FEEL TIMELESS IN MALTA
Walk through history on Malta, a historic Mediterranean hub
Millenniums mix on this Mediterranean island nation, which has long been in the middle of it all. Its cross-cultural attractions include prehistoric temples, Roman walls and European-North African cuisine. You can tour from a horse-drawn carriage or a car, or walk through the centuries on foot.
VALLETTA, Malta — What’s the best way to introduce Europe — and European history — to a reluctant traveler who’s intimidated by long flights, foreign languages and food that has never known the confines of a sesame seed bun? Consider a weekend in Malta. The archipelago nation, in the Mediterranean about 50 nautical miles south of Sicily, gives visitors a chance to contemplate Neolithic culture; experience a mash-up of European and North African food cultures; and explore Instagramworthy stretches of coastline.
The country is about 120 square miles — about a quarter of the size of the city of Los Angeles — and it’s relatively easy to get around. That’s especially true of Valletta, its capital, which was designed on a grid and has block after block of soft yellow- and ivory-colored buildings.
Many residents speak English as well as Maltese, thanks to a century and a half of British rule, which ended in 1964.
This year Valletta also is a European Union-sanctioned Capital of Culture, which means visitors can experience an expanded range of music, theater, literature, art and dance events.
For centuries, the island nation was overrun by other cultures, including Phoenicians, Greeks, Romans, Arabs, Normans and Spaniards, but now your greatest concern may be all those drivers on the left side of the road, a la Britain.
16th century city
Malta surfaced as a destination last year while I was planning a trip to Sicily. Its location (a flight from Catania, Sicily, takes about 25 minutes) and relative obscurity were enticing and, eventually, irresistible.
My husband, Steve, and I arrived at the Palazzo Paolina Boutique Hotel in Valletta on a Friday afternoon in late October. Behind its Baroque facade, you’ll encounter an entry with modern light fixtures; gilt; black and white tile; and a sky-blue ceiling. The guestrooms are done up in white, cream and brown.
The front-desk staff was friendly and helpful, and the location in the city’s historic center meant that much of what we wanted to see required, at most, a 10-minute walk.
After we deposited our luggage, we walked through the city, eventually making our way to Nenu the Artisan Baker.
Its walls were adorned with flat screens showing an endless loop about the bread-making process, a draw for my bread-baking husband, who persuaded our waiter to let us hang out in the kitchen for a while.
A glance at the dinner menu reminded us that the dishes we were about to order were heavily influenced by Italian traditions but were distinguished by the use of local produce, sausages and cheeses.
Nenu is known for its ftira ,a semi-flat bread, and typical Maltese dishes such as pasta, fish and rabbit, or fenek. We ordered two ftira with anchovies, tomatoes, capers, fennel seed, onions and potatoes; a savory dish of fried rabbit, crisp outside and tender inside; and pork and beef stew. Somehow we summoned the willpower to inhale almost all of the hearty fare.
The next morning, we set off to tour the historic part of the city, which dates to the 16th century.
The Upper Barrakka Gardens, our first stop, is a public gathering space offering stunning views of the Grand Harbour, the city’s port.
We then walked north and west to check out the modern City Gate (the fifth, completed in 2015, in Valletta’s history), a nearby Parliament building and open-air theater, all designed by Renzo Piano.
The buildings are noteworthy for the architect and for their striking contrast with the city’s Baroque appearance. The gateway is made from two enormous blocks of stone, each topped with a tall steel blade that juts skyward. The Parliament building, which looks like two massive stone blocks resting on columns, is equally stark.
Despite complaints from traditionalists, Piano’s works remain on “must-see” lists, as was our next destination, St. John’s CoCathedral, a five-minute walk from the City Gate.
The facade of the cathedral, built in the 16th century for the Knights of St. John, is modest, so we were surprised by the interior, encrusted with marble, gold and carved stone and home to Caravaggio’s “The Beheading of St. John the Baptist.”
The cafes near the cathedral started to fill for lunch, which made us glad we had reserved a table at Palazzo Preca on Strait Street, once the center of nightlife in Valletta and still a major destination for dining and drinking.
The seafood-intensive menu included Italian and Maltese dishes. The linguine with tiny, briny prawns; the sea bass carpaccio; the Parmesan soup with mushrooms; and a first-rate gnocchi with bits of thin, crunchy asparagus, all ended up on our table. Each dish confirmed our choice of restaurants.
After lunch, Steve returned to the hotel to deal with his food coma while I continued my informal tour of Valletta. I scouted for photo ops at St. George’s Square, a huge plaza that attracts sightseers during the day and a younger crowd at night, drawn by nearby bars and restaurants, and the Grand Master’s Palace, an austere structure that now houses the offices of the president.
I also indulged in some shopping therapy, filling the empty spots in my suitcase with pieces of
Prehistoric mysteries
We ventured outside the capital the next day for an eight-hour history lesson, starting with guided walking tours of the contiguous towns of Rabat and Mdina, a 30minute drive west of Valletta.
The area has been occupied and reoccupied for centuries. Invaders included Arabs, who, experts think, founded Mdina in the early Middle Ages. (Maltese, like Arabic, is a Semitic language.)
At first glance, Rabat and Mdina appear as though they belonged to the medieval and Baroque eras, yet there are remnants of earlier and later civilizations everywhere, including city walls that originated in Roman times and red telephone booths that look as though they were exported from 20th century London.
In Rabat, a quiet town of about 12,000, we stopped at the ornate 17th century Collegiate Church of St. Paul and the Grotto of St. Paul, where he is said to have preached and lived around the year 60. The grotto’s simple stone walls were a startling contrast with the leaveno-surface-undecorated church.
Everywhere we turned, there was something to see, including the brightly painted front doors of private residences and an astonishing variety of door knockers and handles — monsters, lions and sea creatures.
Next we entered Mdina, a fortified village of about 300 (with more notable door hardware) and another series of palaces that are now private homes.
The tiny town and its winding streets and alleys looked like a movie or TV set, which it has been.
Scenes from the first season of “Game of Thrones” were filmed here as well as at other locations in Malta. Mdina is on a list of possible UNESCO World Heritage sites and would join a series of Megalithic temples, which were on our agenda for the afternoon.
We fortified ourselves with a large lunch at Diar il-Bniet, a rustic family-owned restaurant in Dingli, a village about 10 minutes from Mdina.
The restaurant emphasizes seasonal farm-to-table fare, all of it fresh and filling. We made quick work of the pumpkin soup with wild thyme, spaghetti with a f lavorful rabbit sauce, and juicy pork chops enhanced by Maltese sausage and onions.
Malta is home to several prehistoric temples. Hagar Qim and Mnajdra, on the southwest coast, are two of the most prominent and beguiling. I understood the draw after one glimpse of the Stonehenge-like slabs of limestone arranged in a series of entryways and rooms.
The enormous rocks, some of which weigh 20 tons or more, glowed in the afternoon light, which made the how-did-they-dothat mystery more compelling. As we walked through the rooms, I envisioned the rituals that might have occurred on slabs, which appeared to be part of an altar.
A small museum includes exhibits that speculate on the origins of the structures (now sheltered under expansive tents) and how they might have been built, but much is unknown about the people who built the temples and how they did it.
Looking into the blue
For our final stop that day, we drove a few minutes down the coast for a postcard-worthy view of caverns and rock formations known as the Blue Grotto.
We parked on a cliff several hundred feet above the water (boat excursions leave from a nearby harbor) and quietly cataloged the various shades of blue — azure, cobalt, sky, powder, turquoise, aquamarine — below us.
The only mystery was whether our photos would do it justice.