Arms at the Auberge de Castille

I haven't been inside the auberge de Castille before.  It is where parliament sits and it is not usually open to the public.  So when I spotted the notice saying that the history society were going to do a lecture in the Ambassadors' room, I figured it was a good opportunity to look inside.  The lecture was on the arms and armour of the great siege.

I arrived early and some people were gathering on the steps outside the auberge.  Two huge canons are mounted at either side of the door at the top of the steps.  Promptly at 6.45 a man in uniform opened the doors and said we could go in.  The doors enter directly onto a massive stone stairway and we were directed to take the right wing of these stairs.  The Ambassadors' room was set up as a lecture room with two video screens on either side of the speaker's table.  The ceiling is more than two stories high and has timber cross beams in a square pattern.  There are textile hangings of coats of arms high on the walls and very tall french doors.

The lecture was given by Dr Steven Spiteri who has recently published drawing on his PhD work on the Great Siege.  This was the second lecture in a series on this topic.  Arms and armour is not really a great love of mine but some of the detail about the organisation of the opposing forces was interesting.  The knights were trained to fight as individuals rather than strategically as an army and although firearms were introduced, they were slow and clumsy and had to be supported by more traditional weapons such as the crossbow, sword and pike.  Flint-lock muskets were a very slow and vulnerable process and each musketeer had to be protected by two pikesmen.

The cavalry were mostly Maltese noblemen who could afford to provide their own horses and equipment.  Combined cavalry and infantry patrols would be sent out from Mdina for reconnaisance and attack of foraging parties from the Turkish camps.  The knights fought mostly on foot so they sacrificed their lower body armour in favour of mobility.  The knights also provided their own armour and then left it to the armoury when they died.  Double-handed swordsmen were paid extra and were kept in reserve for close combat.

In the Turkish camp, the janissaries were the professional infantry and used projectile weapons and swords as individual warriors.  They fought on their own terms and were so unruly that the Turks had to disband them in later years to enable a modern army where people took orders.  Their armour was designed for mobility and swift attacks, so they were at a disadvantage in siege situations.  The Turkish bow was not effective in piercing armour.  

Turkish numbers were exaggerated by the reports from the knights and these reports had to be toned down when the knights were trying to persuade other nations to send support.  Both the knights and the Turks wore a covering over their armour - robes for the Turks and a tabard with the red and white cross for the knights.

Dr Spiteri closed his talk by wondering why there was such a dearth of artifacts left behind by the Turks.  After such a major siege there would certainly have been a great many objects left behind but very little is now left.  What happened to them?

The photo was taken on Monday in Carnival Valletta.  What story would you tell?

Carnival 2009

From Friday to today, Tuesday, has been carnival time in Malta!  Whenever I have been in Valletta there is an air of excitement with children dressed up, groups of lavishly costumed dancers, extravagant floats and grotesque walking puppets.

I haven't gone out of my way to find carnival.  On Friday, I went up to Valletta for an event that was supposed to happen in the library but it was postponed because of carnival and so I caught some of the dancing in Freedom square.  The costumes are over the top!  Exaggerated shoulders, massive head pieces, huge props and voluminous skirts.  It seems that the dancing groups from each village compete vigorously but I suspect that it is not the dancing that distinguishes them (this is mostly a bit like line dancing) but the costumes.

On Saturday, I had to change buses in Valletta to go to il-Majjistral park.  The buses were only going as far as Floriana because the bus terminal was being used for the huge floats taking part in the procession that evening.  I had to wait for a while at the Floriana granaries and it was great to see all the children dressed in beautiful costumes and shyly walking through with their families.  There seem to be stock costumes - red Spanish ladies, pink princesses and hooped court ladies for the girls; Roman soldiers, courtiers, policemen and fantasy heros like spiderman and batman for the boys.  Each day since then, I have loved seeing costumed children on the crowded buses.  As the weekend wore on, I noticed the children became less shy!

On Sunday, I stayed home but still found carnival.  I strolled down to the market in the morning to get my vegetables and fish and found the square set up with chairs in a big circle and a group of dancers standing ready to perform so I slipped into a front row seat to wait for the action.  The dancers were waiting for mass to finish in the church before the show started.  The sun was shining that day and it was lovely sitting in the warmth!  

The first group did belly dancing although they were well covered against the winter weather and perhaps Moorish decadence.  The costumes were not so extravagant as in Valletta and the dancing was more varied and interesting.  Some teenagers did a medlay around the Beatles songs, particularly 'Mr Postman' and there were a few groups who were dressed in Casino mode with Lady Luck style images.  The biggest contingent were the local Marsaxlokk group who burst on with great energy and lots of noise.

Later, at the other end of the market, I caught a large jazz band dressed in clown costumes and all through the afternoon I could hear the bands performing from my flat where I had the front verandah door open for the first time since winter started.  I think Carnival celebrates the end of winter - there is certainly a feeling of relief around and anticipation of the coming warmth.

When I went up to Valletta again on Monday, all the massive floats were set up in the buspark outside City gate and I got a great series of photos.  The photo that heads the post is of one of the gentler floats.  Many are massively grotesque and show gorillas, octopus tentacles encircling the head of the statue of liberty, pirates and assorted figures of horror.  There are also beautiful masked figures, animals and musical figures.  

