Valletta again

Still waiting for my telephone connection and this morning we had an electricity failure so I couldn't finish my laundry.  But I'm learning to go with the moment in spite of technological difficulties!  I'm in the waterfront cafe again which is becoming one of my haunts.

Yesterday I went up to Valletta again on the bus.  On the way to the bus stop I called in to the local library and actually struck an opening hour.  Th library consists of a room in the local school with half the space devoted to kid's books and the other half to popular adult literature but I found a few of the English language fiction books based in Malta on the shelfs as well as a great history section that the librarian introduced me to.  I now have the opening hours up on my fridge along with the postcard from Norway that Carol sent me last week and the passport photos that they did for me when I went for my Malta ID card.

The Viola concert at St Catherine's of Italy church was mostly Bach.  My cultural exposure in Malta will be especially about Baroque architecture and classical music!  The organiser of the concert series was also the soloist.  She was excellent and explained how although our small donation of 5 euros would not go far in restoring the Pretti influenced painting on the central dome, the concerts were raising awareness about the church and so business interests were becoming interested in sponsoring the important restoration work.

Before the concert, I dropped in for coffee at the cafe Baronne underneath Barrakka gardens and caught the hourly firing of the canon.  The photo a few posts further on shows the battery.  After the concert, I strolled down Merchant street to the headquarters of Malta Heritage where I am now a member and bought a ticket to go on a tour of the Cotonerra fortifications a week on Sunday.  Cotonerra (not sure if that is how you spell his name - must check) was one of the Grand masters whose name keeps cropping up in connection with the fortifications particularly around Birgu, one of the three cities adjacent to Valletta where I will be going to the candlelit evening a week on Saturday.

I missed the box office opening hours at Manoel theatre where I was hoping to find out about an up-coming concert called La Serena with a visiting Portuguese soprano and a small ensemble.  But I decided that I would visit St John's co-cathedral and museum that Carol and I had arrived too late for when she was here.  The sheer profusion of Baroque embellishment is overwhelming let alone the Flemish tapestries and the Caravaggio painting of the beheading of St John.  I have 12 postcards to send to friends and family over the next few weeks!  It will take me longer to think through the amazing gilded stonework, marble tomb flagstones that cover the floor and over-the-top baroque statues in the chapels.  Malta's position as a meeting point, and sometimes collision point, of all the cultures of the Mediterranean keeps on confronting me.

I've succumbed to a fruit tart and so will add a photo and post.