Last post for 2008

It's New Year's Eve here in Malta and I thought I should mark the end of 2008 with a brief post.  The photo that ends the year is of a rainwater pool in the garigue on the walk from Birzebbugia to Ghaxaq.

This year I stopped putting all my energy into paid work as I had been doing for over forty years of my life.  It took me a remarkably short time to find new structures to give shape to the expression of my energy.  I realise now that this blog, set up in May/June as I began my year of travel, has been one of those structures and I am so glad that my niece, Sholeh, had the foresight to encourage me to do it.

It has taken me longer to start working out what my priorities might be in this new, self-directed phase of my life.  It looks as though I am settling into the life of a grey nomad at least for a few years.  Packing up all my household goods and planning what I had intended as a 'gap' year of travel to mark my retirement from paid work has been a great opportunity to start thinking about what I actually need in life.  With my possessions mostly packed away, I now have the chance when I return to Australia at the end of May to sort through all that 'stuff' and pass on the things I no longer need.  

The sorting out of tangible possessions is somehow connected to the transfer of the investment of my energy over my life.  My household was established with the funds from my paid work and supported my input of energy in that direction.  Now I can draw down on that resource and get rid of the things I no longer need.  What I still have to work out is what I do with any accumulated resources once I no longer need them to support my own life.  I want to know that in a small way, my life's energy will contribute to the continuation of a more just and sustainable world.

A priority for me now is maintaining connection with family and friends.  This blog helps with that, but I also need face-to-face contact and my friends and family are scattered throughout the world.  This means that I have to keep travelling in order to maintain established relationships but travelling makes it more difficult for me to build new social connections.  This is one of the factors that leads me more and more strongly towards making Malta my base where I can build a sense of community as well as being in a more central space from which to visit and be visited by.

So 2008 has helped me to start thinking about all that and 2009 will see me moving further towards putting it all into practice!  I wish all my friends and family a good, peaceful year and look forward to talking some more with you.

Walking to Hagar Qim

Yesterday I joined another Ramblers Malta walk from Siggiewi (Sigg rhymes with 'sidge' and iewi rhymes with kiwi) to the temples at Hagar Qim and Mnadjra.  It was another beautiful afternoon for walking but the morning was not promising with a thunderstorm accompanying my breakfast.

  

The meeting time in Siggiewi was 2.00pm and I gave myself plenty of time for the change of buses in Valletta.  As we were pulling out of Valletta through Floriana, I noticed piles of what looked like snow in the corners of gutters and thought idly that some people must have gone to great lengths with their cribs.  This morning in the local papers there are reports and pictures of people walking in knee high hailstones in Valletta!

I arrived early in Siggiewi and had coffee in the local 'Knights' bar near the church square where I was the only woman.  When my eyes had got accustomed to the gloom I noticed the toilet sign for men only but was reassured by the barman that it was 'opposite' too.   Then after a stroll around the town, I sat in the sun on the steps of the parish church of St Nicholas and ate my lunchtime sandwich as I read up on the local villages in this area.  Like Ghaxaq (previous post) Siggiewi has two band clubs around the square and several chapels.  

There was a big turn-up for the walk which was led by Dr Gunter again.  We set off through the rural landscape around Mqabba to Xrendi (don't pronounce the X).  Mqabba is famous for its Globigerina limestone quarries.  This is the softer of the two types of limestone found in Malta.  Coralline limestone is the harder variety that is more difficult to work with.  I realised from my reading that I have been getting the two labels mixed up in previous posts so read anything before this one with caution!  

The photo that heads this post is of a farmer working his field that has been established in an old quarry.  There are good examples of this recycling practice around this area and the quarry sides give protection from the wind and help to retain moisture.  The fields in general are well maintained and look very fertile but we learnt that the new way of growing grapes along wire is actually wasteful of water.  The old Maltese way was to allow the plant to straggle along the ground and this helped to keep the soil moist. 

As we passed one of the square farmhouses that dot the Maltese landscape, the familiar dog appeared on the roof, but this one was different from the usual hunting dogs.  It had the pointed ears and long legs of the Eqyptian temple dogs.  I have a small statuette of such a dog that was sold to me in Luxor by Moustache Ali (see my post several months back!).  Dr Gunter suggested the dog was an indicator of the North African influences on the Maltese landscape.  I am again struck by the way in which Malta seems to be bringing together all the threads of my life!

After passing through Xrendi, we walked on to Hagar Qim and Mnadjra temples.  I had visited here with my mother some 15 years ago and was stunned then by the dramatic positioning alone on the cliffs of Dingli with the tiny rugged island of Filfla in the sea below.  That time we were the only people there although there was an ancient attendant sitting in a makeshift hut who sold us a ticket to go in.  

The temples are made of the softer globigerina limestone that has been quarried nearby since they were constructed around 3000BC.  Their position exposes the huge slabs to weathering from wind and saltwater.  I was prepared, therefore, for the protective shield that was going up around both temples and had read about the decision to gain EU funding to erect the cover.  What I was not prepared for was the huge and very ugly reception building that is being erected adjacent to Hagar Qim that jumps out of the landscape as soon as you walk down the road and drags your eye away from anything else.  Many people in Malta have been disappointed by the decision to build this monstrosity rather than the smaller one story building that was originally proposed.  I am very glad that I have images in my head of the temples before they were vandalised in 2001 and now again legally vandalised in the name of conservation.

We completed our circular walk back to Siggiewi as the sun was setting and colouring the clouds that were once again gathering.   We walked down an old WW2 airstrip now used as a road and the clouds above us were etched in purples, deep blues, pinks and even turquoise.  Back in the square, the bus to Valletta was about to leave and we drove back through village streets bright with Christmas lights.

Walking to Ghaxaq

Today is Boxing Day and I needed the 4 hour walk via Birzebbugia to Ghaxaq (pronounced Ah-Shah).  On Christmas Eve, I joined my landlord's family for a delicious seafood dinner - four courses of ftira, fish soup, shell fish and crab thermidor.  Then on Christmas day I went to Sue and David's flat along the Marsaxlokk front for a huge traditional British Christmas lunch that lingered into tea time!  So a long walk was exactly right for today.

The photo that heads up the post is of a stone bridge on the valley road between Birzebbugia and Ghaxaq.  The walk is lovely and well-described in the booklet on countryside walks that I picked up from the local council offices.  I have passed through Ghaxaq before when I was walking to Luqa to join a Rambler's walk but had never walked up from Birzebbugia.  I have learned from a library book called 'Towns and Villages in Malta and Gozo.  Part 2, The South' by Charles Fiott that the name Ghaxaq derives from the family name but must be linked to the word 'ghaxqa' which means a delight.  This in turn probably influenced the village's motto laeta sustinio (I shall stay happy).

I also learnt from the library book that Ghaxaq, like many of the Southern villages and unlike the North, has two factions.  Each faction has its own band club, festa and firework group and there is strong rivalry between the two.  Sometimes, but not always, the division is also on political grounds.  The parish church is the centre of all the competing activity leading up to festa time but the band clubs and smaller churches are the practice areas.  Even on Boxing Day, there was a lot of activity going on around the band clubs with children singing carols and Christmas lights on the tree inside.

In addition to the band clubs, churches and winding streets with interesting glimpses of farmhouse courtyards, Ghaxaq has a House of Shells with a facade covered in patterns made from shells, as well as a watchtower for Marsamxett harbour and known as it-Turretta (the turret).

On the return journey, I tried to follow the directions in the walking guide.  This should have brought me past an abandoned Roman villa and some ancient cart ruts but somehow I missed the turn and after wandering up and down a road that seemed to be used as a tip, I returned the same way I had set out.

Walking to Birzebbugia

It's Christmas Eve!  I wish all my friends and family a happy and peaceful time.  The picture is of farm dogs on the walk between Golden Sands and Xemxija.

This morning I walked over to the post office at Birzebbugia to collect a small package that the postman couldn't fit into my letterbox.  It was a present from my brother, Dave, and I opened it before Christmas day.  It was two excellent guides to Dubai which I need for my journey back to Australia in May.  I have a week's stopover in Dubai and plan to take a trip to Oman.  Last Christmas, Dave sent me the Lonely Planet guide to Malta.  I can't believe that I've learnt so much about Malta since then!

