Malta is the most religious country in Europe…
…it has more religious public holidays than any other in Europe and 10th February is especially important because this is the The Feast of St Paul’s Shipwreck which was bad luck for Paul but good fortune for Malta because it brought Paul to the island in the year 60AD and he then went promptly about converting the island to Christianity.
Posted in Beaches, Europe, History, Literature, Malta, Natural Environment, Postcards, Travel, World Heritage
Tagged Culture, Denmark, Gozo, Life, Malta Postcards, Religion, Roman Catholicism, Saddam Hussein, Scandinavia Religion, St Paul Malta, Sweden, Valletta
When it comes to the letter X then thank goodness for Malta where the language does’t shy away from the 23rd letter of the alphabet.
The village of Xewkija on the island of Gozo is a modest place but has an enormous church with what is claimed to be the fourth or perhaps even the third largest unsupported church dome in the World.
To put that into some sort of perspective the largest is St Peter’s in Rome (fourth largest city in Western Europe) and the second largest is St Paul’s in London (population 7.5 million, give or take a thousand). Xewkija is a village in rural Gozo with a population of about three thousand, three hundred people. They didn’t have Christopher Wren to design it or Michelangelo to do the interior decoration – they built it themselves!
Our plan was to stay on board the bus and complete the route to the very far side of the island at a place called Dwejra where there is a natural rock formation called the azure window which attracts people like bees to a honey pot mostly it seems on account of the fact that it was used as a location for the TV show ‘Game of Thrones’ although I cannot confirm this because I have never watched it.
It was an interesting little stop and we clambered over the erosion scarred limestone rocks, shallow pools where nothing lived and the salt pans which was the reason why. It was very busy so we made our way back to the shabby little ring of tourist trap shops and bars, had a beer and then on account of the number of people who might want to get on the bus made our way in good time back to the stop.
There is a rather sad postscript to this story because in a mighty storm on the morning of 7th March 2015 the stack and the arch were overcome by the wind and the surf and crashed into the sea. Sadly the Azure Window on Gozo is no more and presumably the sightseeing bus tour will have to rearrange its itinerary.
Posted in Arts and Crafts, Europe, History, Malta, Natural Environment, Postcards, Travel, World Heritage
Tagged Azure Window Gozo, Þingvellir National Park, Cordoba, Diocletian's Palace, Film Set Locations, Game of Thrones, Gozo, Krka National Park, Northern Ireland, Seville Alcazar, The Dark Hedges
I had walked about four miles or so by now and I was coming to the end of the urban development, the asphalt road became unpaved track and thereafter a dusty footpath that kept going to the end of the peninsular and I carried on because at the end of the mainland there was something I wanted to see – St Paul’s Island.
I was at Qawra Bay also known as St Paul’s Bay…
The problem with an A to Z project is that it starts off easy enough through the vowels and the popular letter but towards the end becomes more difficult. I was worried about X, I thought about cheating and using Extramadura or Eixample in Barcelona but then I suddenly remembered the island of Gozo
Thank goodness for the impenetrable Maltese language: Wiki describes it thus – “Maltese is a Semitic language spoken by the Maltese people. Maltese is a Latinised variety of spoken historical Arabic through its descent from Siculo-Arabic, which developed as a Maghrebi Arabic dialect during the Emirate of Sicily between 831 and 1091.”
All very interesting but the important thing for my A to Z project is that the Maltese language doesn’t object to using the letter X.
In 2015 I went on an open top bus tour of the island of Malta and one of the stop offs was the seaside town of Xlendi. I would like to be able to tell you that it was a delightful and interesting place but sadly I can’t. For some reason ( which I am glad of now) I took this picture of an apartment block on the seafront.
There is another village on Gozo that begins with X and this is interesting.
The village of Xewkija is a modest place but has an enormous church with what is claimed to be the fourth or perhaps even the third largest unsupported church dome in the World.
To put that into some sort of perspective the largest is St Peter’s in Rome (fourth largest city in Western Europe) and the second largest is St Paul’s in London (population 7.5 million, give or take a thousand). Xewkija is a village in rural Gozo with a population of about three thousand, three hundred people. They didn’t have Christopher Wren to design it or Michelangelo to do the interior decoration – they built it themselves!
Malta is the most religious country in Europe – Read the Full Story Here…
Posted in Beaches, Cathedrals, Europe, History, Literature, Malta, Travel, World Heritage
Tagged Gozo, Malta Bus Problems, Malta Buses, Marsalforn Gozo, Rabat, UNESCO, Victoria Gozo, Xlen
Will lock down end soon? Will we be able to travel ever again? Who knows for sure but in the meantime I continue to go through my picture archives. On 5th April 1996 I was on the island of Malta and took a ferry ride to nearby Gozo.
