The Sunday Age

5 March 2006

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These small Mediterranean islands have plenty offer, writes Conan Elphicke.

 

You have to look hard to find Malta on a map. A speck in the centre of the Mediterranean, it's dwarfed by pretty much everything around it: Sicily and Sardinia just to the north, Africa hulking to the south. But throughout its long Technicolor history, plenty of people have made the effort. Its size, location and anchorages have attracted an almost embarrassing number of invaders, including the Phoenicians, Carthaginians, Romans, Byzantines, Normans, Corsairs, Arabs, French and British.

 

As a result, the Maltese are one of Europe's more intriguing cultural hybrids. Ethnically they are an Italianate people but, between 870 and 1091, the Arabs controlled the islands and strongly influenced their architecture, language and religion. Many towns still look distinctly Levantine with their cream and white colour scheme, flat roofs and domed, mosque-like churches while a map of Malta would not look out of place in a fantasy novel. Some of its place names are bizarre. Take, for instance, Marsaxlokk, Zebbug, Bugibba, Naxxar, Gharghur, Marsalforn and Xlendi.

 

The capital, Valletta, however, with its grand crumbling buildings and long narrow streets overlooked by enclosed timber balconies is unadulterated baroque. This lavishly fortified city was planned and built by the Knights of St John of Jerusalem, who were given Malta by the King of Spain in 1530. They became the defining influence until Napoleon ousted them nearly 300 years later. The same caramel-coloured limestone used to build its cathedral, palaces and hospitals also went into its huge forts, redoubts and walls.

 

I found Valletta to be compact and extremely walkable. The city's main attractions are St John's Co- Cathedral, with its restored Caravaggio masterpiece The Beheading of St John the Baptist, as well as the majestic Grand Masters Palace, which is now home to the Maltese Parliament but largely open to the public.

 

Like Valletta, Malta as a whole is small enough that even when you get lost (the signage is erratic) you won't remain so for long. The country comprises the main island of Malta, Gozo to the north-west and the barely inhabited islet of Comino in between. Regular ferries link Malta and Gozo. While Malta's countryside isn't exactly pretty, in summer the country goes berserk with the colour and pomp of countless festas (festivals) based around the island's 350 sizeable churches.

 

And all year round, it's the history that most impresses. Some of Malta's 23 Neolithic temples, for instance, date back more than 5000 years. Though the Maltese have probably been invaded more often than anyone else, they aren't pushovers. The Knights could not have driven off the Ottomans without them, a lesser people might not have withstood the Luftwaffe, and when Napoleon's troops began looting the country in 1798 the locals mutinied and forced them out the following year.

 

Enter the British. 'For the Knights, Malta was their home,' said Frank Theuma, a Maltese teacher I spoke to on Gozo. 'For the British it was a stationary warship on which there happened to be the Maltese. Oh dear. How annoying.'

 

Malta's strategic importance to the British can be seen in the fortifications they left behind, most of them erected on either side of Valletta and the Three Cities to protect the Grand Harbour. Fort Rinella for instance, built in 1878, has been nicely restored. It sports the largest muzzle-loading cannon ever built: the 100-tonne Armstrong gun.

 

When Britain withdrew from the islands in 1964 it was the first time Malta had enjoyed independence since the Bronze Age. In the 40 years since it has made tourism its largest money-spinner, though in the past few years the industry has slumped as trendier destinations have opened up elsewhere in the region. But while the crowds have thinned, the infrastructure remains intact, making it easy to enjoy this curious microcosm of Mediterranean history.

 

IF YOU GO

Air Malta and British Airways fly direct from the UK; Alitalia from Rome or Milan. There are also plenty of chartered flights. When to go: Spring or autumn, though Malta stages a series its festas in late summer. Visas: No visa required for Australians for up to 90 days. Go to visitmalta.com

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