When I was in Birzebbugia last week, I called in to the local council and picked up their booklet on countryside walks around Birzebbugia.  It has lots of information about places I have noticed around the town but not really known what they were.  One example is the small bathing pools cut into the rock on the foreshore which were made in the time of the knights.  Another is the Ferretti battery also built by the knights and unique because it has an internal moat.  

In one of my earlier posts, I tell the story of my bike ride to discover Ghar Dalem and the bronze age temple of Borg-in-Nadur.  There was a puzzling garden at the foot of the rocky path leading up to what I thought was the temple.  I now learn from the book that the walled garden is Il-Madonna ta' Lourdes and it is regarded as a hidden jewel of Birzebbugia.  I love the process whereby I am learning about Malta organically with time to allow new information and ideas to emerge and fill out the surprising outlines I discover as I wander around.  Maybe this is the secret of true learning but we don't have time for it in our educational systems.

The book also describes a countryside walk behind Birzebbugia and I have promised myself that this will be my Boxing Day excursion.

Two more Christmas concerts

The streetscape is outside the cave dwellings we passed on our walk from Golden Sands to Xemxija that I talk about in my last post.

I have fitted in two more concerts at St Catherine of Italy since my previous post about the programme at this lovely old chapel in Valletta.  The restoration of the inside of the chapel will proceed in January and a sponsor has been found for the restoration of the cupola.  I also called in to the National Museum of Fine Arts where they are showing the restored painting of the martyrdom of St Catherine by Matthia Preti which will eventually go back into place behind the main altar.  It was interesting to see this painting in the same space as another of the same theme also by Preti but in that one, the executioner is not looking out at the viewer for the signal to proceed and I find it a much less dramatic piece.

The first concert was Thursday lunchtime and was 'A Medieval to Baroque Christmas' featuring the organ with Alex Vella Gregory and soprano Pauline Longo.  The concert took the form of carols and readings about the nativity with carols spanning 700 years and five languages.  We concluded by joining in to sing 'O Come All Ye Faithful'.  I am finding that in Malta, Christmas is taken very seriously as well as joyously.  I am hoping I'll get to a midnight mass on Christmas Eve because traditionally at midnight baby Jesus is placed in the hitherto empty crib and a young boy from the local parish is chosen to give the sermon.  These days, there is even talk about the possibility of having a young girl perform this role but I'm not sure if that has actually happened yet.

Sunday's concert was 'Christmas with the Consort' and was the end of year celebration by St James Consort, the excellent group of musicians led by Sara Spiteri who are the backbone of this series of concerts at St Catherine's.  Once again they had chosen a thoughtful progression of sinfonia and concerto from the Baroque era, this time with a pastoral Christmas theme.  Sara pointed out how the sequence of pieces from lesser known and earlier composers such as Valentini through Torelli, Manfredini, Ferrandini and Corelli was marked by the addition of instruments.  The concert started with harpsichord, violins and bases, adding violas and finally flutes.

The concert was great and there was lengthy applause at the end.  The mulled wine and traditional Maltese cakes were an added bonus!

Walking across Malta

On Saturday, I went up to Valletta to join Malta Geographical's bus trip to the North of the Island.  The plan was to do a through walk from Golden Sands on the Northwest cliffs to Xemxija on the Northeast, St Paul's Bay.  It was a superb day for walking and the photo that heads the post was taken from the cliffs near the start of the walk.

The bus dropped us off near the new Golden Sands hotel and we walked up to the cliffs with the hotel on our left.  A circuit of the cliff garigue brought us back to a country road heading towards the east.  This whole section of stunning wild habitat has recently been saved from a threatened golf course and is now national park.  The rocky, hard limestone cliff top edge is an important habitat in Malta and at this time of year it is covered in small, green plants.  I'll use the many photos I took throughout the walk in later posts.

We walked past the unusually modern church at Manikata and I learnt that it had been built around 1960s.  My parents were living at that time in Xemxija and I think I can remember spotting an interesting new building that I thought was a house when we were driving up through the valley to Ghan Tuffieha.  From that road it would look very remote, perched high on the hillside and now it is surrounded by housing.

As we were walking along the valley ridge with fertile fields down through the valley and the ex-British army buildings of Halfar below, we stopped for a break at some old cave homes that were used by the farmers who worked these fields.  The descendants of the people who have been working the fields for centuries formed a co-operative in response to the golf-course threat that would have engulfed this historic site as well as the garigue above.  They have now bought the site off the government and are restoring the old cave village.   I will make myself a note to do another post later on Maltese cave dwellings and include some of the great photos I took.

For some distance on the walk, we followed some of the ancient cart ruts that criss-cross the Northern cliffs of Malta.  These took us past some carved surface holes in the hard stone surface which some people on the walk thought were ancient burial holes but I think I have seen these at the Xaghra circle site on Gozo and there is still speculation about their purpose. 

Coming down towards Xemxija, we had lovely views down through the valley to St Paul's bay. We walked past another abandoned cave house with bougainvillea planted by the side of the entrance, past an old chapel with a story about the monk who lived the life of a hermit there, past a statue of Mary on a rocky slope, through a forest of holm oaks and finally past the nature reserve at Xemxija where flocks of birds were coming in to roost for the night.

The bus was there to meet us and I filled out my form to join Malta Geographical on our way back to Valletta!

Stormy weather at Marsaxlokk

We've had more than a week of cold, windy, wet weather.  In the winter here, the limestone blocks of the houses absorb moisture so the inside is colder than the outside.  Even on the worst of days, the sun usually comes out at some point and warms up the spots that are protected from the wind.  I haven't been able to find such a spot yet, but I noticed when I got off the bus down on the front one blustery day that there was a whole line of old fishermen sitting along a wall chatting in the sun.

Last week, in the worst of the winds, the Freeport at Birzebbugia next to Marsaxlokk was closed and several ships had to weather the storm outside the harbour.  There have been incidents of ships dragging their anchors and damaging the fish farms that are located on the outer edges of the harbour.  There were also a couple of fishing boats swamped in Marsaxlokk.

I don't know if there is a connection to the weather but I found out yesterday that the reason I couldn't access my Australian email server was because a cable had been broken between Malta and Sicily.  I woke up this morning and found we were connected again.  My other surprise this morning was a ring on the front door bell and the delivery of a giant Christmas cake from my sister in California.  Technology is wonderful!

The photo that heads this post is of the design for a Christmas crib silhouette that is happening at the Al Fresco cafe on the front at Birzebbugia.  I walk over there to post my Christmas packages.  Two weeks ago when I called into the cafe on the way back from the post office, the young artist was starting his sketches.  Last week his painted design was up on the trellis were the silhouette is going to go.  If I can get to walk over next week, the finished artwork might be up.

Hal Saflieni Hypogeum

My electronic world is collapsing around me - last night I couldn't get a signal on the TV and this morning I couldn't get into my email server.  But my blog still comes up so I must be real!  This post is about my visit to the Hypogeum that is located in Paula.  We weren't allowed to take photos underground, so the picture is of the well in the Christmas village at the Opera House.

Paula is one of the crowded towns on the edge of Grand Harbour but away from the sea.  The central square was built in the 1900s and the housing to the south was developed around the turn of that century.  It was during one of the housing developments that the vast underground system of Hal Saflieni Hypogeum was discovered although nothing was said about it for another three years, presumably to enable the construction of the houses that now cover the entire site and eradicated any of the ancient external structures.

The Hypogeum is an extensive system of underground burial chambers where it is estimated 7,000 people were buried.  The caves were extended from natural hollows in the ground and as one part filled up, additional chambers were excavated.  It seems that people were placed in a crouched position in smaller side chambers together with funerary objects such as pottery.  At the time of the early work of exploration of the site first by Father Magri from 1901 who died before he was able to put together the information that was emerging and later by Temi Zammit from 1906, it was the pottery that yielded most data about the site.  At that time, meticulous examination of the bones was not considered useful but it appears from the way in which the bones were jumbled together that the practice was to push piles of bones to one side as it became necessary to add someone else from the family group.

