Christmas Interlude: Malta (III) To Gozo!

I spoke before about the way religion permeates the country’s life. In the U.S. for example, there are always court cases during the Christmas season with people suing for the removal of religious symbolism or the inclusion of as many major symbols of other faiths as possible. This issue didn’t seem to exist in Malta as there were nativity scenes in almost every public or government building. The airport, the hotels, sidewalks, and church and public squares were all bedecked with a manger, Mary, Joseph, and baby Jesus. The elaborate detail included in some was simply astounding. There was one in a hotel that had an entire village with walled buildings and several floors with running water and tens of inhabitants. Almost all the harbour-side streets were draped in Christmas lighting as well.

To Gozo

Malta is actually made up of two islands in addition to that of Malta: Gozo and Comino. I was lucky to visit Gozo with a very adventurous friend who decided to climb cliffs and go diving off of them. I would have too! but it was too cold for my Caribbean taste :D! Below are a few of the places I visited while in Gozo. You should be able to spot the sites in the labelled photo gallery below.

MĠARR – This is Gozo’s main harbour with its many fishing boats, yachts and ferry boats.

RAMLA BAY – Its golden-reddish sand makes this beach different from all others in Gozo and Malta. Its real Maltese name is Ir-Ramla il-Ħamra – the RedSandy Beach.

SAVINA CREATIVITY CENTRE – Cool place where local creative products are created, packaged, and sold.  such as taffy, sea salt, and olive oil.

MARSALFORN – A popular seaside resort. Reputed spot where St. Paul was shipwrecked on the way to Rome from Malta.

TA’ PINU SANCTUARY  – Basilica of Ta’ Pinu.

DWEJRA – With its famous Azure window. This is where my adventurous friend decided to jump off a cliff into the treacherous waters below to climb a big rock amidst the waves.

VICTORIA (known locally as Rabat)- Visited the Citadel, which one of the highest points on the island.

XEWKIJA –  A church dedicated to St. John The Baptist and is the Seat of the Knights of the Order of St. John.

Christmas Interlude: Malta (II)

Being a small country, Malta has served as a neutral territory for meetings between the Cold War rivals George H.W. Bush and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. Upon Independence the country retained the British Monarch as head of state, but eventually became a Republic, although remaining in the Commonwealth to the present. Interestingly, the Knights Hospitaller when expelled by the Napoleonic forces asserted their claims to sovereignty and under international law is one of the few sovereign entities not to possess one of the traditional perquisites of statehood: land (much like the Holy See before the establishment of the Vatican City State). Today it is a permanent observer at the United Nations.

The rules for alcohol consumption were also less struck than they are in the US. I was never asked for ID and even the tour boats and buses sold beers on while in transit. Food was simply splendid! It ranged from very expensive fresh seafood to cafes and daily-baked pastry goods.

It was really cool to have a colleague from university who’s Maltese, spoke Maltese, and was home for the break with us. She was able to arrange a tour with some really important people from the Maltese Parliament. The tour provided me with much information about politics and culture in Malta. Quite interesting was the possible extinction of the Maltese language or culture due to the ever-encroaching dominance of languages like English and increasing globalisation. Part of the history of Malta revolves around it’s involvement with the Allied forces during WWII. When visiting the city of Mosta, I was able to view the Church of the Assumption of Our Lady where a German Luftwaffe bomb dropped though its dome but fell to the floor amidst Mass with 300 worshipers unexploded. The church’s dome is the third largest in the world after St. Peter’s in Rome and the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul. Local legend attributes the miracle to intercession of the Virgin and a replica of the bomb is held on display within the church’s sacristy and its entry spot in the dome is painted a faint yellow against the otherwise white ceiling. The church, like many others in Malta was simply inspiring in composition and decoration. I’ve always enjoyed deciphering latin inscriptions and biblical paintings hidden within the ubiquitous iconography.

Christmas Interlude: Malta I

I haven’t written anything in quite a while! I’ve been extremely busy with my vacation-turned-Masters-degree trip to Europe 😦 :D.