Valletta itself was crowded and in the squares down Republic street I found the smaller float figures that are carried by one person walking inside.  These are fun and often show delightful welcoming musical figures as well as grotesque devils riding on friendly frogs or Noddy cars.  Again the costumed dancers and the jester band players were walking up and down the street or chatting in small groups and the costumed children were showing signs of wear and tear!

I was going to a lecture at the Auberge de Castille which I'll write about in my next post and by the time that finished at about 7.00pm, the rain had started again and it was difficult to get out of City gate because people were trying to find shelter in the arcades.  I don't know what impact the rain has had on the floats and it has been raining all day today, the last day of carnival.  But Carnival will certainly go down on my calendar for next year.

il-Majjistral

The culmination of the Maltese Natural Heritage course at University of Malta was a field trip to il-Majjistral nature and history park in the North of the island.  The photo shows the stunning evening sun over the garigue as we were walking back to Golden Bay.

At the final Wednesday evening lecture, we were presented with our certificates by Dr Alan Deidun who was the convenor of the course.  I have noticed his name now in newspaper articles about the environment, most recently an item on the encroachment of more apartment buildings on Mosta valley.  The proposed site for development is remnant garigue with a well-preserved corbelled stone hut.

The girna or corbelled stone hut is a feature of the Maltese rural landscape.  il-Majjistral is dotted with them and we actually went into one and were able to examine the construction closely.  They are mostly built from coralline limestone with inward sloping rubble walls and a slab roof often supported by a beam probably in a similar fashion to the temple roofs.  

We also came across some of the ancient cart ruts that can be found throughout Malta.  How these were formed is still debatable but the consistent distance between two ruts shows that they are man-made.  They are probably associated with Roman quarries.  The question is about wheels or skids, and also whether the cart ruts were carved out beforehand to provide runners or were the result of constant erosion by whatever was dragged over the ground.

I have visited il-Majjistral before with Malta Geographical when we walked through the park from Golden Sands to Mellieha.  This time we had an excellent guide, Annalise Falzon, who has contributed to a very good book about the park published in 2008.  She is an environmental educator with Nature Trust and she can be booked in advance to lead circular two and a half hour walks around the park.  I now have both the book and the booklet on the park so I can start to take visitors there.

As we walked, Analise stopped frequently to point out plants and give them their names.  I can now recognise and remember Maltese spurge, Sicilian squill, Mediterranean stonecrop, Maltese sea Chamomile and wolfbane.  We also saw three varieties of orchids that are in bloom at the moment.  The heather is coming to the end of its flowering season and of course the invasive sorrel that was introduced from South Africa, probably by the British, is everywhere.  There were a few large carob trees shaped by the prevailing winds and some invasive acacias planted by hunters who continue to shape the Maltese landscape.

il-Majjistral was almost lost to a proposed golf course but thankfully was saved probably because it was economically unsustainable rather than because of the rich diversity of flora and fauna that the habitat supports.  Analise pointed out that any environmental study needs to be undertaken over a full year if not longer because many species are dormant for parts of the year and the landscape is constantly changing depending on the season.

The habitat also varies across the plateau and to the cliff edge.  The five layers of deposits that make up Malta show their impact at the cliff face.  The upper coralline layer cracks as the blue clay is squeezed out and the upper layer drops so there are two levels close to the sea with the lower level boulder strewn and rugged.  This makes it hard to access so many rare plants and animals thrive with more water and soil trapped between rocks enabling trees to grow including olives, figs and some carobs.

There are rock-hewn stairways cut into the cliff face and some tiny rubble walled fields have been cultivated at one time on the lower level.  But the stairs are hard to spot to prevent invasive access from the sea.  We also went into a rock-cut square cave cut into the top of the cliff face perhaps as a British outpost or even a bomb shelter though I can't imagine why there would have been bombs dropped in this remote place.  When we entered the park from Golden Bay, we had walked up through the old cave village that we walked past on my previous visit but these dwelling caves are very different  from the cliff edge cave.  There has also been a British army post in the valley area and the garigue shows evidence of their presence in several places.

At the conclusion of the lecture on Wednesday, Dr Deidun told us about a course on marine ecology including some diving field trips that he is convening in July.  I won't be here for that but I have made a note to enroll if they run it in 2010 when I return to Malta.  The more I learn here, the more I discover how complex and deep the world is!

Valletta rings the bell

I spent the weekend at home to try and catch up on domestic matters including my blog.  I'm now almost up to date but I still need to write about the Arts and Culture Department's tour of Valletta on Sunday.  This week I've also spent a bit of time in Valletta because I'm settling on this historic city as the place where I want to live when I come back to Malta.  There is mounting excitement in Valletta this week as people prepare for Carnival that begins tonight and continues until Tuesday.  Yesterday when I went to look at some possible places to live, we couldn't get round some of the streets on the perimeter because of the Carnival floats being set up.

The photo is of a bell now in the stairwell of St Paul's oratory museum which was our first visit on the Sunday tour.  The museum houses an eclectic collection of artifacts including some beautiful brocade vestments.  Our guide was excellent and gave us some interesting snippets of information which I tried to note down but there was too much for me to process.  I did gather that one of the sacramental robes displayed in a glass case was made from the wedding dress of one Angelina who was a founder of the Borg-Olivier family dynasty.

