Erice, Sicily and Malta

This is going to take a lot of work to minimize text and photos. We are seeing some amazing sights. One thing we’re having trouble with is history. We’ve always prided ourselves in being able to talk about a country’s history—briefly—after we’ve visited it. But with the islands we’ve visited in the Mediterranean, it’s too much. Their histories involve being conquered by someone a lot over the centuries—the Romans, Greeks, Phoenicians, Moors, Spaniards, French, Italians, British and I’ve probably left a few out. Fortunately, they’ve managed to develop their own rich culture—although there are constant reminders of those who have come before.

Two days ago we spent a day docked in Trapani, Sicily. While Trapani and the neighboring Roman ruins are interesting, we chose to head up the mountain to Erice, at about 2500 feet above sea level, with a commanding view of the surrounding area. A commanding view, that is, if the skies are clear. As the first photo shows, we had a cloudy, foggy day, with mists swirling around us—no great views, but great atmosphere.

Erice is a medieval city that has been controlled by lots of others. It’s cathedral (shown in picture 2 and 3) is Norman in architectural style, was built by Spaniards from Aragon, when they controlled the area, and it reflects the beautiful plasterwork of the Moors, who controlled Erice prior to the Spaniards. The city walls are from earlier conquerors (can’t remember who!) and the very narrow streets (shown in picture 4 and 5) reflect transportation modes of the time and a defensive strategy that forced attackers to ride and walk in narrow formations (or single-file), allowing hidden attacks.

Yesterday and today we’ve spent in Malta—yesterday on the island of Gozo and today on the island of Malta. Already planning to come back…. Really neat place! Malta is made up of 5 small islands, two of which are uninhabited. The first picture is taken on Gozo and shows the island of Camino (with 4 inhabitants) in the foreground and the island of Malta in the background. The picture also shows what the countryside looks like. It’s very dry, where 10 inches of rain is considered a great year. 40% of their water comes from rain (they collect every drop) and 60% from desalination. Gozo has a few natural springs, but, in general, water is a precious commodity to the Maltese.

Gozo has beautiful and wonderful seascapes, as you can see in the following 2 pictures. The first also shows the salt collecting pools.  Water is pumped to a depth of 1.5 meters in the larger pools. It evaporates for approximately 6 days to increase salt concentration. Then it is pumped into the smaller pools to a depth of about 3 inches. Two days later, all that is left is salt, which is collected and purified. Malta creates enough salt for their use—the sea salt we buy comes from somewhere else.

We sailed into the harbor in Valletta yesterday evening and what a beautiful sight. As the following picture shows, it’s one of the world’s great natural harbors. Unfortunately, today if was filled with 3 cruise ships: our little one with 200 passengers, a Holland American ship and an Ibero ship—both with 2000-3000 passengers. It was very crowded.

We visited the two capitals—the earlier one in Mdina and today’s capital in Valetta. Mdina is a walled, moated city.  Its heyday was post-Renaissance, pre-Baroque (just barely). Our guide called in Mannerism. Things were haphazardly thrown together without a lot of form and style considered. For example, the Cathedral is very symmetric, but has niches for statues that were forgotten. Another building was very plain, but baroque plaster “stuff” was added post-construction. The first picture shows the current main gate into Mdina. The bridge and main gate were constructed after the drawbridge (remains to the right) and moat in the forefront were considered unnecessary. The second picture shows the cathedral tower in the background and an arched bridge over the narrow street between the girls’ school and the girls’ living quarters (we certainly couldn’t have the girls exposed to street riffraff, could we??)

Malta, and Valetta in particular, was the home to the Knights of St. John, who were known for building hospitals and fighting bad guys during the crusades. While the pledged charity, chastity (some questions here…..), and courage, they also lived a pretty lavish lifestyle. Poverty was not considered a virtue! We visited their most famous church, the Cathedral of St. John. The following 3 pictures show the Mannerism exterior and Baroque interior—Baroque at its finest. The amount of gilt was amazing and there was not one square foot of undecorated wall or ceiling—except for one wall that was left as the Mannerism folks left it—very plain—before the Baroque Artists got to it. There is a side chapel for each group of knights—there were 10 groups based on the language they spoke. The 3rd picture shows the floor. It is filled with the tombs of knights, each with an inlaid marble cover--beautiful.

Another side chapel contained two amazing Caravvachio (sic) paintings. One was painted specifically for the wall where it was hung and shows the beheading of John the Baptist (the Patron Saint). The other was of Saint Jerome and shows an interesting interpretation of the Holy Spirit influencing his translation of the Bible directly into Latin.

We wondered the streets and saw many interesting buildings. Next time….

On to Messina, Sicily and Naples, Italy before docking in Rome.