Well, I’ve finally got a break for Christmas and enjoyed it with a few good friends in the Mediterranean on the island of Malta. At less than £90 round trip, the flight there was a really good price. I used Thompson airlines, which offered a holiday service to the island and was allowed one checked bag and one carryon. Some of us stayed at a really cheap hotel that checked in at about 115 Euro for the full 7 days. The weather was beautiful and sunny: a wonderful >10 degrees more than London’s frigid 8-10°C. My hotel, nor the other hotel used by others in my group provided complimentary wi-fi, but free wifi was easy to find at numerous cafes and food stands along the coast where we stayed in Sliema. In the first few days, I was able to visit other cities (really little communities more than distinct cities) of Valleta, San Giljan (St. Julian), and Gzira. In Malta, the official languages are Maltese and English. Many of the signs were written in English to my simultaneous relief and chagrin. I learned the word for “street” in Maltese is “Triq,” which prefixes streets’ proper name (Triq Tas-Sliema = Sliema Street).  In Malta, tourism is a big source of GDP. There were lots of hotels, tours, and cheap easy transportation to and from the airport.

The Island’s history is filled with conquest and occupation including that of the Spanish, the Knights Hospitaller, French, and the British. Many of the things to which I have grown accustomed in the UK were present in Malta such driving on the left, and the chunky three-prong wall socket. There were traces of Arab and European (mainly Italian) influences in the language and family names. Being a 98% Roman Catholic country, the people proudly referred to themselves in a cultural and national way as “Catholic” and crucifixes visibly graced their shops and public buildings. Churches dominated the landscape, with domes and bell towers on almost every horizon and their monuments regularly consisted of crosses and hagiography, with almost every other site bearing a name related to Christ or the saints.

On Christmas day at noon, the entire country it seemed was awash with the sounds of bells in celebration of the Christian high feast. It was a really beautiful experience, that really filled me, as a student of political science, with awe at a modern Western democracy so actively claiming a visible religious identity. Even when we went to watch a movie, the theatre featured a Christmas choir with the most melodic voices! -> I’ve attached a short vid!

In the short while I was there I learned so much about Malta’s history and elements it shared with other countries. Many older Maltese churches had two bell towers with a clock on each, one with the right time and the other with the wrong time, historically, to fool the devil about what time the mass was to be held. You should be able to see this architectural phenomenon in some of the photos I’ve uploaded.

One of the coolest things about visiting places with such a rich and ancient history as Malta is its ability to recall its past through preservation and awareness, while at the same time introducing modern conveniences into the process. For example, you’ll see shiny metal elevators running on electricity alongside ancient limestone fortresses or a gargantuan oil rig sitting for repairs in the middle of a centuries-old harbour.

Related Articles

• Wonderful Christmas Time in Malta (axhotelsmalta.wordpress.com)

Video Post: My First Night Train (Prague to Budapest)

Although it would be my last time traveling through the Prague subway, I was so excited that I would be traveling on my first night train! My next stop was Budapest, Hungary, and although there were many earlier trips I could have chosen, I decided to pay the 14 euro reservation fee for a bed in a couchette on the overnight train. I don’t know what the full fare would have been, but I’m happy I had a Eurail pass and didn’t have to worry about that :-). My main reason was to cut lodging costs. I needed to get to Hungary and I needed to sleep: night train solves all. Cheaper than the cost of a hostel stay, I was able to save all around on money and time and I recommend it to anyone who’s interested in backpacking.

The only negative in my plan was the long wait I had in the train station between my last scheduled daylight activity and the train that left almost at midnight. Being closer to the North pole in the summer meant that the “day” was much longer throughout all my European adventure than it would have been in Florida at the time. At least, that sounds like something I remember from high school geography that sounds like it’s right!

Well, after paying to use the restroom and finding that one of them had been closed for the night (I have no idea why, if you have to pay to enter any way), and being offered narcotics while thinking that I had lost my luggage to a closed storage facility, I finally saw my train on the arrivals board!

Given permission to board the train, I searched the door tags for my room and found to my surprise that the other bed would be left unoccupied that night. I made a video of my exploring the amenities offered in the sleeping cabin that I hope will convey the comfort and utter awesomeness I felt that night!

Video Post:The Prague Castle Complex

Parts of this sprawling medieval castle compound, the largest Europe, can be spotted at almost any point in the old city.

 According to the Guinness Book of World Records, the Prague Castle is the largest coherent castle complex in the world, with an area of almost 70,000 m². [1]

Although collectively referred to as “the castle,” the many buildings that make up this mega-fortified mini-town include at least four churches, four palaces, over five gardens, and is home to shops, government offices, and museums. Today, the castle is the seat of the President of the Czech Republic and represents as the historical and political centre of Prague and the Czech state.

One of the churches: Basilica dedicated to St. George

• Main Architectural Style: Romanesque / Baroque (facade)
• Extras: Benedictine Convent
  • Abbess possessed the right to crown the Queen consort of Bohemia
• Royal/Sacred tombs:
  • Prince Vratislav
  • Boleslav II
  • St. Ludmila

St. George’s Basilica, Prague, Czech Republic – See if you can spot it in the video!