There is also a very old sedan chair, probably 17th century but presented to the knights in 1714.  It is remarkable for its original condition and for the open windows that give clear views of the occupant presumably for processional purposes.  

The museum also houses the base of the statue of St Agatha that can be seen in St Paul's church.  Everybody wants a piece of St Agatha!

Like many religious places in Malta, the museum boasts a Pretti painting.  This one appears very dark to me without the light source that highlights many of his other paintings.  It shows some hero with his foot on the slain body of a vanquished baddie and the guide said it was reminiscent of St George.

The tour was a walking itinerary and it was another wet and windy day so we couldn't really enjoy strolling through Valletta streets and the juggling of different groups took place in foyers rather than outside.  Our next port of call was the old Treasury building, the Casino Royale.  This was where the knights kept their records but items of value were kept in the library.  Each of the different langues (nationalities) of the knights were responsible for a different administrative aspect of the order.  There was also a pecking order amongst the nationalities starting with the three French langues at the top and this was probably reflected in the importance of the different administrative responsibilities.

The British took over from the knights (after a brief interlude with Napoleon) and turned the Casino into a packet station.  Now it is a very exclusive club but I couldn't find out how you become a member.   There was a solitary gentleman sitting in the courtyard reading the newspapers.

We gathered again outside in Republic Street and admired the sun calendar on the front of the building which I hadn't noticed before.  As we walked over to the Oratory of the Carmelite church, I chatted to an English woman who now lives in Valletta.  Her story parallels my own in many ways and this chance meeting has encouraged me to start looking again at living in Valletta when I return to Malta next year.

We sat for a while in the small oratory that is covered in gold leaf with silver ex-votos in glass cases on the walls.  The guide pointed out that the abundance of gold leaf is a modern interpretation of the old style which was much more plain.

Next we walked over to the Auberge d'Aragon.  I have been to a lecture here previously.  The auberge has survived almost in its original state with a portico added.  It was the Grand Drapery, one of the administrative functions of the knights, and there is a list in the portico of all the Grand Drapers!  After the knights left, it became the residence of the Anglican archbishop after the cathedral on the opposite side of the little square was completed in 1844.

Associated with the auberge is Our Lady of Pilar, the patron saint of Spain.  This church belongs to the State rather than the local parish and has been recently renovated with much gilding.  The guide referred briefly to the tension between government and church in relation to St John's co-cathedral.  During the time of the British, the co-cathedral was run as State property.  I'm not sure how this tension has played out in the recent controversy over the underground extension to St John's.

Our final port of call was the Auberge de Bavaria, a splinter group from Germany who brought the number of langues up to eight rather than seven.  Our guide pointed out that the Maltese cross is eight pointed not because of the number of langues which started out as seven, but because of the eight beatitudes.  The British langue of the knights became dormant after Henry 8 split off from the Roman Catholic church.  It was re-instituted in 1782 when it amalgamated with the Bavarian langue.

After the knights, the auberge became a tenement building until it was requisitioned by the government and transformed into offices.  It is now the Lands Department.  We had our lunch in the courtyard here and also went down into the basement which has been recently renovated.

Valletta is now an EU listed heritage city.  Its old buildings have been recycled for different uses over the centuries and although it now looks a little tired and some parts are run-down, I think it is about to move into another interesting phase of re-cycling.  The Opera House and City Gate are to be re-designed, Fort St Elmo at the lower end will be renovated and there will be a ferry service reinstated across Grand Harbour to the 3 cities.  I'm looking forward to being part of that process in a small way.

Ghar Lapsi - the making of Malta

The photo is Filfla, the rock island that split off from the cliffs around Ghar Lapsi.  It looks like an aircraft carrier on the horizon which is probably why the British decided to use it for bombing target practice when they were the dominant power.  It is now protected and is home to an endemic lizard and many seabirds.

The short course I am doing with the University in their old building in Valletta is called "Maltese Natural Heritage" and offers four lectures on Wednesday evenings and two field trips.  Ghar Lapsi was the first of the field trips and was designed to illustrate the excellent lecture on the geological formation of Malta.  I missed the second lecture in the series because I was in Catania and I was relying on an email message from the administrator of the course to inform me about directions for the field trip scheduled for the Saturday on the day after I returned.  When I checked on Friday night I learnt that I could meet up with two other students outside the Hotel Phoenicia in Valletta and would be picked up for the drive to Ghar Lapsi.

Most of the other students on the course are either in Upper Secondary school or undergraduates.  I arrived early at the appointed spot and after a while a young man turned up and I decided he looked like he was going on a field trip so we introduced ourselves.  Next a young women arrived but I thought from her shoes and handbag that she wasn't field trip material so we all stood a little separate and waited.  Our pick up was late but arrived with another University student full of apologies.  I discovered on Wednesday night that this was another of the lecturers on the course whose speciality is fauna.  The young woman was also going on the trip so we all crowded into the back seat and set off.