Some of the pottery was from the early Zebbug phase around 4,000BC.  This was mostly located near the entrance showing how on this underground site, dating went in the opposite direction to surface sites as the people using the site carved out deeper caves as they were needed.  Most of the pottery found was from the Ggantija, Saflieni and Tarxien phases up to 2,500BC but nothing after that period and it remains unclear what happened at that time to abruptly cause the end of the temple culture.   The pottery that was found included several of the figurines depicting a large, sleeping lady that are now so familiar in tourist shops around Malta.

It has taken me several months to get myself sufficiently organised to book a place on a Hypogeum tour.  When David Trump was here for the week of archaeology, he guided four tours of the Hypogeum, but I was too late to get on any of them.  Since then there has been lots of other things happening.  Now is the off-season for visitors to Malta so I knew it would be easier but each time I called in to the Museum of Archaeology in Valletta to book a place, there was some problem with computers and I kept putting it off.  In the end, I remembered at the right time, in the right place and with the computers functioning albeit I was re-directed to the Heritage Malta office because the computer at the Museum couldn't handle my membership card.  All this should have prepared me for a well-polished packaged experience when I got to the site office that is sandwiched between general housing in Paola.  The group of 12 were each given an electronic guide in the appropriate language and we were accompanied by a young Greek guide who ushered us through the various chambers with appropriate reminders about when to duck our heads or look out for the step.

In spite of all that, I was stunned by the central temple chamber.  This is a replica of what the temples above ground must have been like, even mimicking the form of construction of the domed ceilings with corbelled stone blocks, pillars with chequered carving and red ochre painting of spirals and honeycomb cells.  The lighting and air conditioning in the site has been designed for conservation purposes, but it also enhances the mystery of the place as different corners, side chambers and curves are lit up or cast into shadow.  And all this is happening as everyday life continues in the streets and houses of modern Paula above our heads!

Auberge d'Aragon

There are a number of auberges located in Valletta and built of course by the knights.  The Auberge d'Italie backs onto St Catherine's, and the Auberge de Castille houses the government offices and is across the road from St Catherine's.  The auberges were built to house the knights of a particular langue, or nationality of the Order of St John.

The Auberge d'Aragon is further into Valletta on the other side of the peninsula in Independence Square and was used as the office of the Prime Minister until they moved to the Auberge de Castille.  Now it is used by the Ministry for Economic Services.

That is where I went on Monday evening for a special lecture hosted by AZAD, the Centre for Political Studies, the Justice and Home Affairs Ministry, The Giorgio Borg Olivier Foundation and the Academy for the Development of a Democratic Environment.  With such a host of prestigious organisations, I felt a little clumsy rocking up in my slightly grubby joggers and jeans but the weather was cold and I hadn't really made the decision to go along until I was having lunch in Valletta after going to the Hypogeum (see my next post).

Professor David Attard presented the lecture, "Towards an Equitable International Order: Borg Olivier's Contribution" and there were plenty of men in suits and politicians in the audience, including Prime Minister Gonzi.  The professor, a very confident speaker, wasn't going to let the opportunity for some lobbying slip by!  He focussed the lecture on his area which is International Law and in particular praised Borg Olivier's contribution to changes in the Law of the Sea.  I am still not entirely sure just what those changes were, but it seems that Borg Olivier's advocacy of the concept of the common heritage of mankind helped to shape the reframing of the law and paved the way for the development of laws related to outer space as well as international co-operation on climate change.  It was this latter aspect that Professor David Attard used to good effect in suggesting that Malta and our current government could play a significant role in international efforts to control global warming. 

After the lecture we were presented with a neatly bound copy of the lecture which I will have to read to fill out some of the details!  There was also wine and caviar distributed on silver platters in the colonnaded entrance courtyard of the auberge, but by then I was getting anxious about my last bus home so I slipped out.

The photo that heads the post is of my crib figurine posed in the Opera House traditional village!

Christmas at Birgu

Heritage Malta organised a special trip to the Inqusitor's Palace in Birgu where they have a special exhibition of miniature cribs from around the world.  The visit also included demonstrations of traditional festive season recipes as well as the making of traditional crib figurines.  The photo that heads the post is of the making of chestnut sauce.

I've now become quite practiced at getting from Marsaxlokk to the Three Cities area - I simply got the bus from Marsaxlokk, got off at the far end of Paola and walked up over the hill past Kordin 3 temple (see previous post) and the Dockyards.  I arrived at the Inquisitor's Palace with some time to spare.  There was only one other person on the tour so we had the full attention of the curator of anthropology from Heritage Malta, Catherine Tabone, who was our guide. 

I have wandered through the Inquisitor's Palace before when I was in Birgu for the candlelit festival but it was good to visit again with a guide who was able to tell us about the gothic vaults and the history of the building which was one of the first to be constructed by the Knights.

The palace has become the permanent home for the collection of 512 miniature cribs which were bequeathed to Heritage Malta by Albert and Lina McCarthy.  They collected them over a lifetime of travel and they come from all over the world, made out of all kinds of material.  The one from Australia is a surprisingly traditional painting of the nativity on glass!

In the demonstration of traditional recipes we also got to try the delicious chestnut sauce, the rich bread pudding that tasted like traditional Christmas pudding and the superb mulled wine!  Christine is going to email me the recipes!

The making of figurines for the traditional Maltese cribs was demonstrated using old moulds also donated to Heritage Malta.  The figurines are made of unbaked clay and in addition to the nativity figures, they represent people in traditional Maltese village life - the shepherd, the orange seller, the baker, even the hunter with a gun!   The demonstrator had a series of figures and showed us the different stages from placing the clay in the mould to the final painting with acrylic paint.  The figures come out of the mould without arms and we were invited to choose a figure and add the arms and any accessories we wished.  I chose the only village woman and gave her a bowl of fruit and a duck at her feet for the hunter to shoot at.  Her picture will head up one of my later posts as I carried her in my hand around Birgu and into the dhaijsa across to Valletta, taking photos of her in various locations as the clay dried!

Christmas at St Catherine of Italy

The photo is of the crib that has been set up in the bombed out Opera House in Valletta.  It has been turned into an old Maltese village complete with live animals, a well, recycled Roman remains and old farm implements.  I watched them building the site when I was on my way to the concert at St Catherine's on Thursday and by Sunday when I went up to Valletta again for the Sunday morning concert, they had finished it.

The programme at St Catherine of Italy in December is about Christmas.  The whole of Malta in December is about Christmas and this next series of posts will illustrate a little!

On Thursday, the concert featured three artists who are regulars on the programme at St Catherine's.  Silvio Zammit plays flute, his wife Ramona Zammit Formosa plays piano (and harpsichord in some of the other concerts) and Sarah Spiteri on violin is the guiding light behind this excellent series of concerts that has become a regular feature of my week.  What I really appreciate as someone who is relatively untutored in classical music is the way in which Sarah explains the music that is the focus of a particular programme.  On Thursday, the trio played three pieces that showed a progression from Baroque to classical in terms of the way in which the flute and violin talk to each other.  The first piece by Nicolo Porpora was Sinfonia Da Camera a tre and the dialogue was very polite with the instruments taking turns.  The second piece by J S Bach was a trio sonata in C minor and here piano and flute kept talking over each other very excitedly.  The final piece was by J C F Bach, the son, Sonate in C major, and the instruments talk in parallel but a few notes apart.  I loved all of the pieces and reveled in my front row seat from where I could even hear the sound of the flute's valves moving up and down!

We had the start of some bad weather on Thursday, and at one point Sarah poised in between two movements to comment ruefully on the 4th instrument that had joined the conversation - the rain on the roof of St Catherine's.  The slight drip onto the person sitting behind me highlighted the reason for the concerts which is to raise awareness and funds for the restoration of the chapel!

Sunday's programme was very different but delightful also.  The Malta Children's Choir sang the Christmas story with traditional carols, original songs and readings from the Christmas story by some of the children.

Over the next week, St Catherine's has a series of seasonal music but it is in the evenings from 19.30 so I'll have to miss those ones as my last bus back to Marsaxlokk is too early.  But I'll make it to the Thursday lunchtime concert this week which features a Medieval to Baroque Christmas.

Mgarr for Christmas lunch

Monday was a public holiday here and the Malta Ramblers Association planned a long walk around Mgarr followed by Christmas lunch at a local restaurant, il-Barri, next to the church that heads up this post.  I've been walking in this area before and tell the story in a previous post headed 'Rambling around Zebbieh'.