The white ferry boats with blue and yellow livery run almost continuously during the peak summer months so after we got off the bus at a bleak functional strip of baking tarmac there wasn’t too long to wait for the first ferry to arrive and we joined the pushing impatient crowd to get on board and find a seat on the top deck in the hot morning sun and as soon as it was fully loaded it cast off and began the thirty minute crossing to Gozo.
Posted in Beaches, Childhood, Europe, History, Literature, Malta, Natural Environment, Travel
Tagged Comino, Culture, Gozo, Life, Malta Buses, Mgarr Gozo, Rabat Gozo, Victoria Gozo, Ċirkewwa Ferry Terminal
As I have said I have been to Malta several times and always to the town of Mellieha on the north coast close to the ferry port with a crossing to neighbouring Gozo.
I think I recollect correctly that on each of these visits I have visited the town but have always been drawn to the top of a steep hill where the Church stands close by to the main square and a ribbon of traditional shops and restaurants.
This is what Mellieha looked like when I first visited in 1997 but it is a lot more built up now. The Mellieha Bay Hotel can be made out on the far side of the bay…
I thought it was time for a change so this time after I had walked around the waterfront and the and the sandy beach and as I reached the fork in the road that led up to the town I turned left instead of carrying on and walked along the rocky southern shoreline of Mellieha Bay.
I followed signposts to a small museum housed in an old watch tower right on the edge of the harbour. Apparently it is a museum about tuna fishing and I am certain that I would have found that interesting but it was closed for renovation. Apparently the three hundred year old tower is collapsing under the weight of tons of concrete poured onto the roof during the Second World War when it was part of the Island’s defence network.
So I carried on walking.
The further away that I wandered from the beach and the harbour area there was not much to see, no shops, no bars then a private road with a gate and some holiday flats beyond so I had to turn back and then some interesting weekend homes.
Interesting because rather like railway arches in big UK cities they were built under an elevated section of the road,. Many were boarded up and barricaded with hefty padlocks but in some the shutters were open, children were playing, there was a smell of Mediterranean cooking and damp laundry was drying in the gentle breeze. It seems that these are weekend retreats for people from Valletta who drive down here on a Saturday, open the doors, give their washing a good blow in the breeze and enjoy a few hours out of the busy city.
I had walked about four miles or so by now and I was coming to the end of the urban development, the asphalt road became unpaved track and thereafter a dusty footpath that kept going to the end of the peninsular and I carried on because at the end of the mainland there was something I wanted to see – St Paul’s Island.
Saint Paul is the Patron Saint of Malta because in 60 AD he was shipwrecked on the island, an incident which is recorded in some detail in the Acts of the Apostles. Paul was on his way back to Rome to stand trial but a great storm sank the ship close to Malta and Paul and everyone else on board took refuge on a crop of rock and all were saved. Today there is a statue of him there to commemorate the event.
Malta is the most religious country in Europe…
…it has more religious public holidays than any other in Europe and 10th February is especially important because this is the The Feast of St Paul’s Shipwreck which was bad luck for Paul but good fortune for Malta because it brought Paul to the island in the year 60AD and whilst there he went promptly about converting the island to Christianity.
But my story of St Paul’s Island does not end here and I give you my word that I am honestly not making this up but in 1997 I too suffered the same fate. Taking a speed boat ride with Tony Oki Koki ‘Mr Crazy’ Banis the boat broke down and we were stranded on the very same rock in a storm for twenty minutes or so until thankfully rescued and transferred safely to Bugibba.
Here the similarity in stories ends. Paul is attributed with writing fourteen of the twenty-seven books of the New Testament but all I have is a simple travel blog.
My nostalgic curiosity satisfied I turned around now and headed back the way that I come, back towards Mellieha.
For the record there are three more St Paul’s Islands that I can find, one in the Bering Sea (Alaska) another in Nova Scotia and a third in the French Southern and Antarctic Lands and I am fairly certain that Paul wasn’t shipwrecked on any of these.
Other Saint Stories…
In 1997 I visited Gozo for the first time. It is a short crossing and there had hardly been time to settle down in our seats on board when the ferry began to approach the port of Mgarr and began to slide into position ready at the quay side for disembarkation.
Mgarr was thankfully a lot more attractive than Ċirkewwa and in the shelter of the walls the iconic multi-coloured fishing boats of Malta were swaying idly in the limpid water of the harbour.
We wanted to go to the capital Victoria but the bus looked crowded and so, because I knew it wasn’t very far, I foolishly allowed myself to be talked into a taxi by a persuasive cabbie.
It was immediately obvious that a short ride to Victoria was the last thing he wanted and he was looking for a much more profitable fare. He told us an improbable tale that the capital was mostly closed today so we would be disappointed and he suggested an escorted island tour instead. He ignored our repeated instructions and set off instead on his preferred itinerary and towards the east coast village of Xaghra where he promised windmills and Megalithic temples.
The last thing my teenage children wanted were windmills and Megalithic temples but once there he made the mistake of stopping and letting us out for a closer inspection and it was now that we took our opportunity to be rid of him and we told him that we no longer required his services, paid, what I am certain was an inflated fare, and the with a collective sigh of relief looked for a bus stop.
