting a famous defense of the island by the Knights of St. John that pitted 8000 knights and locals against a force of 40-50K Turks. After a four month siege the Turks were repelled and Christian people celebrated the efforts of the Knights from stopping what was viewed as the precursor to a Turkish/Islam invasion of Europe.

Throughout the 1600's fort-building was a gigantic industry on the island as money flowed south from grateful European monarchs expecting the Turks to try again. As a result the capital Valletta and the shorelines and harbors nearby are lined with vast walls and fort structures. The Turks were never a threat after their 1565 defeat, but the building continued. After a two year incursion by Napoleon, the British took over the island in 1800 and began building their own forts and batteries on the coastlines alongside the Medieval structures. In World War I Malta functioned as a main British supply base for the invasion of the Dardenelles Peninsula (Turkey).

The next significant threat to Malta occurred in World War II, when again its location pushed it into the crosshairs of expanding empires. Italy had invaded northern Africa in the late 1930's, but got into trouble when they had to start fighting the British in Egypt. The Germans moved to support them by sending the Afrika Korps to Libya in 1940. In order to supply these armies, the Axis had to send a steady lifeline of cargo ships from Italy across the Mediterranean. Much of this went right by Malta, which as a British base constantly harassed them with air, surface ship and submarine attacks.

So the Italians started bombing Malta. And then the Germans joined in. From June 1940 until November 1942 Malta was bombed extensively by both Axis air forces and defended at high cost  in men and material by the RAF and Royal Navy. Tunnels that had been dug centuries earlier to provide escape routes for Valletta's defenders now were turned into an underground headquarters for the British forces. The British orchestrated the defence of the island from the so-called Lascaris War Rooms deep underneath Valletta's city streets, impervious to the rain of Axis bombs above.

The end of the aerial "siege" came in late 1942 when the Germans lost the 2nd Battle of El Alamein and had to divert all resources to Tunisia to fight the Americans, who had just landed in French Morocco and were making their way east. By then it was curtains for the Afrika Korps and Malta emerged as one of the key reasons for the Allied success.

Just a few months later, Malta again played a key role in the war as its underground HQ hosted all the Allied leadership which ran the invasion of Sicily from there.

So, as is always the case, we pick places with lots of interesting backstory! We arrived on Sunday and spent the afternoon checking out Sliema and walking around the peninsula across the bay from Valletta. 

View from our AirBnB apartment: Cambridge Battery.

The balcony in the flat we rented looked over the former Cambridge Battery, a Victorian-era British gun emplacement. Built between 1878-86, it held the formidable Armstrong Gun, a 100-ton cannon that fired a 450mm shell up to 7000 yards. It was built in response to the discovery that the Italian Navy had launched a couple armoured cruisers that each held four of these guns. The British wanted to help safeguard the vital trade route between Gibraltar and the Suez Canal, which had just opened in 1869, and wanted Malta's artillery to ensure this.

The gun at Cambridge Battery was never fired in a war setting. Its ammunition was quite expensive: a single shell cost as much as a singe day's wage for 2600 sailors. So it was only fired for practice purposes once every three months. The battery was shut down in 1906 and the gun scrapped in the 1950's under a program to clean up Malta's outdated ordnance. In the 1970' a hotel was built on part of the battery, then torn down and a gigantic complex was constructed next to it with the promise that the battery would be restored and turned into a tourist stop on a planned "Heritage Route" around the island. It was obvious recent work had been done but there was no activity while we were there.

Inspecting the beach rocks next to Fort Tigne on the tip of the Sliema peninsula.

Cassandra with Valletta in back.

Cody and the sea.

On our second day we wanted to take a ferry up to the sister island of Gozo to the north of Malta, but inclement weather shut down the ferries. We took local busses up to Burgibba to find a sandy beach but after extensive walking about only experienced rock shelves next to furiously-pounding surf. We jumped another bus out to "Golden Beach" (promising) but just after arriving the dark skies opened up and deluged us for an hour. Luckily we got a seat at the only resaurant and had lunch while the rain came down.

Day 2 (Monday): Looking for a sandy beach situation in Burgibba under a threatening sky.

Presently the rain let up a bit and the kids went swimming. Then it started sprinkling again but they're kids in the surf and they don't care. 

On the verge of getting wet.

We sat in this little beach bar and drink tea and Irish Coffee while the kids were out in the surf. We could see them. Mostly.

"The Malta Experience" audio-visual show includes a tour of the Knights of St John's 1580s-era hospital, built into the walls of Medieval Malta's extensive fortifications. Here is the entryway (probably updated).

The main ward of the Knight's hospital. Apparently the largest in Europe when built.

On top, we have the 12 noon saluting battery, a hold over from the British days.

Day 3: Valletta's Old Town. Republikka Street. Working British phone boxes still can be spotted around.

Malta is a bit of a mix of the British sense of order (see above sign) and an Eastern, 3rd-world feeling when you look into certain alleyways littered with trash and construction equipment.

Lascaris War Rooms situation map. Here they tracked the waves of incoming bombers from Sicily.

Interp guy in Royal Navy khakis lays out the strategic situation of Malta and Sicily in WWII.

Directly across from the huge wall map, Eisenhower and Montgomery sat in these chairs and ran the invasion of Sicily.

Underground HQ's always have fun staircases to run around!

Entrance to the tunnels. Yes it was quite protected from the bombs.

City park in Valletta still bears scars from bombing in WWII.

With old walls this scenic, you have to strike heroic poses in front of them!

Valletta's balconies.

After thoroughly checking out Valletta, we took the harbor ferry over to Senglea/Birgu for dinner. Rainstorm once again foiled a pleasant streetside dinner with a view as we'd hoped to get. Ah well!

Jay went scuba diving on a reef and an old shipwreck. It was a German Minesweeper that was sunk just north of the Gozo ferry terminal for the purpose of divesite creation.

Tons of divers up here. You just wade into the water, get your mask set, and drop off that shelf into the blue. Really cool.

And then we left Malta the next morning, quite early, to go check out Rome.