I managed to catch the quarter to eight bus from Marsaxlokk, kitted up in my trusty boots that took me all around the Ring of Kerry walk in Ireland.  It was a lovely day, cold and clear.  The bus dawdled a bit on the way, and when we got to the terminus outside City Gate at Valletta I found that I had missed the bus to Mgarr and the next one didn't go until 9.00 when the walk was due to start.  I caught that bus anyway, deciding that I would walk on my own when I got there and treating myself to coffee in Valletta whilst I was waiting.

When the bus arrived in Mgarr, I walked back down the main road a little way from the parish church and found Ta'Hagrat temples, another circle of monumental stone slabs dated C3600 - 2500BC.  The site is open on Tuesdays from 9.30-11.00 as is the Skorba site further down the road in Zebbieh and mentioned in that rambling post.

Then I set off to walk to the little bay just down the road in the other direction.  The problem with walking on my own is that I don't yet know the country lanes and so I often have to back-track if I wander off down a lane that disappears in a field or a farmhouse.  But I managed to find a track that went up over the rocky garigue of the cliffs, past a few barking dogs on the top of farmhouses and headed towards Ghan Tuffieha bay.  Two trail bike riders passed me as I got to a steep and rocky section so I knew that I could get through when it looked like it was going to peter out.

The path widens out into a lane again and goes through fields and past the Ghan Tuffieha Roman baths which are closed for conservation at the moment.  It then goes up to the main road to Ghan Tuffieha.  I had to walk along this road for a while heading back towards Zebbieh where I had coffee in the place I had found on my last visit and then walked up the back roads to Mgarr.  On the way, I passed a farming family sitting in their field having their lunch break - no public holiday for them!

I still had an hour before we were due for lunch so I sat in the little park next to the church and read my book whilst children played on the swings.  I'm reading the C.S Forester book called "The Ship" which is about the Malta convoys in World War 2.  My father served on the Malta convoys and it is strange to find in the detail of this book a glimpse of what life must have been like for him in the engine rooms of naval destroyers.  I have to finish the book soon because I want to send it to my older brother for Christmas.

When I got to the restaurant and found my way upstairs, the long tables were crowded with 100 people from Malta Ramblers.  It took me a while to find a place and I ended up sitting next to two retired couples who had been academics at University of Malta, a retired British couple who come to Malta for two weeks every year and stay at Hotel Phoenicia, and another Maltese man who was on his own and ate his way solidly through everything that was placed before him.  For the first time, I tried Maltese snails as an appetiser and really enjoyed them.  I also had great home-made vegetable soup and fish. 

It was after dark when I got back to Marsaxlokk and it was too cold to linger outside and enjoy the lovely half-moon.

Medieval chapels

As part of my growing collection of Melitensia, I went out and bought a series of three books in a range called Malta's Living Heritage.  The series includes Prehistory and Temples (written by David Trump - see my previous posts), Phoenician, Punic and Roman, and finally The Medieval Millennium.  Today I went on a bus tour organised by Heritage Malta to look at some of the medieval chapels in the Southern parts of Malta.

The medieval chapels are all characterised by a simple square construction with a belfry over the arched entrance.  The photo that heads the post is of the belfry at the first chapel we visited, Santa Marija ta' bir Miftuh, although the belfry here is a 16th century addition.  Inside there are lovely pointed arches supporting the roof of long stone slabs and on the rear wall the remnants of a mural showing the day of judgement.  Bir Miftuh, the location of the chapel, means an open well.

One of the interesting aspects of this chapel is the story of its restoration.  It is located quite close to the International Airport and they sponsored the restoration.   They have just removed the altar panel and it will be taken to a specially built glass room at the airport where the restoration will be carried out by experts in full view of travelers.  Some of the people on the tour this morning were disturbed that the holy artwork was to be removed from the chapel but the decision-makers argued that it was an excellent way of raising the profile of both sponsor and heritage site.  

For me, the restoration arrangement appears to be part of a wider culture of recycling and re-use in Malta.  Since medieval times, parts of the Bir Miftuh chapel have been torn down and used in other buildings such as the present parish church of Gudja.  In St Catherine's of Italy in Valletta, the huge altar panel by Mathew Pretti has been restored and moved to the Museum of Art so visitors can see it whilst the other restoration of the chapel proceeds.  And in Tas-Silg, the fourth chapel that we visited this morning, the medieval construction of the chapel re-used and re-cycled the prehistoric and the Roman buildings that were on the site.

The next two chapels we visited at Hal Millieri, were also built on Roman ruins and coins were uncovered in excavation.  The site is located in the centre of Malta's largest plain and we walked between well maintained fields to reach the chapel.  The immediate approach to one of the chapels, The Annunciation chapel, is down a lovely, walled laneway with trees and shrubs, an olive press and a well.  The most likely origin of the place name is the Sicilian family name of Millieri and there was a cluster of farmhouses and four churches known as a 'Casale' and grouped around a piazza.  For some reason, the population dwindled from about 1685 and the site was deserted by the 18th century. 

Stepping down inside the Annunciation chapel, the ceiling arches are pointed and the walls are made of rubble covered in plaster with medieval frescoes of 12 of the saints including two St Georges.  The style is a blend of high Byzantine and the beginning of Romanesque heralding the Renaissance.  St Agatha, for example, who is depicted together with St Blaise, is shown as very curvaceous with a pleated robe hanging over one shoulder.  The painter may have been a Sicilian by the name of "Garinu" as this signature was found below the surface of St Agatha.  I feel a warm sense of recognition every time I come across St Agatha since traveling down through Italy (see earlier posts) and I still need to research her story more deeply.

50 metres down the road is the chapel of St John the Evangelist, which has now been restored to the point where it has been handed back to the church to be used for worship.  It was newly built in 1640 but the site was mentioned in 1481 as a chapel.  The roof arches here are semicircular rather than pointed and there is a lovely arched doorway with a small window low down on one side.  This window was put in to allow people who had been excluded from the church by the inquisition to stay outside and still be part of the proceedings.

Outside the chapel there is a 17th century parish cross that apparently has been a target for vandals.  At one stage, two 4WDs were stopped in the act of trying to pull it down and our guide said ruefully that it is a target for anyone that shoots.  I sat for a while in the sun by the old parish cross and listened to a group of German and English people discussing youth, vandalism and boredom.  Then the guide started rounding us up to walk back to the bus and still pondering the issue I got up and started following some people who were already walking down the road.  We walked for some time, and it wasn't until we came to another chapel that I hadn't seen before that I started to notice the distance we had been walking and the fact that there was no-one else following me.  I had followed the wrong people!

I ran back through the country lanes, picked the correct fork near to the chapels we had visited and got to the bus park that was now minus a bus.  A man working in his garage told me they'd gone.  I was stuck - my bag with my mobile and my house keys was on the bus.  I started walking down the road towards a bus stop where I was vaguely planning to catch a regular bus to Marsaxlokk where I knew the last chapel on the schedule was located.  As I walked, a people mover with a large Italian family in it stopped - they had passed me earlier when I was running down the road - and although they couldn't speak much English and I can't speak Italian, we managed to share my experience and they offered to take me to Marsaxlokk where they were heading too.  They juggled some of the children around and managed to squeeze me in the back and off we went but we only got round the corner when one of the children signed "there's your bus".  They had turned round and were coming back for me!  So we also did a U-turn and followed the bus back to the drop-off point.  I felt very silly and once I had apologised profusely to everyone, I heard their story about how they had realised I wasn't on the bus and had tried to phone me but of course my mobile was on the bus too.

After that, the final visit to Tas-Silg was something of an anti-climax.  I had visited there before with David Trump and heard about the pre-history and the Italian excavation of the site.  This time, the working excavation had been covered by tarpaulins and some of the weeds were recently cut so it was easier to make out the general line of walls and colonnades.  It seems that as there were no reports emerging from the Italian work on the site, Tas-Silg will be taken over by Heritage Malta and the University of Malta are excavating a continuation of the site across the road.

Since Tas-Silg is on the hill overlooking Marsaxlokk, I decided to leave the bus there, making sure I let people know I was going so that they wouldn't have to come back for me a second time!  I walked down the hill and the Sunday market was still in full swing in spite of the threatening rain.  I finished my medieval chapels trip by buying a lovely potted poinsettia for my Christmas decorations!