It didn’t take long for a grey and red bus (grey and red to distinguish Gozo buses from the Orange of Malta) with the sun glinting off of its immaculate chrome bumpers to come along and we climbed on board past the heavily decorated driver’s seat which he shared with pictures of his favourite Saints and swinging rosary beads hanging from the window blinds, paid our fare and found some vacant seats.
The centre of Victoria turned out to be rather too busy for me but the quiet backstreets were shady and quiet and we wandered around the maze of alleyways until we re-emerged back in the centre, visited the cathedral and walked the walls and ramparts of the old Citadel with its fortifications and old cannons and explored tiny side-streets until it was time to make our way back to the bus station and return to the ferry port at Mgarr for a late afternoon ferry back to Malta.
I returned to the island in 2015 and for our day on Gozo we had booked one of those open topped tourist buses. I don’t usually like these because they seem to spend a lot of wasted time going to places that you don’t want to go but the man at the hotel reception had persuaded me that this was a good option because we could be sure of seeing all of the places of interest in one day which could not be guaranteed if relying on the privatised bus service. We found the bus, made our way to the top deck and waited for it to fill up with passengers and leave for the first stop Victoria.
Victoria is the capital of Gozo. It used to be called Rabat but in 1887 the British renamed it to commemorate the Golden Jubilee of Queen Victoria. I can’t help thinking that it is rather arrogant to go around changing place names in such a superior way. A lot of people on Gozo still call the place Rabat – Good For Them!
The bus dropped us off and we made our way to the centre of the city, to St George’s Square and the Basilica of the same Saint. As it was 23rd April there was a lot of bell ringing and celebration but the disappointment was that the square resembled a construction site as it was in the process of restoration and improvement.
We moved on from St George’s building site and made our way to the Citadel at the very top of the city which as the name suggests is a medieval fortress city in the most defensible position on the island. This also turned out to be rather a disappointment because this was another construction site.
The Citadella is on the UNESCO World Heritage tentative list and it looked as though the Gozians are putting in a bit of extra effort (courtesy of EU heritage funding) to give the application a boost.
This is the Cathedral, no cannon anymore, replaced now by statues and the decoration on the facade of the building is gone which personally I thought was rather a shame.
In 2017 we took the ferry to Gozo again but when we got there we did nothing more than wander around the port town of Mgarr which is most likely something that not many people do as they clamber aboard buses and taxis and leave the place as soon as they can. It was rather nice, we strolled around the port, explored some dusty back streets, found a friendly bar and then after only an hour or so made our way back to the ferry terminal and returned to Malta.
Posted in Childhood, Europe, Food, History, island hopping, Malta, Postcards, Travel, World Heritage
Tagged Gozo, Malta Gozo Ferry, Mellieha Bay Hotel, Mellieha Malta, Mgarr Gozo, Rabat Gozo, Victoria Gozo, Ċirkewwa Ferry Terminal
I went to Malta last month, here are some post preview pictures…
Malta is the most religious country in Europe…
…it has more religious public holidays than any other in Europe and 10th February is especially important because this is the The Feast of St Paul’s Shipwreck which was bad luck for Paul but good fortune for Malta because it brought Paul to the island in the year 60AD and he then went promptly about converting the island to Christianity.
Saint Paul is the Patron Saint of Malta.
In a survey in 2010 95% of the population of Malta said that they were practising Catholics. Nearby Italy (where the Pope lives) only registered 74%. The least religious countries are all in the north where over 80% of respondents in Estonia, Norway, Denmark and Sweden all said that religion isn’t important!
Interestingly this survey didn’t seem to include the Vatican State where there is a population of only about five hundred official citizens and three-quarters of these are clergy so I imagine the response would surely have been no less than 100%
There have been four Papal visits to Malta, the last in April 2010 to celebrate the 1,950th anniversary of the shipwreck of St Paul on the island. His ship ran aground in St Paul’s Bay (obviously) and I give you my word that I am honestly not making this up but in 1997 I too suffered the same fate. Taking a speed boat ride with Tony Oki Koki ‘Mr Crazy’ Banis the boat broke down and we were stranded on the very same rock in a storm for twenty minutes or so until thankfully rescued.
Last year I visited the town of Rabat to visit his grotto next to his church where he is supposed to have spent his time on Malta in hiding from the Roman soldiers who were searching for him – rather like Saddam Hussein, two thousand years later hiding from the American troops – also in a cave.
Posted in Cathedrals, Europe, History, Knights of St John, Literature, Malta, Postcards, Travel, World Heritage
Tagged Culture, Denmark, Gozo, Life, Malta Postcards, Religion, Roman Catholicism, Saddam Hussein, Scandinavia Religion, St Paul Malta, Sweden, Valletta
Have Bag, Will Travel 