The driver/lecturer seemed very skillful in navigating the back streets of Malta and assured us we would get to the meeting place on time.  He shot off down and around Marsa avoiding the main road that was crowded with traffic and somehow found country roads that took us down to Ghar Lapsi from a direction I hadn't been before.  He made conversation with the young people by asking them about the courses they were doing but it was hard work for him.  We passed a herd of shoats (perhaps the same herd I noticed before on the Ghar Lapsi garigue) and he and the young man in the front seat who was perhaps a postgraduate student talked about how it was a rare sight these days and that was a good thing because they ate everything they found.  We did arrive at the meeting place on time.

Ghar Lapsi was chosen because it shows very clearly the sedimentary rock structure as well as quaternary deposits left by river action after Malta emerged from the sea.  There is a fault line running all along the base of the cliffs on either side of Ghar Lapsi and in several places we walked along the edge of this fault line.  We set off in the opposite direction to the way we had gone with Ramblers Malta.  It was a lovely day but very windy as we walked along the edge of the sea with the cliffs high above us and a stretch of rich garigue between us and the cliff.  The leader stopped often to point out the key features and at first the track was easy to follow.

I had noticed the caves in the upper cliffs on our previous visit and our leader explained that these were formed by wave action and showed that at one stage the sea had been much higher than it now is.  His teaching style was to try and encourage us to read the story that was in the landscape.  The edges of the fault line told the slow but violent tale of rock grinding over rock for thousands of years, squashing some rocks into a different form and scratching out lines and half circles on the sheer cliff faces as rock slid or pivoted on rock.

At two points along the walk we crossed ancient river courses where water would pour through the cliffs and leave their deposits as the river flattened out briefly before entering the sea.  Here the story to be told is of weather patterns over the years.  Boulders are laid down in layers and the size of the boulders in each layer can be distinctly read and tells us how forceful the flow of water was in that year.  Fine sediment indicates a long period of stability when large shrubs took root.  When the river became active again the shrub was washed out leaving a rhizome root cast that in turn is filled with sediment and writes the story of an ancient shrub.

During periods of draught, the water dries out completely and leaves layers of calcium deposits in the fine sediment so we can read several ages of dry climate.  But there are also places where huge boulders have been deposited in a semi-circle into the fine sediment and this tells of a powerful flow of water that carved a path back into the fine sediment.  

In these quaternary layers, ancient bones have been found similar to those found at Ghar Dalem and whilst we were there, one of the school students found a rock that showed several different fossils.  The inclusion of a sand dollar indicates that the rock had been laid down under the sea, uplifted as part of the cliff when Malta emerged and then washed down the river to be deposited once again in the quaternary sediment.  The look on that young man's face told a story of his dreams for a future career!

Our leader also pointed out some of the flora that we encountered along the way including Maltese splurge and sea lavender.  That will be the focus of our next field trip this Saturday.

Catania PS

The photo is of the Italian Red Cross on bikes at the St Agatha procession!  They are in University square.

I forgot to mention the first part of our excursion on our last day in Catania.  I'm not sure where it was, but I think it was a Carmelite sanctuary.  The reason I wanted to say something about it is because the visit brought home to me how my religious beliefs or lack of them puts me on the outer in the Maltese community.

During the week, the priest who was on the tour with us conducted a short mass each morning in the hotel before breakfast.  That was no problem for me - I simply stayed in bed a little longer.  But for this last visit to the sanctuary, the bus driver had organised for a priest to lead the group in prayer.  We were invited to sit down in the pews and he spoke in Italian so I didn't know what was going on.  It didn't worry me - I simply sat quietly and contemplated the surroundings.

Outside the sanctuary there are orange trees planted in the square and strange, large stone hands stuck out of the walls presumably to hold banners for special occasions.  I learnt from a passer-by that the oranges were not good to eat but were used for medicinal purposes and also made a good marmalade.  The bus driver distributed small pictures of St Agatha.

One of the tour group said to me, "you are not a Catholic."

"No"

"That is why you are not interested."

I was startled because I had not considered that I was conveying a lack of interest.  I mumbled "It isn't that I'm not interested.  I just don't understand."

I have wondered about it since then.  It means that part of me will remain a visitor in an island where Catholic faith is a central part of life.  In Catania, faith was the core that brought all the tour group together but also linked them to the people of Catania.  I can respect and appreciate the community that that faith creates but I can't enter into it at a fundamental level.  

Giarre and Catania shopping

This will be my final post on my five day trip to Catania.  The tour had four excursions and I've posted previously about Ragusa and Acireale.  The tour to Giarre was on Wednesday and it was a strange afternoon.

Giarre is a seaside town - the photo is of the beach area next to the new marina.  Perhaps the EU money that has gone into the new marina will revitalise the town, but the yacht area lay empty when we were there.  The bus dropped us off first down at the marina and we were given half an hour to look around.  The front has a general air of depression - it looks run-down and sad.  Maybe the winter weather didn't help but Giarre added to my impression that Catania is a bit tired.

The bus driver picked us up after we had all rather forlornly wandered down the front and the more adventurous had tried the pebbly beach.  He then dropped us off at the top end of town and we were pointed to the main shopping street which seems to be the major other attraction of Giarre.  I wandered off down the back streets as usual and became intrigued by the construction methods used here.  Everything is slightly crumbling and so I could see how many house walls seemed to be made of rubble that included everything from lava rocks to pieces of tiles and pottery.  I started happily clicking away with my camera and it was a rude awakening when I got the message that my memory card was full!