The road to...

This will be a brief post to punctuate the rather long informational rants I keep slipping into.  I'm just lapping up everything that I can to do with Malta and the blog is a good way for me to process what I'm learning!

The length of Malta walk that I was hoping to go on this Saturday has been postponed until next year.  If it is early in the year before I leave sometime in April it will be a good way to pull together the map of Malta I have been building in my head.  I know that I will be returning to Malta but for the time being I have to continue around the world back to Australia before the end of May 2009.

This morning I sent my first Christmas cards and parcels and bought some watercolour postcards to use as cards.  I want to buy a couple of sets of the new Malta monopoly game that has just come out.  I have a couple of sampler bookmarks to complete in the Maltese bobbin lace class that I do on a Wednesday.  So this week is going to be for making a few simple Christmas arrangements.  This Sunday I go on my first Christmas oriented tour of medieval chapels with Heritage Malta and on Monday I have my first Christmas lunch with Malta Ramblers after another walk around Mgarr.

Rambling around Zebbieh

My first post for December!  I must organise myself to send my season's greetings by snail mail.  Already there are street decorations and Christmas cribs appearing around the villages and several of the cultural organisations that I've talked about in previous posts are running tours of crib displays and medieval churches.

This post is about a ramble around Zebbieh and Mgarr lead by Dr Gunter from Ramblers Malta.  When the bus driver put me off the bus at Zebbieh parish church, I wandered up a road where he had pointed even though I couldn't see the familiar dome I have come to expect in a church here.  I was early and so I dropped in to a busy bar at the top where locals were ordering pasta for lunch and I had coffee with a date slice.  The German woman who had got off the bus with me and was looking for Skorba temple also turned up there and we chatted for a while.  She was staying for a week at a hotel up near the Gozo ferry and was enjoying walking around the headlands in that area.  Malta in the winter is great for walking - cheaper hotel rates, cool temperatures and less crowded.

I got directions to the church from the woman behind the bar and crossed the road to find a modern church, recently built with massive curved buttresses.  In this era of declining church attendance, Malta remains strongly catholic and religion is a significant part of daily life.  Even on the buses, people often cross themselves as we set off and repeat the sign as we pass particular shrines along the way.

I was still early at the meeting place and had a chance to chat with the walk leader who was briefing himself on his walk notes using a book by David Trump, the archaeologist I had spent a week with a month or so ago.  The route for the walk took us past the temple of Skorba where David Trump had done most of his work in the 1950s and 60s.  It was the first time I had been there but we weren't able to go in.  We looked through the wire mesh fence at the jumble of massive slabs of globigerina limestone that now seems so familiar to me.  Gunter was keen to tell his stories about Grey Skorba and Red Skorba pottery but everyone else was keen to get walking particularly as a few drops of rain were threatening so we didn't linger long.  

We did a lovely three hour circular walk down through the valley past the wetland that features in the photo.  After the rain, there was running water in the stream and I was glad to see the kind of habitat that I leant about in the course I completed at Mosta the night before.  I didn't quite believe that such areas existed in dry, rocky, overbuilt Malta  and I love discovering these secret, hidden places that are made even more significant by their transitory nature.

The valley is named after the wild fennel that grows everywhere with its pungent aniseed smell.  I spotted lots of Holm oaks and carob trees but also plantations of eucalypts which looked lovely but I now know have been recognised as a threat to the endemic trees.  On the way back up through the valley we passed a huge quarry to cross a major road and a woman told me with pride that she had formed an NGO with other women in Mgarr where she lived, to grow thousands of native trees which they were planting around the quarry.  

When we got back to the more traditional church in Mgarr, I found the bus stop to wait for the Valletta bus.  Two other walkers were also going that way and we waited happily as the sun reddened the sky behind the lovely dome of the church. On the bus, I was greeted by the German woman, her face glowing from the excitement of her walk around the temples, Roman baths and out to the cliffs.   So four women from all parts of the world chatted in various languages, a French woman now living in Floriana, a Maltese woman from Zejtun, an Australian now living in Marsaxlokk and the German tourist who got off at Mosta to make her connection to the northern end of the island.  Another brief, magic encounter on a bus!

Around Siggiewi

I saw the ad in the Times of Malta for a new series of cultural tours launched by the Malta Council for Culture and the Arts.  I cut out the ad and it sat around on my kitchen table for a few days until I was going up to Valletta for the lunchtime concert at St Catherine's.  By then, it was past the Wednesday deadline for booking but I went down to the office in Republic street anyway to find out more about the programme.  When I walked in through the big doors that took up the whole street frontage of the converted townhouse of the office building, there was no-one at the reception desk so I wandered up the marble stairs and was greeted at the top of the stairs by a young man poking his head out of a door.  I explained why I was there.

"You're not too late," he exclaimed, "we've put on extra buses to cope with the demand and there are still a few places left on the last bus."  Another young man inside the office started telling me with enthusiasm that we were going to be shown around the inside of the PM's residence, "even the bedrooms!"

"I hope they won't still be in bed then," I muttered, wondering if I would regret putting my name down for what was starting to sound like a reality TV nightmare.  Anyway, I showed them my KartAnzjen that I have just received through the local council process using my Malta ID card and I got a reduced price.  Playing the old people's card here is magic and gets me 23 cent travel on any bus, anywhere.

So on Sunday, I got an early bus up to Valletta where I had to pick up the coach at the statue of Independence in Floriana.  When I arrived, there were six buses lined up and I was early enough to get on the first one.  Everyone else on the bus was Maltese and so the commentary was given in Malti.  Later, a friendly woman sitting next to me spoke to the guide about the fact that I couldn't speak Malti and she started to give two commentaries using both languages.  I continue to be humbled by this social skill that Maltese people have of slipping easily between the two languages.  But speaking Malti is still a symbol of Maltese pride and independence and it is the preferred language of everyday social interaction when everybody can speak it.  In my posts about the pre-history of Malta I talk about the continuing tension in choice of language between Malti, English and Italian.

First we visited Verdala palace.  There's a photo of the outside of the palace/castle heading up one of my earlier posts, and the photo that heads this one is of one of the amazing vaulted ceilings.  The ceilings and stairs were probably the most impressive aspect of this building that is now the residence of the PM and used for entertaining important visiting dignitaries.  Other rooms had very high ceilings with timber beams and the staircase was oval rather than circular and had lovely stone arches.

Next we went to two old churches in Siggiewi.  Providence church has a lovely domed ceiling and in the sacristy there is a red covered copy of a bible in Malti.  It is a small church and when we were all inside, it was a bit crowded so I didn't really take in much.  The other church we visited was medieval and has recently been restored with accolades from Din l-Art Helwa, a local NGO who are particularly concerned with Malta's heritage.  I loved the way it had been restored as a ruin rather than attempting to rebuild.  The ancient parish church had been pulled down to make way for a new church which was never built on this site.  Two interesting twisted Corinthian pillars have been reset on either side of an entrance into the old chapel where now stone carvings are on display.  To get to the site, we used a walkway through an old orange grove.

Our  final visit for the morning was to the Inquisitors Palace at Girgenti.  I have mentioned the Inquisitors palace at Birgu in a previous post.  The one at Girgenti was purely residential rather than also hosting the operations of the inquisition as it did in Birgu.  Nowadays it is the summer residence of the PM and I liked the use of the work of modern Maltese artists in the bedrooms.  For the most part, it is fairly austere as palaces go but the views down through the lovely valley are great.  When we came out of our tour into the garden, we were offered an enormous bread roll for lunch with a choice of 7-up or Coke which I devoured with relish as we walked back down the drive to our bus!

The idea behind this series of cultural tours is to enhance understanding of local culture and heritage.  It is particularly aimed at Malta residents rather than tourists and it gives access to sites that most tourists would not see.  The next tour in December is to Birgu with a trip across to Senglea in a traditional luzzu and I'm planning to book that before the deadline!

