Adventures with Julia

Tuesday, October 3, 2023

We arrived from Palermo at 1am after a 50 minute flight. Directly to bed and up at 8am. Looked out the window and saw a huge passenger ship float by into the Grand harbor of Valetta. Quite a sight. Later on we felt the effects of so many people wandering around the city. However, our suite was perfect. We had a small balcony and a fabulous view of the harbor and the towns and bastions and docks on the other side. We are overlooking the deepest natural harbor in the Mediterranean. After a light breakfast we went for a walk about to see what we could find. This was our only day without a guide and we wanted to make the most of it. We saw ancient and modern buildings, many shops and cafes and thousands of people. The weather was perfect. Warm, but not too hot and a slight breeze. Most of our entire trip has been like this and we are very happy about it. About mid afternoon, we connected with Mimi and Phil in a cafe overlooking the bastions toward the harbor entrance. After a drink, Mimi and I decided to go to a documentary called the Malta Experience. The boys passed and off we went.

The film was excellent and we learned a lot about the history of Malts from ancient times as well as the history of the Knights of St John and their activities taking care of wounded soldiers and civilians during the crusades and many crises since then including the two world wars. Currently there are a few hundred knights and one was being inducted the next day. They are a very chivalrous group. After the film, we were invited to see the room used to hold patients during the world wars. The room held 800 patients in what, we were told, were clean and orderly conditions. Hard to imagine. It was a huge space: 155meters by 11meters or 18,000 square feet.

In the evening the four of us joined Harry and Mary Jane Swenson for dinner at a street side cafe and had a delightful time catching up on each other’s activities since leaving our Sicily Villa. For those of you who do not know them, they are friends we met through church in Incline Village a few years ago. After dinner, we walked back to our hotel through crowds of mostly young people.

Wednesday, October 4, 2023

This morning we met our guide, Catherine, and began our informed walk through Valetta, the capital of Malta that dates back to the 16th century. W started near our hotel at the Upper Barrakka Gardens, which overlook the Grand Harbour with a panoramic view. We saw several old cannons installed on the bastions and are fired off every day. One evening we saw the firing from our hotel. We saw several British phone booths and Postal boxes.

We walked through several streets paying attention to the architecture,

which is mostly Baroque. On many building corners we found niches carved out and statues installed representing saints and important religious figures. In the middle of the city we came upon the most important church in Valletta, called St John’s Co-Cathedral. It is rather dull on the outside, but the interior his a different story. Monreale is awesome with all the glittering gold on display. This church is stunning in a more intimate way. The vaulted ceiling is painted with the life of St John the Baptist. and the entire floor is covered in multicolored marble tombstones, the burial ground for many Grand Marshals of the Knights of St John, some of whom were also popes. Best of all, in the oratory, are the two paintings by Caravaggio. On the side wall was his painting of St Jerome. Taking center stage was the only piece ever signed by the artist, The Beheading of John the Baptist (1608). It took my breath away.and was even tear provoking. It is worth a trip to Malta, if only to see that painting.

Our next stop was to see the Valetta underground. We were given hair caps and helmets and told our sandals would not do. So three of us ran to the nearby shoe store and bought the cheapest tennis shoes we would find. Mine cost 7 euro. They were too tight, but they did the job. The underground was vital for the city to survive during the siege of 1565 and during WWII. Apart from storing grain and being used for cellars, water storage, and drainage, the tunnels were necessary for troop movement and shelters. During WWII, tunnels were expanded and shelters enlarged to hold big families. We traveled through a section of tunnels and shelters and got a sense of what it must have been like to live underground in the dark while 17,000 tons of bombs were dropped between 1940 and 1943. Once out of the underground, we donated the shoes to future tourists and walked away.

Catherine treated us to some special chocolate coffee that had anise, chicory and cloves in it. Very tasty. We also bought some chocolate to take home.

We then went to our 3pm date with a gold gilding expert. Ditte Darmanin was perfect. Proud of hid talent, but not smug. He has been in business since 1947 and considered himself one of the best gilders in town. He has 2 small workshops near each other in the down town and goes back and forth between them. We learned that has old meteorite burnishing tools that he keeps for posterity, but does not use as they are no longes safe. Today he uses modern flint burnishers. First he makes a gelatin out of ox glue, rabbit skin glue and fish glue. He boils them until he gets a perfect gelatin. This same gelatin is used to repair books. He wets the gold leaf and applies it to the surface. When that is dry he burnishes the gold leaf until it is smooth. A very slow and tedious process. We watched him work awhile and then we left him. He was gilding a large clock and it will take him 3 months do complete.

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Phil, Mimi, Mark and I had dinner that evening at a Michelin Star restaurant called Under Grain. We were all very disappointed. I can’t even remember the food. All I remember is that the service was extreme;y slow and unfriendly and the cost was exceedingly high. We agreed not to have any more Michelin experiences on this trip.