When we woke up on our last day on Malta, and only a half day at that, we found it was bright and sunny and much the warmest day we had had so far; it seemed a shame to be leaving on such a beautiful day, especially when we had had some cold and windy days earlier on.
We had an early breakfast and checked out of the hotel shortly after 9.30, leaving our suitcases for collection later. We caught a bus into Valletta, where we planned to walk the ramparts right round the city, a walk that takes around 2 hours. It was a little difficult to find the way onto ramparts at first, since so much restoration work is being done at the entrance to the city and streets are blocked off. This is the reason I have posted no photographs of the gate into the city; any photo would just be full of dust, workmen, cranes and hoardings.
We started at the western side, in gardens called Hastings Gardens. We were able to look out over Marsamxetto Harbour, and across the water slightly to the west of Sliema, where we had been staying.
One thing we noticed immediately was the thickness of the walls, they must have been at least 15 or 20 feet thick; no wonder Valletta was viewed as impregnable.
That section of the wall looked down on what had originally been a gate, with a long, narrow dog-leg shaped entry - minimising the field of fire for assailants, making it impossible for them to get a good run up with a ram to the gate, and exposing the them to fire down from the wall above for a long way. For most of the way round the ramparts, it would have been difficult to assault the walls with ladders, since the top of the wall was so thick and sloped downwards and outwards at quite a steep angle. Of course, the fortifications were built after the Great Siege of 1565, so the Knights of St John would have had a great deal of experience of what worked in the way of fortifications!
We were able to walk round most of the ramparts as far as Fort St Elmo at the end of the peninsula. The War Museum is there, but unfortunately we had no time for that. There are also clusters of horse-drawn buggies awaiting customers - perhaps some people flake out by the time they have walked that far and need a ride back. Valletta is not flat, so we did a good deal of climbing up and down steps, and also slogging up some very steep streets. Some of the streets are amazingly steep, one we climbed earlier in the week was so steep it had chevron shaped ridges in the tarmac to stop the cars sliding down it.
Once we had passed Fort St Elmo, we had rounded the point and were on the other side of the peninsula, looking over the ramparts down into the Grand Harbour. On the opposite side of the harbour from Valletta looking east is an area known as the Three Cities, one of which, Vittoriosa, we had visited on Tuesday. We could look across to Fort St Angelo, where Caravaggio was imprisoned after he committed crimes in Malta.
The building where he was imprisoned is the one with the cross on top.
We were on the eastern ramparts near the monument to the siege of Malta and the bombing in the Second World War. This is a handsome cupola which houses a big bell that is struck every day at midday.
There is also an enormous statue, which was erected at the point where there had been a huge gun - the metal tracks used to turn the gun are still there, set in the stone.
The next part of the walk was round to the Lascaris battery, from where the noon gun is fired. The necessitated a slog up the steepest street yet - it is too steep for cars, so it is just steps. It is also very long, and we had to stop for a breather several times. No doubt people who live on streets like this, of which there are quite a few, keep very fit!
We arrived at the Lascaris battery at about 5 minutes to midday, so we were able to join the crowds of tourists looking down on the gun battery to watch the noonday gun being fired. According to the commentary, there were originally 3 guns, at sunrise, noon and sunset, because most of the population didn't have any other means of telling the time. The noon gun is the only one fired now.
After this, we were practically back at the city gate and it was nearly time to get the bus back to collect our suitcases. We just had time to look in one shop for souvenirs before picking up a snack to eat later, then we had to rush round to the bus station for the bus back to Sliema. We were back in good time to collect our suitcases, and were able to sit on the sea front eating our snack while waiting for the airport bus.
At the airport, there was free Wi-Fi, so I was able to post 2 days worth of blog.
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