Because it's so small

One of the things I love about Malta is that it is small.  I don't need a car here because I can walk everywhere around the village.  Shopping is done every day so it's fresh and I can carry it easily by hand.  If I want to go further afield as I usually do several times a week, I can catch a bus to anywhere on the island.  If I take a book with me, or the Times of Malta that is saved for me most days by the local newsagent, then the unpredictable wait between buses is an opportunity.  So far, if I am pressured for time or I have to go home after the last bus leaves, I have been able to find someone with a car who is going in my direction.  It is a good system with the added satisfaction of reducing my footprint on the planet!

Another good thing about smallness is that it is easier to see the complexity of the links between everything that makes up the whole.  I seem to have moved into a space where I am avidly gathering all the information I can find about Malta.  The word 'Melitensia' has started to come up.  It means things to do with Malta.  The local librarian used it the other evening to describe my area of interest.  When I went slightly wild at the book fair in Valletta a couple of weeks ago and bought too many books on Maltese history and culture, one of the book stall owners used the word to encourage me to go to browse his shop collection.  So now I can put that label on my current interests.  

I use that as an example of a broader picture that is emerging for me.  I think it is to do with the cliche about thinking global but acting local.  As I gather the small, fascinating facts about Malta from many different sources in the course of my everyday life, I also seem to be gaining more of a gut understanding about global issues.  Another example is the final session last night of the course I have been doing in Mosta, 'Wildlife and Habitats of the Maltese Islands'.  The session was about legislation and was somewhat inclined towards long lists of conventions, agreements and decisions that have relevance for EU and for Malta.  Some things I had heard of before but in an academic sort of way - Bonn, Berne, Rio, Ramsar.  I had also heard words like ratification bandied around but hadn't really understood the significance.  Last night when the lecturer mentioned in passing that Malta had been taken to the EU court because it had failed to make enough progress in dealing with the issue of the hunting of migratory birds, I could link that in my mind with the gunshot that has woken me most mornings for the first few months here, the little hunting bird tables around most of the fields when I am walking, the local librarian talking about how her husband gets very depressed if he can't hunt, the pressures on the landscape of a small, crowded island.

Today I am going for another Ramblers walk, this time around Zebbiegh and Mgarr visiting the ancient temples of Skorba.  I started this post thinking I would talk about the cultural tour I went on last Sunday around Siggiewi but I got side-tracked by smallness.  So Siggiewi will head up my next post and for this one, I'll find a photo and post so that I allow enough time for the bus to Mgarr. 

PS  The photo was taken when I was exploring around Senglea, one of the ancient cities around Grand Harbour

Dingli Cliffs and saline marshlands

This morning I got caught in a downpour as I went for my walk.  I set off to find the Marsaxlokk remnant wetland I heard about in the Wildlife and Habitats course that I am doing in Mosta.  It is in a corner at the opposite end of the bay from where my flat is and I wasn't aware of it until it was mentioned as one of the important remaining areas of saline marshland.  It is difficult to access as it is fenced off from the beach and also from the road but the fence is down in one spot and there is a clear path through, probably where fishermen have accessed the beach.  It is somewhat degraded with rubbish but it was good to see it in the rain and it still supports several species of dune plants.  

The downpour also helped me to understand some more about the rainfall patterns in Malta.   When it rains here, mostly in the winter months, the downpours are short and heavy and the run-off pours down the valleys to the sea bays.  Marsaxlokk is one of the seafront villages at the bottom of a valley and now that it has been built up, the rainwater pours down the roads and floods briefly on the front.  In some other areas such as Msida, this is a problem and often traffic is prevented from getting through for a few hours until the water clears.  It doesn't seem to be more than a temporary inconvenience in Marsaxlokk as the water pours across the front and into the sea without too many obstructions.  But I can see how in the past, the saline marshland would have been extensive and an important part of the ecology of the area.

This post is about walking around Dingli cliffs.  The picture at the top is of Verdala castle taken as we were walking towards Buskett gardens.  As I discovered on my cultural tour yesterday with the Department of Arts and Culture, Verdala was of course built by the knights as a residential fortification and is now the winter residence of the Prime Minister.  The knights also planted the forests around to support their hunting and although the British later removed a lot of the trees to make way for agriculture and the orchards that still cover much of the valley, this is still the most heavily wooded area of Malta.

The walk from the lovely village of Dingli to Busketto gardens and then along to the Dingli cliffs was another in the programme organised by Malta Ramblers Association but this time it was mid-week.  The meeting place was St Mary's parish church in Dingli village so I had to catch the 81 bus from Valletta and just got there on time.  There were fewer people than on the weekend walk through Wied Garnaw but still over 60 walkers set off with an enthusiastic German guide to lead us.  We walked out of the village past the mandatory village statue of a local celebrity - this time a beautifully worked bronze of a poet, Charles Ebejer, sitting reading in a chair.

We walked along country lanes past a well maintained and signed local park towards Busketto. The guide pointed out the ancient cart ruts that can be made out across a slight valley on the slope of a rocky cliff near to an old quarry.  There was some debate about going through the forest as this would add about half an hour onto the timing for the walk and the evenings are drawing in now but most people wanted to walk through and I was glad that we did.  The forest here is lovely with lots of native trees such as Holm Oaks and Mediterranean pine as well as groves of fruit trees such as oranges.

Our time in the forest meant that we were walking along the cliffs just before sunset.  The sea was flat calm and it was stunning.  Just enough cloud to redden the horizon and the dramatic fall of the cliff face.  We came to a small chapel on the edge of the cliff with about ten minutes before the sun disappeared and we all found rocks or the verandah of the chapel to sit and watch.  At this point, the cliff edge drops down to some terraced fields that are beautifully tended and I spotted on the rocks at the top some of the plants I have been learning about in the course I am doing.  It was a magic moment.

It was after 5.00pm when we got back to Dingli and I was now pushed for time to get to Mosta for 5.30 for the evening class on insects, arachnids and crustaceans.  So as the walking group was rounding things off, I asked if anyone was driving past Mosta and sure enough someone was going to visit their daughter who lived there.  I arrived at class just as everyone was going in to the lecture room and the exhilaration of the walk carried me through a rather dry couple of hours on insect classification!

Getting around

I've been traveling away from Oz for 6 months now and this is my 50th post!  There have been reports of destructive storms in Brisbane this week, but my friends there tell me that it isn't as bad as it might be painted in the international press.  My brother in England tells me that he's just finished the apple harvest before the frost arrives and his garden is inundated with field mice, moles and squirrels.  My other brother in Scotland tells me he is resigned to another windy and cold winter on his boat.  

Here in Malta, the nights are getting cold and I have bought myself fleecy pyjamas with Minnie Mouse all over them, and a duvet so I am snug.  Today is windy but the sunny days here are still warm and the change of season has greened up the fields and natural habitats so the whole island looks fresh and lovely.  I have lampuki (local fish) bones bubbling on the stove to make fish stock and mixed beans are soaking to make minestrone soup.  All is right with my world!

The photo above is the inside of a local bus taken yesterday on my way back from Paola where I had been to find out about my local medical centre.  Most of the buses here have little shrines and sayings or jokes written up near the driver's cabin with his red ticket machine.  But I loved this one with Mary in the middle and bobbing Hollywood starlets on either side!

In my next post I'll tell the story of a ramble around Dingli cliffs but for now, I want to add a postscript to my previous post about the pressures on the Maltese landscape.  When I walked over to the meeting place for the Wied Garnaw ramble, I walked up through the valley between Marsaxlokk and Birzebbugia.  The country lanes through here have become a regular route for my morning walks and after hearing about the conflicting uses of the countryside, I decided I would try and see if there was a circular route coming back down through the valley towards Birzebbugia.  I have already discovered the walking route along the cliff between Marsaxlokk and Birzebbugia to complete the circuit.  I walked up through the valley and found what looked like a country lane going in the right direction.  The road went through a tiny hamlet and down through rubble walls towards a vast scrapyard.  A truck passed me squashing me against the rubble wall and then stopped blocking off the road so that I had to again squeeze past it.  As I came out on the other side, there were car bodies and scrap iron spilling out of the surrounding fields and onto the country lane leaving only a narrow winding path through.  Three men were working on a car body at the side of the path and as I came up I asked politely if I could go through here.  One said 'yes', another said 'No'.  So I carried on walking through the jungle of scrap metal until I came out on the main road down into Birzebbugia.