This gave me a project to pursue when I returned to the main shopping street.  I called in to a cafe for hot chocolate and started my quest to find another memory stick.  It was less difficult than I thought and I found myself in a camera shop where the proprietor rummaged around and found me a suitable (and much larger) stick.  I was back in business but it was time to get back on the bus, so Giarre is not down as one of my must return places.

It may have been Giarre where I found some rather nice desert boots to buy.  Shopping seemed to be one of the major motivations for our excursions.  Visits to two large cut-price retail outlets were included as part of our bus tours.  I hate shopping at the best of times so found it hard to discover interest in wandering round shopping malls.   Apart from the desert boots, I also bought a bright yellow suitcase that won't get lost on airport carousels but all of my purchases were about trying to find enjoyment in an otherwise meaningless expedition.

Our last excursion was on the way to the airport on Friday.  By this time, I had acquired the gastric flu that I brought back to Malta and I had no energy anyway.  Spending two hours in a department store drained me of any enthusiasm for Catania!  I did manage to rouse myself enough to buy two white Italian towels that I had got to appreciate when we were in Catania last year.

My next post will be about our field trip to Ghar Lapsi with the University's Maltese Natural Heritage course that I am participating in on Wednesday evenings.

More on St Agatha

After posting yesterday's piece on St Agatha I had a look on Google.  There are thousands of sites.  I narrowed the range by putting in history but still got far too many so I opened the first one up which was St Agatha's parish church in NSW, Australia.  They had a very brief history that told me that Quintianus was a Roman senator and that St Agatha was martyred around 251AD during the persecution of Christians at the time of Emperor Decius.  This site seemed to be aimed at young people and St Agatha was held up as a role model for saying no to sex before marriage and also for sticking by your faith commitment.

I followed up by searching for Quintianus and strangely I got an article on Quintinus and Marsaxlokk!  It seems that early historians picked up on a history by Quintinus suggesting that there was a temple to Hercules at Tas-Silg (see my previous post) near Marsaxlokk.  This idea was perpetuated and sometimes included the temple site at Birzebuggia even suggesting that the two were linked.  More recent explorations suggest that neither of these sites was dedicated to Hercules and the Tas-Silg site was actually a temple to Isis.  So I went looking for Quintianus and found something else about my home town!

Another site that came up for Quintianus was a Catholic forum site.  Here the story of St Agatha is written in old biblical language and added a few more details to the framework I have gleaned so far.  It seems that when the "lascivious advances" of senator Quintianus were rejected for the first time, he packed Agatha off to a house of prostitution run by Aphrodisia and her nine daughters.  They worked very hard on trying to persuade Agatha that if she took on the senator she would have a life of luxury and comfort.  Of course St Agatha chose to be a cult figure for the next two thousand years rather than become a housewife for a lifetime.  So Quintianus proceeded with the big stick side of his proposition.

The other thing I found out on the religious saints site was that the saint who visited Agatha in her cell after her breasts were cut off was St Peter and miraculously, after he had left having been told by Agatha that she didn't want anyone but the lord to heal her wounds, "her paps were restored."  It also seems that when Agatha was being burnt, Etna started erupting and her veil was used to stop the lava destroying the town.

I took the picture that heads the post on the evening of the third day of St Agatha's feast.  I walked down via Etnea before it got dark and enjoyed watching the candle bearers preparing for the final procession.  University square was the best spot for this.  Most of the candle bearers were men, apart from the two women that I snapped.  There is quite a knack to getting the massive candles going and the bearers carry knives to pare the wax and keep the wicks trimmed.  The padding is to cushion the shoulder once they get moving and the flaming end sticks out behind them so the hot wax drips to the ground.  The whole of the processional route had been covered in sawdust but it still looked to me like a highly risky operation!

As the time for the procession drew closer more and more candle bearers came into the square and got their candles going along the route.  As the crowd was also growing it became more and more difficult for them to get through with the heavy load on their shoulder and I began to feel overwhelmed so I escaped from the square and used some backroads to get into piazza duomo where I slipped into the cathedral.  There was a service going on and it was packed but people were wandering in and out.  One little girl had a massive Minnie Mouse balloon.

When I came out, I threaded my way through the crowded piazza and went through the gate that leads down to the river where there were market stalls set up.  As I came through the gate, something  happened in one section of the market crowd and there was a sudden surge of people away from whatever it was.  I never found out but it worried me enough to turn round and make my way back.  I used the back roads again to make my way further down via Etnea where I tried to establish a place on a corner from where I thought I could watch the parade.

As it got darker, the crowd got larger and larger and it became more and more difficult for me to avoid being elbowed or having a cigarette poked in my face.  The whistles of the candelore heralded the start of the procession but I only managed to hang on until they had reached my corner and then I gave up.  It was no longer fun!  I squeezed out of the crowd and headed off through the back roads to my hotel.  The procession goes on all night but I was in bed before the end of it had left the cathedral!

