Salina Bay (Salina Bay ~ Malta)

 15 October 2022

Our final port of call for our last few days in Malta was in Salinas Bay. Called Salinas as it is home to some truly massive salt pans.

We choose Salinas as out base as from there we could do day trips to Vittorosa and Valetta (places we wanted to visit but really did not want to try and drive into).Vittorosa is part of a massive natural harbor that includes Valetta.

What isn't obvious in the picture above is that every one of these promontories into the harbour are seriously fortified and walled.

Nowadays the harbours are home to lots and lots of very big and expensive super yachts.

and with each yacht there were the associated super cars.

Unfortunately, at this stage, we had both picked up a bit of a bug (snore throats, cough, temperature etc) so after Vittorosa we decided to have a day of doing nothing except sunbath and relax at Golden Beach.

Valletta was built by the Knights of St John and is squashed into an area 1km long by 600m wide and it's founder decreed that it should be a city "...built by a gentlemen for gentlemen..." and that charm is still present today. A major plus being the heart of the city is pedestrian only so wandering around was a joy.

In the center of Valetta is St John's Co-Cathederal which is famous for being the home to the Hospitaller Order of Saint John of Jerusalem, of Rhodes, and of Malta, aka the Knights of St John (a Roman Catholic religious order). The cathedral was built in the 1500's. The ceilings and walls are decorated in the baroque (over the top) style and take your breath away.

The floor is covered in ornate marble slabs which are just a little bit creepy as every single one of them is a grave stone.

One of the more famous, and very un-PC, painting depicting the nasty moors being trampled over by the order of the Knights of Malta.

For the geeks out there Malta, in particular Valetta, was used for som on-site filming of the last Jurassic  Park Movie and in celebration of that movie as temporary statue of the velociraptor "Blue" has been  installed.

From the gardens in Valletta there are nice views to the entrance of the harbor and to Vittoriosa. Woe betide any enemy warship sailing in here as they would have been pounded upon from all sides.

The other really big sight that we wanted to see was Ħal Saflieni Hypogeum. Getting tickets is not the easiest as they only allow about 50 people per days to visit the Hypogeum and when we looked online to try and get tickets two months earlier there were only two possible tours, we could go on in the 10 day period we were in Malta. Numbers are restricted so as to control the impact of light, carbon dioxide and moisture from visitors has on the walls of the temple.

The Hypogeum of Ħal Saflieni is a Neolithic subterranean structure about 5,500 years old. The Hypogeum is thought to have been a sanctuary and necropolis, with the remains of more than 7,000 people found and is among the best preserved examples of the Maltese temple building culture that also produced the other Megalithic Temples on Malta and Gozo.

The Hypogeum was discovered by accident in 1902 when workers cutting cisterns for a new housing development broke through its roof. Excavation of the Temple started in the early 1900's but real attempts to preserve the structure didn't really start until the lates 90's. In the intervening period it had been open to visitors, excavated (and some of the excavated material simply tossed away), used as storage chambers, animal pens, bunkers during the war and so on.

All of the subterranean chambers were carved out of limestone using basic stone and horn tools and were carved to as to look as though they were made out of solid slabs of stone.

In some of the chambers the ceilings are decorated with strange patterns using ochre. This artwork was near destroyed as once the Temple was open to the air and visitors allowed the chambers were subject to large amounts of light, water vapor and smoke. 

Got lucky and on our last night in Malta found a restaurant serving Lampuki aka dolphin fish for dinner. 

What's fascinating is the way the fish is caught. In a technique known as "kannizzati", local fishermen cut down the lower fronds from palm trees which they then weave into large, flat rafts.

These rafts are then put out to sea. As the sun reaches the highest point in the sky, the lampuki seek shade under the rafts.

The fishermen wait for a large number of fish to gather before casting a net over them. This is a technique that has not changed since the Roman times.

From here we next fly to Kuala Lumpa for a few days of rest, relaxation and eating before heading home to NZ. Can't say I'm looking forward to the flight as it will be about 17 hours of travelling as we hop from Malta to Cypress to Dubai to Malaysia.