Ciao!
Up this morning around 7 am and out for breakfast around 7:30 am. The Executive Lounge breakfast was fine, but I’m thinking that Thursday morning we may try the restaurant downstairs; I understand there is more variety there, which would be nice. Tomorrow morning, we need to be up and moving early, as we have a reserved spot to see the Hal Saflieni Hypogeum at 9 am and I would (of course) like to be there early. I had initially thought about taking the bus there, but as I’m finding that it takes at least 35 minutes or so to just get in to Valletta, and this is on the far side of Valletta closer to the airport, we have decided on a cab.
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| St. John's Co-Cathedral interior |
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| LOTS of gold leaf! |
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| Gold everywhere you look! |
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| Main altar |
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| Always time for a fresh orange juice break! |
So, out about 8:30 am and heading into Valletta. Bus (13A again) came quickly, and fortunately for us, at our stop there does seem to be seating – of course I am basing this observation on two different trips done at two different times…Got into Valletta about 9:15-ish and headed to St. John’s Co-Cathedral, which isn’t too far from the Archaeological Museum.
The church was designed by the Maltese architect Girolamo Cassar, who designed several of the more prominent buildings in Valletta. In the 17th century, its interior was redecorated in the Baroque style by Mattia Preti and other artists. The interior of the church is considered to be one of the finest examples of high Baroque architecture in Europe.[2]St. John's remained the conventual church of the Order until the latter was expelled from Malta with the French occupation in 1798. Over time, the church grew to equal prominence with the archbishop's cathedral at Mdina. In the 1820s, the Bishop of Malta was allowed to use St John's as an alternative see and it thus formally became a Co-Cathedral.
So, now you know! The co-cathedral is incredibly beautiful, and from my perspective, it seems like it was a huge game of “one-upman-ship” among the Knights. The Knights of St. John were divided into something called “langues” – which I would take means languages so that the Italian knights were one group, the Spanish knights another, etc. In this case, each langue was given its own chapel in the church to decorate – and boy, did they! There is so much gold leaf in that building – it rivals some of the richest Spanish churches we have ever seen (except that we suspect the gold in the Spanish churches is solid, not gold leaf)! There were a fair amount of people touring the church, but everyone is provided with their own headset, which worked really well. (There were, in fact, three cruise ships in the harbor today – the Oosterdam of Holland America, an Azmaraship, and then a smaller one which we were unable to identify.)
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| Part of the fortification wall |
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| It's truly a long way down! |
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| Our "ferry boat!" |
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| You can see the elevator structure in the center. |
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| Harbor fortifications -- everywhere! |
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| More fortifications |
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| Our ferry boat back to Valletta! |
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| R in the boat! |
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| Heading toward Valletta |
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| Lower Barranka garden |
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| Top of Barranka Garden; center cannon was fired at noon |
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| Barranka gardens are lovely! |
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| R in Ambrosia restaurant |
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| A touch of Prosecco! |
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| R's sea bass |
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| My chicken in red fruit sauce |
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| My warm chocolate cake with ice cream |
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| R's cheesecake! |
Unfortunately, the museum is undergoing renovation, but everything else was just sparkling and beautiful. We visited all of the different chapels, and saw some amazing Caravaggio work. He apparently lived on Malta for some months and actually became a Knight for a time (he was running away from a murder sentence). However, he was expelled shortly thereafter due to his seriously injuring another knight during a brawl and was on the run again.
From the co-cathedral, we headed first to the local food courts, which have been moved into a lovely new building and covers three floors. Unfortunately, we don’t have a kitchen, as some of the cheeses and meats looked wonderful.
I have to say that there is truly an incredible amount of building going on all over the Valletta area, with construction cranes and bull dozers and trucks everywhere.
