"Malta, Sicily and Dublin" - May 2017
We decided to visit Malta in order to "use-or-lose" some timeshare credits, and were delighted to figure out that we could fly there from Hartford with only one stop -- in Dublin. We'll stay over in Dublin for sightseeing on the way home.
Here are a few photos from our first few days in Malta. We're staying in Mellieha. We had dinner in this cozy restaurant within walking distance. Only seats 18 inside and about the same outside on the sidewalk. Fantastic food.
We took a private tour of Malta, spending most of the time in the capitol, Valletta. It's a beautiful city fortified with a wall in the 1500's, rebuilt in the 1700's. This photo was taken from the harbor.
This is a typical street. Many of the balconies were built enclosed to provide the women from Arab cultures the opportunity to look outside without being seen.
The Cathedral of Saint John is spectacular.
I've forgotten what this building is -- lots of beautiful architecture!
We visited Mdina on our own. It's another smaller walled city first built in the 1400's, which served as Malta's capital throughout the Middle Ages. It's a maze of narrow winding streets and open squares. Almost 300 people still actually live there. Their annual medieval festival was going on so there were lots of visitors, demonstrations, people in costume, crafts, music, etc. Had to get a shot of a Maltese falcon!
Typical street inside Mdina ...
The main square .....
We took a 20 minute ferry ride for a private tour of the second largest island of Malta named Gozo. There were lots of villages with winding roads and a huge church in the center of each.
We visited one of the 27 temples that are on the 2 islands. They date from about 3,000 BC and thanks to extremely careful excavation, are incredibly intact.
This was taken from the highest point on the island. The landscape is overall greener than the main island of Malta.
These are salt pans next to the ocean where salt is harvested.
We walked along cliffs next to the ocean. Notice the huge sheer cliff back at the horizon caused by erosion.
This was taken from the ferry as we were leaving Gozo.
The next day, we took an all day tour of Sicily. We left at 4:45am to get to the ferry which then took 90 minutes to get to Sicily. We got back about 11:00pm so it was a very long day but we're glad we went. First we went to Taormina where we had lunch and spent a few hours exploring on our own. It's a very charming city with lots of shops, restaurants and small hotels on hilly streets. I took the first photo from the bus as it made this harrowing trip up a steep hillside via a constant series of switchback roads. Beautiful views, but there were times when we were holding our breaths as tour buses navigated barely getting by each other on all those tight turns. The rest of the photos were taken as we explored the city. Interestingly, the G7 Summit was held in this picturesque town only a couple of weeks after we visited.
Continuing our exploring Taormina -- we loved visiting this ancient Greek theater in Taormina. It was likely first built in the third century BC and then rebuilt and expanded by the Romans about the third century AD.
This first photo shows some of the stairs you have to climb (bottom right of photo) to get up to the theater.
But it's worth the climb. This is a photo of Paul taking a photo.
Great views ....
and the theater must have really been something in its day.
What a place! These photos only give a small sense of how huge it is.
From Taormina, the bus drove us to Mount Etna in Catania, Sicily. Etna is the tallest active volcano in Europe. It's had a number of major eruptions over many years and continues to have small eruptions. A "small" eruption on March 16, 2017 (two months before our visit!) injured 10 people who were visiting where we were, including a BBC news crew who were able to get some footage (although not much because they all started running 🏃🏾!).
I took this first photo from the back of the cable car that took us up to about 8,000 feet elevation. We're going up the mountain but the camera is pointed looking down the mountain. As you can see, we're above the clouds. Everything is covered with lava stone and ash. It looks like another planet.
This is now looking up at the mountaintop. That white puff is not a cloud. It's steam from the volcano. It's about 2,000 more feet above us but we did not go any further.
The rest of these photos were taken coming down the mountain in a small van. Notice the craters in the distance at first, but then become more distinguishable as we get closer. What an eerie place!
On the way back from Malta, we had such a nice visit to Dublin. It's a very bustling city filled with pedestrians, cars, bicycles and lots of double decker buses. Unfortunately there is presently a lot of construction going on all throughout the city that has something to do with the train system going through the city. Our first night there we went to a rather large sports pub right next to our hotel which had good food and traditional live Irish music and even a few Irish dancers. Such fun! The next day we walked to Trinity College to see the Book of Kells at their library and then to The Little Museum of Dublin which gave a great light- hearted lecture about Dublin's history. We had a 7-course tasting dinner at a small beautiful restaurant. I should not have prejudged Irish food. The dinner was one of the best tasting dinners we've ever had.
Walking through the city:
Still walking - cool and breezy
A small portion of the campus of Trinity College.
The Trinity College Library holds the largest collection of manuscripts and printed books in Ireland. This photo is of the Long Room, the main chamber which has 200,000 of the Library's oldest books. In another area was an exhibit of The Book of Kells. I had no idea what this was all about, but discovered it was completely fascinating. The Book of Kells was written by monks in the 9th century of the four gospels which contains lavishly decorated pages with the most extraordinarily detailed writing and drawings you can imagine. The exhibit provided a great explanation with huge blow-ups of the pages so you can get an appreciation for the process, details and interpretations of the drawings and symbolism. You're blown away when you see pages from the actual book as it's very small. Unfortunately photography was not allowed of this exhibit. But I'm glad I was able to get photos of this Long Room which is stunning.
We stopped for a light lunch at a quirky, eclectic little restaurant. We sat at a little table up on a loft. Very cute place.
***THE END***