I have thought about it a lot since.  There is clearly a need for scrap metal yards in Malta but it is tragic to see scarce agricultural land used for this purpose and spilling onto the public right of way.  When I talked with some of the participants in the Wildlife and Habitats course I am doing in Mosta, I discovered that one of the women lives in Birzebbugia (she now gives me a lift home which is a godsend!) and she told me that the Birzebbugia local council were taking the scrap yard people to court but it was very difficult since it was private land.  In such a small island where everybody knows everybody else and people have been traditionally self-sufficient, it is a hard task to change an established use.  I'm not about to join the letter-writing brigade but I would like to think of some way in which I might contribute to the resolution of this issue.

My next post is about the area around Dingli village where the local council appears to be doing well in managing the varied uses of the land in the area.

Back to earth

In my last posts about the pre-history of Malta and Gozo, I got a bit caught up in the academic side of things and the writing became long-winded as a result!  This post will be about getting back to normal and outlining my next series of posts.  The photo that heads the story is of some local council tree-planting that I noticed on the first of the walks that I have been on over the past few weeks.  The trees are locally endemic and the location is Wied Garnaw, a valley running down from Luqa past Tarxien to the coast at Marsascala.

Over the past few weeks I have been looking into the natural history of Malta.  I've joined the Malta Ramblers Association, contacted Geographic Malta, and have enrolled in an evening course being held in Mosta on the habitats and wildlife of Malta and Gozo.  The latter is organized by the Institute for Environmental Studies and I'll write about that after I've completed the course towards the end of next week.

Today's post is about Wied Garnaw where I first started to pick up on the pressures that the Maltese countryside is under.  My landlord put me in touch with the Malta Ramblers Association who lead short walks on Saturdays and Wednesdays at different locations around the island.  On their programme, they list meeting places and times and everyone turns up.  A few longer walks are restricted and have to be booked a week or so beforehand.  In December, there is a length of Malta walk that I would love to go on and I will try and get my email in as soon as the bookings open to get into the small group.  On the open walks, over 100 people usually turn up.

The meeting place for the Wied Garnaw walk was the parish church at Luqa.  Every small village has its parish church and it is a central meeting place for everyone.  I decided to walk over from Marsaxlokk through the fields to Zejtun and then on through Ghaxaq and Gudja.  It took me about an hour and a half but on the way I met a woman whom I had first talked with when we were both buying vegetables at the cart in Marsaxlokk soon after I came here two months ago.  At that time she told me how to cook stuffed aribaldi (round zuchinis), a dish that has become one of my staples.  This time, we chatted about Malta geographic, an organisation that I hadn't come across before, and mothers-in-law.

When I arrived at Luqa with about five minutes in hand, there were already well over 100 people waiting in small groups and chatting in Malti.  The walk had been programmed as 'Four Santa Marjas' as there are four churches in the area dedicated to Saint Mary but the planned leader couldn't make it and instead the walk was lead by a women from MEPA, the government's Environmental Planning section.  She advised us that we would be going on a circular walk through Wied Garnaw and she was going to focus the walk on the conflicts and tensions that are now emerging in the Maltese countryside.  She spoke in English once she identified that there were a handful of us who couldn't speak Malti.  I continue to feel humble and grateful for the ability of most Maltese people to switch easily between the two languages.  Wied in Malti means valley, and Garnaw has got something to do with flying creatures like birds.

We set off through back roads to Gudja where apparently there are bronze-age silos in somebody's private field.  This area it seems was part of the cotton belt in Malta until the Suez canal was opened and cheaper cotton from Egypt lead to decline here.  The whole valley is under siege from ribbon development of the villages along the sides.  This is expressed in a number of ways as people build workshops on prime agricultural land or extend their houses over the fields or even across the public right of way roads.  Several times as we tried to follow the planned circular route we were turned back by a farmer who had put a barrier across the lane.  After this had happened two or three times, the organiser from Malta Ramblers talked to us in Malti about writing letters to the Times of Malta to raise awareness of this issue and protest to save the valley.  I have noticed at least two letters printed so far.

Usually, the building that goes on is not in keeping with the rubble field walls that are so characteristic of the Maltese countryside.  At one point we walked past a massive high wall with strange little turrets that had recently been built and now proclaimed the proud name of Country Castle.  Towards the end of the valley we came upon the little chapel of Santa Lucia that was built in 12th century and was surrounded by fields but is now built out by houses.

Malta is so small, that the conflicting uses of the countryside are clear.  Even the size of the group of ramblers walking down the lanes is illustrative of the heavy pressures on this fragile environment.  Hunting is another recreational activity that impacts in several ways.  Sheer numbers of hunters in such a small area obviously puts pressure on the wild life but also the landscape has been changed quite dramatically by hunters planting eucalyptus to attract birds.  Once established, these Australian natives adapt very well to the conditions and will in time push out the native carob trees.  In one area, the local council was planting Mediterranean pine to counter the plantations of eucalyptus in the area.  There are also horses agisted in the valley and although MEPA is aware of the degradation of the land caused by the introduction of horses, they have to make their decisions in terms of the lesser of evils - our leader talked about a choice between horses or warehouses.

Other problems that we encountered included the use of reservoir areas as dumping tips and the use of small pockets of countryside now surrounded by buildings for various anti-social, if not criminal, activities.  The small size of Malta somehow allows us to see more clearly the complexity of these issues.   The concerns are common throughout the developed world but when the issues occur in a larger scale context, it is more difficult to see the connections between all the diverse factors involved.

I left the rest of the group at Santa Lucia where they turned and walked back to Luqa.  At this point, we were close to Tarxien where I knew that my bus to Marsaxlokk goes through and I decided to go and find a bus stop.  I left my details with the organiser so that he could send me the application form to join the group and continue to receive details of their programme.  I'll write about the next walk I went on in another post.  

Tas-Silg

On the final day of my week of pre-history, we visited a working excavation at Tas-Silg.  The Italian connection is evident here also (see previous post) as the excavation has been undertaken by the Italian Archaeological Mission since 1963.  We were shown around the site by the head of the current team, Dr Giulia Recchia.  She explained the plans of the temples as they have been uncovered.  Originally, the Mission came to excavate the site of Punic and later classical temples that had been turned into a monastery in 4th century AD.  They were surprised to find the Neolithic site underneath.  The building had barely survived the later drastic alterations but sherds of pottery and the discovery of a standing 'fat lady' statue as found at Tarxien have encouraged the continuation of the excavation.  The statue had been defaced and buried. 

Tas-Silg is named after the nearby convent of the Madonna Tas-Silg (Our Lady of the Snows) and it is on a hilltop above Marsaxlokk so I was able to ride my bike over to the meeting place outside the church.  Since this was my local archaeological dig, I enquired about the possibility of volunteering some of my time to help with chores associated with an excavation.  Most of the workers were Masters or PhD archaeology students.  I had a positive response from both Heritage Malta who manage the site and from the head of the dig, but since the following week was to be the end of the work for this year, I decided to put that venture off until next time!  In the meantime I will content myself with reading up on the publication:

Alberto Cazzella and Giulia Recchia "New excavations at Tas-Silg and a comparison with the other megalithic sites in Malta" in Revisiting Anomalies.  Accordia Research papers, Vol 10, 2004-2006, pp61-70

Ancient links - Malta/Italy

When we made the train trip down through Italy to Malta that I describe in earlier posts, I began to get a sense of some of the ways in which Malta and Italy have been linked through time.  So I was very keen to attend the half-day seminar held on Gozo as part of the week long exploration of Malta's prehistory with visiting archaeologist, David Trump, because it was about the archaeological links between Malta and Sicily.  

The seminar was held at the Teatru Astra in Victoria, Gozo as you can see in the photo above.  Incidentally, the theatre is also the home of the local band and there is a statue of the band's founder in the foyer looking much like Banjo Patterson!  Malta is fond of its local community leaders and there are street statues of the men who shaped the small towns and villages everywhere.  Local bands are an important aspect of village life and they contribute enormously to the competitive nature of the parish fiestas.  In the room where the seminar was held there is also a huge cabinet, floor to ceiling, with a beautifully boxed collection of band music.