From the food court, we decided to head over to the Upper Barranka Gardens, a beautiful English garden on top of the ramparts. We arrived there about 11:55 am – just in time to observe and certainly hear the 12:00 noon cannon firing that happens daily! Lots of people were watching and the military gentleman who did the firing was very obvious in his motions to show everyone what he was doing. And just before he fired it off, he basically told everyone his intention – and I still jumped and cried out when he did it – and I was watching him! Also, my ears rang for several minutes – this was VERY loud! (Anna Marie, our friend who fires cannons on a tall ship in Los Angeles, must have very steady nerves! That was way too close for me!)
From the gardens, we then took the elevator that goes between the ramparts at the top and the street/water level – and it went down and down and down. Just an amazing structure. Another interesting thing is that you don’t have to pay to ride the elevator down … you only have to pay if you want to ride it back UP – but at 1€each, it was definitely a bargain!
Once on the ground level, we headed toward the ferry for the Three Cities, which was right across the street. Turns out, it’s not exactly a big ferry boat, like we had expected. Instead, it was individual men with their small boats waiting for people. We climbed aboard (2€ each this time) and the guy pushed off – then dropped the oars and started his very modern small gasoline motor, which got us across the bay in about 10 – 15 minutes. Interesting journey, as we were sitting very low in the water, and there were definitely some much bigger boats moving around us (did I mention three cruise ships?).
From there, we got aboard the Happy Train for a journey around the Three Cities of Birgu, Senglea and Cospicua. Lasted about an hour, and was very interesting. We passed several of the surviving forts as well as lots of small attached houses with different color doors. Finally back to the beginning (I say finally, because at one point we got behind a trash truck picking up trash, and I think that definitely slowed us down for a bit – but when the street is basically only one car width wide, there’s not a lot that can be done about it!) Decided at this point, it was after 1:30 pm and we wanted lunch, so headed back via the water and small boat (this time we had it to ourselves!) to Valletta and back up the Barranka elevator. Our guidebook mentioned several good places for lunch, so we set out to find Ambrosia– and we did!
Located at the intersection of Merchant’s and Archbishop streets, and decided to sit inside today (where at least we knew there would be no smoking). We started with glasses of Prosecco, and then ordered lunch. I had their breast of chicken in red fruits, which was wonderful and came with potatoes and roasted vegetables. R had the sea bass in a spiced sauce, which also was wonderful. He, too, had potatoes and roasted vegetables. For dessert, I had their warm chocolate cake with caramel ice cream, and R had their cheesecake. Speaking only for my dessert, it was wonderful, all washed down with a bottle of Sauvignon from Mdina (nice dry white from the local area) and at 15€, a very nice price.
As it was now somewhere around 3:30 pm we decided that heading back to the hotel for naps would be a good idea. So, back to the bus station and the good old 13A. At least this time we weren’t hitting rush hour traffic, but it seemed to take a really long time to get back! Then naps – about an hour and a half worth.
Up around 6:15 pm and when I checked email I found a note from our rental company in Rome, telling us the apartment we had reserved would not be available, and suggesting a substitution. Rand I talked over accepting the substitution but I wanted to check out some hotels first. We decided instead of renting the flat (only four days) we are going to return to the Hotel Alexandra, where we have stayed several times before. It is in a great location – the Via Veneto, and we know the area well. So … made that change, and then went down to the Lounge for a glass of wine and some snacks. Afterward, I convinced R that he wanted to come with me while I checked out a local launderette. (I know … how many days can I go without doing laundry, right?!) Turns out the place is about 350 m from our hotel, and while it’s not the best laundry we have ever used, I think it will be fine for our purposes. (Also understanding that we do not want to pay $100 to get our clothes washed by the hotel!) Thinking we will do that after our return tomorrow from sightseeing.
The Concierge scheduled a taxi for us for 7:45 am which he says will get us to the Hypogeum by 9 am. He said that unfortunately, with traffic, we need to get there early, and apologized that there wasn’t much else to do in that area while we were waiting! But no problem! Clocks are set and we’ll be up and on the move early tomorrow morning!
So! More later!
m
xxx
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