Malta- Cruise part 2

Our first stop on the cruise was Malta, a country I have to say I didn't know existed until I saw it on the agenda. But it turned out to be one of the most beautiful ports we came to! Everyone said we had to be up top while the ship came into port, and they were right. We were coming in just as the sun was coming up, and the port is deep into Valletta, the capital city on this small island country. It was beautiful.

We were all standing on the chairs to get a better view.

Christopher and I wandered around Valletta for a while at first, and it was a really neat place. The streets are mostly for pedestrians, and in fact some of the streets were actually stairs lined with shops, since the area had so many hills.


A lot of people said that the St. John's Cathedral in town was not to be missed, and from the outside we couldn't really tell why. It looked like a neat old church, but nothing that different. But on the inside, wow. It was an amazing Baroque church in every sense of that movement- completely over the top and over decorated on every surface. And the Caravaggio painting in there was really amazing. Unfortunatly, they don't allow flash photography, and I didn't carry a tripod on my trip, so my pictures weren't very good in there.

From there we caught the local bus up to M'dina, a Medival walled city up on the hill. They call it the silent city, and I could see why. It is well preserved, and beautiful, but only 300 or so people live in the entire place, and they keep it contained and preserved.

We also went through some catacombs, which had the most long-winded audio tour I have ever heard. But Christopher thought it was interesting. Mostly, we just enjoyed just wandering around and enjoying the city. There is a feel to these European towns that you just can't get in such a "new" country like America. We think something is old when it has survived a hundred years, but for them, the capitol city of Valletta is "new" because it was built in 1600.

But hey, no matter where you go, you can find people naming their business in a foreign language to sound cool without actually understanding what the words mean.