I knew from traveling to Ggantija as described in my previous post that I couldn't make it to Gozo in time for the morning start unless I went over the previous day and stayed overnight.  So I booked at the Downtown hotel in Victoria and travelled over on Wednesday afternoon after going to my bobbin lace-making class in Marsaxlokk in the morning.  I arrived at the bus terminus in Victoria as it was getting dark (the clocks went back here a few weeks ago so the evening comes in quite early soon after 5.00pm)  The hotel is new and a little way back from the main street so difficult to find but it is cheap and adequate.  I checked in and wandered up to the main square to find something to eat.  I ended up sitting on the street (literally) facing the square and watched the evening life of Gozo play out as I ate my fish and chips with half a carafe of excellent Gozo red wine.  Two men carefully took down the four Maltese flags outside the Council offices, cars drew up outside shops as they closed for the night to pick up the women workers in the family, tourists reprimanded their children as they ate their dinner in the main square.

I was up early the following morning so that I could explore the Citadella in Victoria before the seminar started at 9.00.  The Citadella is the old fortified centre of the town built of course by the Knights and like many of the old fortifications recycled as a tourist venue with working craft shops, museum and heritage offices.  I got there before anything was open and it was great to wander along the battlements and streets when no-one else was there.  There are 360 degree views of Gozo and the buildings have been neatly restored.

At the seminar, David Trump spoke first drawing on his half century of research in Malta and Sicily particularly pre-historic pottery.   He demonstrated using slides projected onto an inadequate screen (window blinds that kept moving!) how there were similarities in design and decoration across the different pre-historic periods, clear evidence of the import of materials into Malta such as flint, ochre and polished stone axes, and also sudden changes in style that could be attributed to the arrival of a group of people or even a particular artist whose ideas superceded the traditional way of working.  It is difficult to determine which way the influence worked.  For example, the rock cut tombs dating from pre 4000BC show contact between Malta and Sicily and even up to the Orkney islands but we can't say if this was because of migration from one place to another or local response to a common need or the spread of ideas through trade.  

Some changes were sudden and might be attributed to invasion, but other changes were slow and are more likely to be the result of drift when slight differences creep in as the craft is passed down through the mother line.  Some changes may also be deliberate on the part of locals in that a community might wish to make something special and so they draw on the ideas and skills of an external craftsperson.

David Trump's presentation raised fascinating questions about the ways in which diverse cultures influence each other and change over time.  The second speaker was Dr Nick Vella from the University of Malta who focussed on a particular Italian archaeologist, Luigi Maria Ungolini who worked in Malta during 1920s and 30s.  Nick Vella has unearthed Ungolini's detailed notes and photos of his research on the excavations in Tarxien (he wasn't allowed to dig) in the archives of a folk museum outside Rome and he is currently working on the publication of a book using this material to support his contention that our ideas about the past change over time.  Since my visit to Ghar Dalem, the cave of bones that give evidence of the earliest phase of pre-history in Malta (see my previous post) I have noticed how the history of exploration of a site is often as interesting as the site itself. 

During the 20s and 30s there was tension in Malta between pro-Italian and the pro-English factions expressed, for example, in heated debate around language to be used in schools - English, Italian or Maltese.  Ungolini was sent to Malta by the fascist Italian government who were keen to support sympathisers in Malta through cultural exchange.  He arrived with a team including an artist who made elevations and drawings of the temples (exhibited in Rome in 1990s) and an architect who published a book after Ungolini died young in 1936.  Ungolini could mingle freely amongst the pro-Italian Maltese and gave lectures at the Casa del Facia in Valletta but his work was never published.

The Italian/English tension in Malta was of course played out horribly in the ferocious bombing of Valletta in World War 2.  After the war, the British sent an archaeologist, John Evans, to Malta and he published one of the first definitive works on the prehistoric antiquities of the Maltese Islands.  Nick Vella's book about Ungolini's work due for publication in 2009 promises to highlight the politics and tension that underlie our supposedly dispassionate research.  

As a concluding exclamation mark, Dr Nick Vella had to leave the seminar promptly in order to get back to the university and record his vote.  The academic staff at Malta University, one of the oldest universities in Europe, voted almost unanimously against the University's inadequate pay offer and that tension is continuing as the union pursues the negotiations that have been going on for four years.  Having experienced the same struggle in the context of Australian universities and witnessed it in other parts of the world I am left wondering about the direction of influence across cultures!

Ggantija, Xaghra Circle and Ta' Kola windmill

This series is about my week of archaeological exploration of the ancient temple sites of Malta and Gozo with visiting expert, David Trump.  I'm on Gozo for this post to visit Ggantija temple and Xaghra Circle.  Ghantija is noteable for the height of the walls that were still standing when the site was first excavated in 1826.  The walls remain undamaged through several excavations to the present day when some parts are propped up with scaffolding to make sure they don't fall down.  The photo that heads this post is of one of the unpropped walls and you can see the massive slabs at the base of the wall.  The name probably derives from the great height of the walls and the size of the slabs as the early researchers hypothesized that the temple must have been constructed by a race of giants.

Ggantija is in fact two temples constructed side by side with the first dated around 3500BC.  It has a pattern of 5 apses connected by a central corridor.  This pattern is common to most of the temples in Malta and Gozo but the number of apses varies.  Temples also vary in relation to the decoration found on altars and slabs but the relief spirals found at Ggantija are common.  The second temple was added about the same time as the Tarxien temple around 3000BC (see my previous post).

Both Ggantija and Xaghra Circle are located at the town of Xaghra  on Gozo and there are other pre-historic sites scattered around the area, some still unexplored.  We walked over to Xaghra Circle sited in a direct line from Ghantija although we had to detour around a house and down the road. On the way we passed a cave called Ghar ta' Ghejzu where sherds of broken pottery offering bowls were found suggesting that this was a dump for broken sacred vessels to prevent them being used in everyday life.

Like many of the other pre-historic sites, Xhaghra circle has a fascinating history of discovery as well as the wonder of the ancient construction.  At the time when it was first excavated by Otto Bayer in 1826, two watercolours were painted by Brochtorff and these remain the only documentation of the information gathered in that dig because sadly Bayer did not record his work and the digging was destructive of the original lay-out.  The site was reidentified in 1964 by Joseph Attard Tabone and then re-excavated in 1987-94 by Drs Stoddart and Malone.  More than a century and a half of research has yielded a lot of information from the site.  Around 4000BC, there was a village yielding pottery and a rock-cut tomb but no buildings.  In the Tarxien phase, another tomb shaft was sunk leading into a series of natural caves which were enlarged.  The site was mainly used for burial and so far the bones of 800 individuals have been found here.  Today, the site is just a large hole in the ground and there is continuing debate about how best to explore further as well as preserve what has already been discovered.

I also used this visit to Xaghra to work out travel from Marsaxlokk to Gozo.  I had to go up to Valletta on the bus from Marsaxlokk and then catch another bus to go the length of Malta to Cirkewwa where the ferry leaves to go to Gozo.   The bus arrived just in time to get a ticket and walk onto the boat.  The crossing is much shorter than the bus journey and passes the small island of Comino before docking at Mgarr.  I hadn't researched how to get from the ferry to Ggantija so when I got off the ferry I was besieged by aggressive taxi drivers.  At first I walked resolutely to the bus thinking I would go up to the main town of Victoria and then get another bus to Ggantija but a particularly assertive old taxi man said he would take me to Victoria for 2 euros "same as the bus".  I made the mistake of wavering and so he took me to Ggantija for 8 euros.  There was another tussle when we got there as he grilled me about who was conducting the tour and why couldn't he come back and get me afterwards so I didn't escape under E10.  Later I found that the bus fare to Victoria is 47 cents and you can then walk to Xaghra.

However, the taxi ride meant that I was early for the meeting time and so I wandered off to explore Xaghra and found the Ta' Kola windmill where there is a fascinating exhibition called Trimed.  As a member of Heritage Malta, I was able to access the windmill and the exhibition free of charge and also received the excellent publication that goes with the exhibition.  Trimed is partly funded by EU and celebrates the Mediterranean triad of bread, oil and wine.  The exhibition is about the production of these three staples in six different Mediterranean islands: Corsica, Sicily, Naxos, Majorca, Malta and Cyprus.  I loved the clarity of the exhibits and also the windmill museum.  So the assertive taxi driver landed me on my feet!