The Cathedral of St. Vitus, St. Wenceslaus and St. Adalbert

• Main architectural style: Gothic
• Designations:
  • Roman Catholic Cathedral, Seat of Archbishop of Prague
  • Basilica
• Famous:
• • Biggest Church in Czech Republic
• Curiosities:
  • The church is owned by the Czech government
  • St. Wenceslas:
    • One of a small group of royals to have been canonised by the Catholic Church
    • He is one of the patron saints of the Czech state
    • He is the “good King Wenceslas” mentioned in the 1853 Christmas carol by John Neale
    • He died a Duke of Bohemia, but was raised to the dignity of a king after his death by Holy Roman Emperor Otto I

St. Vitus – Prague, Czech Republic

I didn’t have enough crowns (Czech money) left to purchase a trip up the bell tower and they wouldn’t take credit cards or Euro. Everywhere else took Euro (with a slight fee), but those volunteer girl guards weren’t budging for poor littles tourists like myself. 😦

Video I made of walk through much of castle complex:

Related Articles

• Priceless Prague (goudenleven.wordpress.com)
• Sightseeing: Praha (studyabroad.joshuascriven.com)
• The End of the Road: Prague Castle (briefhiatus.wordpress.com)

Night Wandering

I had made free reservations to see the Bundestag (yes, you need reservations to go inside the cool glass dome). Because I had arrived a few hours later than originally planned, I wasn’t able to take the tour and only got to see the German federal government buildings from the outside. I know I missed something special, but I was not to disappointed, because as I continuously discovered, the Germans sure know how to impress! Outside the Hauptbahnhof (on the Washingtonplatz side) there was a huge area for events that had large photo displays with work from local artists set up like a maze. There were also two outdoor bars with flashing neon lighting (I like flashing neon lights, that’s why I mentioned this). I crossed the bridge near the plaza (Friedrich-List-Ufer I think it was) that had a man-made beach area under it on the other side. It was too packed for me to order anything, especially because everyone there seemed to be in groups.

I ended up strolling down the “pier” and ended up in an open area with two large walls on either side. To this day I don’t know what those two walls were for, but they seemed to funnel your attention, and large crowds perhaps, towards  a really tall building. Not until I went closer did I realize that that building and the others that were emblazoned with light were the ones I had always read so much about. To my right was the Bundeskanzleramt (Germany’s head of state is a Chancellor or Bundeskanzler, his staff are housed in this building). To my left was the Paul-Löbe-Haus, a building associated with the Bundestag (German federal lower legislative chamber) that has extra office space for MPs. In the video, this is the building that is in the final freeze pane. Walking further, I was able to pass over the wonderfully manicured lawn with fountains in front of the majestic Reichstagsgebäude, the German Parliament building for the lower house, the Bundestag. My camera doesn’t take great night video or photos, so I didn’t take that many, but I think the ones I posted didn’t turn out too badly.

As I walked down Dorotheenstraße, I saw the amount of building space dedicated to parliamentary purposes was astounding, considering most office spaces I’d seen for the same before were relegated to one square or block. Now that I’m looking at the Google map, I can see what I was unable to at night: that the building is divided into sections and each section has its own courtyard. Turning onto Unter den Linder from Wilhelmstraße I was able to see what I considered the most beautiful sight of the night: the Brandenburg Gate. A restored former wall of old Berlin the old city.  It reminded me of other triumphal arches around Europe I had seen, but the neoclassical design, sheer size (up and out), and brilliant lighting led me to believe that it must have been a modern creation. Further research proved otherwise: Wikipedia.

As I knew I had an early day ahead of me, and the fact that everything was so quiet in the darkness, I decided to head back to the hotel with no stories of sordid drinking and revelry or the like.

Tips for next time:

1. Don’t rely on tour guide maps being available after dark.
2. Plan out night spots (events or photo ops) so you don’t wander aimlessly in the dark without knowing where the nightclubs or fun spots are.

Below is a very short video of me snooping around the train station outside the Bundestag. Pretty audacious having it so close to government buildings. Also thought it would be cool to show a bit of the opulence dripping off the smoothly polished stone. Standing by my opinion that Berlin knows how to impress!
Also, I uploaded the Germany Facebook album just now. Get it here.

Related Articles

• Berlin Part One (studyabroad.joshuascriven.com)
• 48 hours in Berlin (morganwiltshireblog.com)