Current mood:	tired
Entry tags:	history, holiday, malta

Malta Story
Recently got back from a good holiday in Malta and Gozo.

I saw the actual George Cross that the Islanders were awarded with for their actions in WWII as well as the remains of the Gloucester Gladiator Biplane 'Faith'.

'Faith' was one of a trio of aircraft (nicknamed Faith Hope and Charity) that for a period during the early part of World War II comprised the only airborne defence for the islands.

It was quite odd to stand in places I had read about from events during the great siege of 1565 and WWII. Oddly fitting to still see the mountings of British artillery in a few places on the walls of Valetta and Fort St Elmo (Fort St Elmo is one of the places in the world that was immensely significant in a period of history - it held off the Turks for a vital 31 days before falling, causing significant casualties to the invaders).

The siege of Malta in 1565, along with contemporary events such as the battle of Lepanto and the siege of Vienna marked the high water mark of Turkish expansion into Western Europe. After the siege, the Order of St John were massively financed by the European monarchies and were able to build a huge series of fortifications based around the New Capital of Valetta, named after the Grand Master of the order.

Anyway apart from soaking up history, I drank lots (including the local beers Cisk and Hopleaf (drink Hopleaf it's better than Cisk), swam a bit and did some snorkelling.

The first bit of snorkelling was in a shallow bay on Gozo and was lots of fun, watching all the fish dart about. The second bit wasn't so nice, we swam along an increasingly deep creek - the water was a lovely green colour but the bottom was out of sight - I got scared by jellyfish and though about going back, at that point a series of bubbles started coming up from the deep and I decided I was quite literally out of my depth. I mentioned this to a group of divers in a restaurant later who said "That was probably us, Hahahahahahahahah!"

Did a bit of cycling on Gozo as well, on a really bad rusty old bike ( you had to get off and physically move the chain if you wanted to change chainset). The roads are appalling but after seeing a few incredible thunderstorms over the holiday, I'm not surprised.

The Maltese are a very friendly lot and seem to have four main passions in life; football, churches, cars and shooting birds.