St Agatha

The paintings and statues depict St Agatha as beautiful and curvaceous with blonde hair and blue eyes.  She is always serene or gazing ecstatically heavenward even when torturers are standing by waving their enormous nut crackers having just cut off her breast.  The only depiction I've seen of her as distressed and powerless is in the dungeons in Mdina, Malta where the life-size model shows her bound and screaming.  Yet even after three days of the feast of St Agatha in Catania, I still feel I haven't moved beyond the cult of St Agatha.

The rituals of the three day feast are amazing.  The streets of Catania are thronged with residents and visitors, the processional routes are decorated with lights and banners, the churches with statues, candles and flowers.  There are fireworks every night and the procession goes on a different route around the city on each of the three days.  It is likely that people who know what to expect and what they want to do can organise themselves to be in a good place at a particular time so that they can engage without having to battle the huge crowd.  I didn't have this luxury so I found that what I enjoyed most was when I stumbled on the procession by chance and when I walked around the route calling in on the churches during non-processional times.

The first day of the feast, February 3rd, I wandered through the street markets towards Via Etnea and caught the eleven candelore for the first time.  The candelore are elaborate candle-shaped constructions carried by a team of six to twelve burly men who wear sacking protection on their heads as they shoulder the carrying poles.  The candelore represent the guilds including floriculturalists, fishmongers, greengrocers, butchers, makers of pasta, grocers, bakers and vintners.  They are so heavy that the bearers can only move them for short distances at a time and then they stop for a while so everyone in the crowd can walk around and look at them.  When it's time to move on, someone blows a whistle so everyone gets out of the way as the bearers bend their knees and take the strain.

I learnt later that this first glimpse was part of the solemn Midday procession when civil, military and religious authorities follow the procession from the church of St Agatha down via Etnea to the Cathedral for "the offering of wax."  Although I saw the candelore often over the next two days, this was the only time I saw the costumed trumpeters and mace bearers with suited dignitaries wearing gongs around their necks.  There were also white horses and carriages with liveried footmen.

On the afternoon of that first day, we went on the excursion to Acireale so missed the St Agatha's International Cross-country race that takes place from 3.00pm through the old and new streets of the town centre.  But after dinner in the evening I managed to catch the fireworks display as I walked down via Etnea towards the piazza Duomo to enjoy the lights.

On February 4th, the procession takes all day to go on the "outside tour"around the outer ring road of the town taking the candelore past the port area and across to piazza Risorgimento and piazza Palestro.  We went on our bus tour to Giarre that day which I will write about in my next post.  In the morning I wandered the streets, refound Teatro Bellini with the poster that heads my last post and caught the candelore again as they came down via Umberto.

Day three, February 5th, is the big day when the procession goes up and down via Etnea stopping at all the places that are significant for St Agatha.  We had no bus trips scheduled today and were organised to have lunch rather than dinner at the hotel so that we could stay in town in the evening.  By this time I had found my guide in English with a street map of the processional route and I decided I would spend the morning walking the route and visiting the places on the way.  

From our hotel on via XX Settembre it is a short walk to piazza Cavour where Chiesa di Sant'Agata al Borgo is located.  In the early days, this square was on the outskirts of the town.  The church is devoted to St Agatha and there was a statue of her at the front with flowers and candles.  When I slipped in, there were several people sitting quietly and I also sat down.  Several people went and stood in front of the statue from time to time and offered flowers or put something in the offering box.  A nun spent some time praying and when a young mother with her daughter went up, the nun showed the little girl how to cross herself correctly.

From piazza Cavour, I walked down via Etnea to Chiesa di Sant'Agata alla Fornace in piazza Stesicoro.  It was here that St Agatha was finally martyred by fire after being held in prison and mutilated.  The story is that it was in piazza Stesicoro that Agatha first encountered the flattery of one Quinziano, who I think I heard somewhere else was from Rome but I have no idea what his position was.  Agatha resisted and somehow Quinziano was able to torture, imprison and burn her.

There is a cluster of significant sites around piazza Stesicoro each claiming an aspect of St Agatha's story.  Two places, the church of Santa Maria dell'Annunziata and also Sant'Agata la Vetere, claim to be the first resting place of St Agatha's first sepulchre as they were both cemetery areas at that time.  Also in this square is the church of Madonna del Carmelo, an important sanctuary.

Nearby, in piazza della Borsa, is the sanctuary of Sant'Agata al Carcere where St Agatha was imprisoned.  A few people went into the tiny underground space, squeezed past an old timber reliquary, through another door and into what is supposed to be the actual cell with a barred window and an elaborate moorish lamp hanging outside.  There is also the footstep of St Agatha miraculously imprinted on a lava slab when she tried to defend herself from her torturers but somehow I missed this.  This is where she had her breast cut off and somewhere I saw a painting of a male saint visiting her in this prison to bring her some comfort after the torture.

The last stop in this cluster of holy places is the church of Sant'Agata la Vetere.  This was the first cathedral in Catania and St Agatha's burial place.  It is too small now to be used in the processions but was significant up until 1094 when the present cathedral site was chosen by the Normans.

After dropping in to all of these sites and spending a few moments sitting and contemplating the steady stream of other visitors, the morning had disappeared so I made my way back through the market squares to the hotel for lunch.  I'll write briefly about the evening procession in my next post.

Catania and Malta

By the third day of wandering the streets of Catania checking out bookshops along the way I managed to track down a S. Agata Guida alla Festa that had English notes and also a DVD about St Agatha that promises English.  But there were no books in English and I think I need that to move beneath the beatific and horrific in the story of St Agatha.  I even called in to the Biblioteca regionale universitario di Catania and asked if they had anything in English on the saint.  They didn't but the woman on the front desk invited me to go in and browse.

I had a great morning wandering down the dusty stacks where I picked up two interesting items about Malta.  The first was in a large volume on contemporary architects where I learnt that Renzo Piano, the Italian architect who has been invited to submit designs for the old Opera House site and the City gate in Valletta, is concerned about the reality of building as well as with design.  I found this re-assuring.

I also found a very useful potted history of Malta that suggested that Malta has been a powerful indicator of the rise and fall of colonial powers.  She has often been in the possession of nations as they emerge into power and of course has been the battleground of nations struggling for supremacy.  So Malta's current status as an independent republic and a member of EU carries in its history a larger picture than the rocks that make up the small island.

Today, this small island continues cold and damp but the sun has come out to start drying things out.  The prediction is that the temperature will continue to drop to 2 degrees by Monday night and then will start to rise.  I shall be happy to feel some more warmth in my bones!  I've freed up the weekend to catch up with my writing but I must get out moving in the sun as well.  

My next post will focus on St Agatha.  The photo is a poster of St Agatha in prison.  It is outside the Teatro Bellini.  Last time I was in Catania, Carol and I went on a guided tour of this lovely baroque theatre.  I wanted to go to a performance here this time but couldn't make the only show that was on - Macbeth in Italian!

Acireale

More padlocks in Acireale!  These are in the Villa Belvedere gardens along with the gold fish.  There is also a calendar date garden here, 3 February 2009.  How do they manage to change these gardens every day?

This is a brief post about our second day visit to Acireale.  In my next post I'll get on to Catania and St Agatha.  Acireale is another of the towns around Etna.  We just missed the carnival there which is on this week but the decorations were already up in the streets and I walked the triangular route of the procession.

The bus dropped us off at Villa Belvedere gardens which is a great starting point with views out over the sea and adjacent to a neatly manicured Tuscan landscape.  There is also a dramatic statue of a woman appealing heavenwards over the prone body of a man with a large rock on his chest. 

Acireale has the usual Piazza Duomo as well as Piazzas Garibaldi and Cappuccini and Europa.  I also noticed some nicely laid out vegetable shops and home-made produce shops (Nostra produzione).  But what I noticed most here were the posters and one in particular for the Festa della democrazia.

In the cathedral, it took me a little while to work out the lines laid diagonally across the floor with star signs running down each side.  Eventually I linked it with the small hole in the dome on one side and worked out that it was a sun calendar.  Every time I begin to think I've seen it all, something else emerges to startle me about the creativity and energy of people who came before me on this planet!

Ragusa

So I set the alarm for 4.30 am and the local taxi arrived for me at 5.15.  When I had phoned the day before, Franky, the taxi driver told me that he was also going to Catania for the feast of St Agatha but on a later flight.  Malta is very much a part of the cult of this saint that I first became interested in when we were traveling down from Rome to Catania in September last year.

The tour group that I was to join at the airport was lead by Paul Cassar from Gozo.  We were based in Catania for five days with bus trips organised for four half days.  This meant that we had plenty of time to explore Catania at our own pace as well as getting to see a few of the towns around Mt Etna.  

Etna is covered in snow at this time of year and forms a stunning backdrop as we drove along the highways of Catania.  When we were here in September, the countryside was very dry and brown but now it is lush and green and almost like the Tuscan landscape.  

The flight over from Malta takes less than an hour and the plan was to board the coach at the airport and visit Ragusa before checking into our hotel in the afternoon.  I was beginning to have doubts as we drove through crowded Catania streets and stopped for coffee and toilet at a strange Catania coffee shop.  When we stopped again at a freeway service station at the request of one of the members of the group I started to wonder what I had let myself in for.

In Ragusa, we drove backwards and forwards through heavy traffic over several bridges that traverse a deep gorge running through the centre of the city.  The driver kept stopping to ask for directions but eventually we were dropped off at the central cathedral square.  We had two and a half hours before we had to be back in the square ready for bus pick-up.  The cathedral is massive and I wandered across the square for a quick look inside as a way of getting myself going.

The amazing arches, domes, ceilings, paintings, gilding, statues, candles, relics have all blurred into a generic image for me now and I didn't spend long inside.  When I came out, I wandered over to one of the bridges over the gorge and walked across to the other side.  I then found back streets that allowed me to wander along the edge of the gorge so I started to recover my pleasure in new places.  

The gorge is stunning as is the valley that I discovered on the edge of town.  But what I will remember most about Ragusa are the padlocks!  I discovered a walking bridge across the gorge, and as I was crossing, looking into the gorge through the iron railings I started to notice padlocks and chains locked onto the bars.  For a while, I couldn't work out what they could be for - maybe the people of Ragusa use them to chain up their bikes here.  I noticed there were names on some of them and I thought that particular people must have the key to each padlock and at a certain time they come and attach something to the railings.  Finally I started to notice that most locks had two names on them, sometimes with words like unity or amor.  My hypothesis now is that two people from Ragusa declare their commitment to each other by putting a padlock on the bridge.  The photo that heads this post is of a small group of these padlocks but there were hundreds of them across the bridge, and since that first sighting, I have noticed padlocks in Acireale as well.

When I got back to the large piazza at the cathedral I climbed the steps onto the massive verandah in front of the church and settled on the parapet to take photos of the square.  There was graffiti along the parapet and there were two padlocks again.  Members of the tour group began drifting in and settling on the benches in the piazza.  Eventually the bus arrived late and we all got back on board to head to the hotel.

Our package included an evening meal and we were checked in with plenty of time to get ready for dinner.  I found myself on a table for six and was to share dinner with the same people for the four evenings.  There was an older couple from Valletta who now live in Hamrun and had been coming to Catania for eleven years  and a very helpful couple from Ghargur who were traveling with their sister.  Victor later told me that he had made an ex voto commitment to St Agatha that if his prayer was answered he would come to Catania and light a candle for her.  That was why they were on the tour and they achieved their goal on the final day of the feast.

Apart from the pasta, the dinners were institutional and English!  But we shared some good Catanian wine and enjoyed the gossip.  Every so often, Vicky, Victor's wife, translated for me when she realised that they had all slipped into Malti.   They told me about Malta's national feast of St Paul which is on today and I am going to look out for them when I go up to Valletta now for the procession.

Back from Catania

This is a promissary note!  I'm back from Catania with hundreds of photos and jumbled experiences.  I've also had a full weekend with a field trip from Ghar Lapsi and a walking tour of Valletta so I'm still thinking about how I want to post all that.  I'm also needing to attend to things like grocery shopping, post office and health centre today so will spend any extra time deciding on photos and posts and will try and catch up during the week.

The photo was taken at the feast of St Agatha in Catania.

Naxxar to Fort Madlena

The photo is of fire buckets in the entrance of Fort Madlena.  

The Malta Ramblers walk yesterday met at the parish church in Naxxar.  This was my first visit to Naxxar and the bus seemed to be re-routed because of some hold-up on the outskirts of the town so it was close to 2.00pm when I got to the steps of the church and was greeted by Dr Gunter.  I had rushed things a bit leaving Marsaxlokk so hadn't managed to have lunch but I brought some Maltese bread with tomato and tuna with me so I sat on the steps to eat as the large crowd gathered for the walk to Fort Madlena.

Naxxar is another town I have made a note to re-visit.  The church is very elaborate from the outside and next to it is Palazzo Parisio and gardens now the home of the Marquis Scicluna family.  When we set of walking through the streets of Naxxar we passed interesting old houses, a curious looking tower and an old windmill converted.  

Our first stop was Ghargur where we stopped on the steps of another medieval chapel.  Dr Gunter pronounced the G in Ghargur and I later learned that this is the anglicised way of pronouncing what should be spoken as Arroor.  We walked along a road from where we had a good view down the valley to Bahar ic-Caghaq and along part of the Victoria lines, a British line of fortification that runs across Malta.  The Ramblers are planning a 7 hour walk along the length of the Victoria lines later in February and I will try and get my name down for this restricted walk.

We rounded a bend and saw a very large apartment development that runs down a whole side of the valley at Madlena.  I learnt from Sylvia who I met some time ago at the Mosta natural environment course that her husband used to ride his bike around these parts when there was nothing there but fields.  Just below the apartments, the road curves over an attractive old arched bridge.

We climbed up the Madlena side of the valley and then turned off to the right to double back to Fort Madlena.  The countryside is looking great just now and the wild fennel is coming into bloom as well as the almond trees.  Dr Gunter had arranged for us to have a guided tour of the fort with one of the volunteers who form part of the St John Rescue Corps.  The Corps, under the auspices of the most venerable order of the Hospital of St John of Jerusalem, use the old British fort which is part of the Victoria lines as their Headquarters and Training School.  They also help to maintain the fort and have put out an information leaflet for Saturday afternoon visitors.

The fort was built in the late 19th century and was dug into the top of the hill for additional fortification.  There are some points as we walked around where I think I could detect some of the layers of rock that were talked about at the Maltese natural heritage course on Wednesday.

It was intended as a heavy-gun fort to guard potential landing points at Salina, St Paul's Bay and Mellieha but the era of invasion by sea was coming to an end, and the cost of firing large guns was so prohibitive that they were rarely used.

The views from the gun emplacements are of course excellent and I noticed several yachts and other small boats taking advantage of the keyhole of sunny weather we were enjoying.  I learnt that the stone surrounds of the gun emplacements used to be painted for camouflage, green in the wet season and brown in the dry season.

By the time we had completed the tour of the fort we were running out of time to return to Naxxar by a circular route and so we walked back the way we had come.  I was glad to meet up with Sylvia and her husband, Malcolm, again and they were able to give me a lift back to Marsaxlokk so I got home before it was dark and in time to start preparing for my trip to Catania tomorrow.  

I have arranged to be picked up at 5.15am to join the Catania group at the airport in the morning so this will be my last post until next weekend.