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Deputinize America
So in February 2024, we made a decision to go see Malta, a place we’d never been, and to see it during Carnival, just prior to Lent. You’ve already seen the photos from the first leg of this trip, a layover in Milan – something which really set the tone. The sense of history there is overwhelming, as it has been a cultural crossroads for millennia, and we stayed in two locations over the course of 10 days or so, engaging in multiple tours and adventures along the way.
Our first portion involved a stay in Valletta, essentially a planned Crusader city built a few centuries after the Crusades. Here are some salient points about Malta:
- Valletta sits astride one of the finest natural harbors in the world, and was so defensible that the Brits eventually broke the will of the Axis to continue the Siege of Malta during WWII.
- Valletta has an incredible accumulation of Michelin-starred restaurants for a modest sized city (more on that).
- Language in Malta is complex. Because of its crossroads status, there are a great number of borrowed words, but roughly 60% of the base language is Semitic due to the prevalence of Phoenician/Carthaginian ethnic heritage dating from roughly the 18th century BCE onwards. Oddly enough, the written characters are essentially Roman, and the culture is definitely Latin Catholic. Ultimately, signage looks like crazy town, because the letter combinations look odd to English, Romance and German speakers. For an added bonus, when Maltese people visit Tunisia or other parts of the Arab world, they find that they understand that language by ear.
- Humans have been present on Malta since neolithic times, although there appears to have been a thousand year abandonment.
- The history consists of multiple periods of conquest and partial assimilations, although the Maltese seemed to do a great job of maintaining core aspects of culture and character.
- Food is unique, with southern Mediterranean flora and fauna being seasoned by very Middle Eastern spice preferences.
First morning at the city walls, awaiting the parade.
Detail on Float
Costuming was intense
We stayed at the Iniala Harbour House, which was, like every other lodging, a boutique establishment in a 16th or 17th century building. It also had an attached restaurant.
This was our menu from our first evening – it was a Michelin Star rated place, and this meal was offered with wine pairings (cocktails were lovely, too). We chose the premium wine pairing package, and made it nearly a five hour experience. I won’t say that we crossed the 4 figure Euro mark, but it was damned close and rates among the 10 best meals I’ve ever enjoyed.
The view from the balcony was great, but your photographer struggled with camera settings and won’t subject you to bad, blurry pics.
This thing was massive, and has been a work in progress for centuries. For St Elmo protected the entry to the harbor, and has massive walls, and was built by the Knights of St John (they were unceremoniously booted from Rhodes by the Turks, and a Spanish king basically handed them this rock to govern). First Italian, then German forces pounded it mercilessly up through 1942, but despite privation, starvation, dehydration, and constant bombing, Valletta’s people and the British forces held on.
it is now the site of the National War Museum, with articles on display dating to neolithic times.
This is part of the museum space, and was part of the hospital. Currently, it also serves as a conference gathering spot (it was used as the meeting place for George H.W. Bush and Mikhail Gorbachev in 1989, for instance). It is somewhat threatened at its lowest levels by incursions of sea water from rising oceans.
By day, breakfast is served in the ION Fusion restaurant space. This is a less hungover view of the harbor.
This is more or less a typical street in Valletta, with many Maltese balconies visible. Because Valletta is basically a tall rock, the city rises dramatically and has many, many steep stairways, and buildings are nearly terraced in affect. As I remember, I took it on a pedestrian walkway and the backside of my hotel was halfway down on the right.
Just one of the many structures that were purpose built by the Knights of St John.
Baud
Neat. Thanks for sharing.
eclare
What an interesting trip! That menu looks amazing, I like the idea of a dessert named “perpetual lemon curd.”
Layer8Problem
A unique place I’d love to see, thank you. And damn, that menu.
otmar
I spent 4 days in Malta last September. I really should start sharing pictures again.
sab
That unicorn float is very creepy. Remimds me of clowns.
WendyBinFL
Wow, that tasting menu is wild! Were you served a bite of each dish, or did you get to pick and choose? Was the ibis celeriac actually… the waterfowl? (Flocks of them live in my neighborhood.) Five hours of exotic splendor!
Winter Wren
We were in Malta (mostly Gozo) around Thanksgiving last year and spent a few nights in Valletta. Fort St Elmo and the National War Museum were fascinating!
HinTN
Agree with all about the menu, but bluefin tuna in coal oil?
Amazing place, thanks for taking us there.
MagdaInBlack
@WendyBinFL: I’m a wee bit troubled by the pork and eel doughnut….I have questions
@HinTN: Whoa, didn’t catch the coal oil condiment.
Now I have more questions.
eclare
@MagdaInBlack:
I wonder about the frozen cheese. Assuming it freezes like everything else, does it have the consistency of ice or more like ice cream?
stinger
What a fabulous trip!
p.a
Fascinating!
WaterGirl
@otmar: yes!!! :-)
Layer8Problem
Yup, coal oil seems to be a thing. From the Wikipedia:
“The term ‘coal oil’ is sometimes used in the context of food; it is not mineral coal oil as discussed in this article, but edible vegetable oil infused with wood-derived charcoal for flavour.”
The name doesn’t sell it, in my opinion.
HinTN
@Layer8Problem: That’s (somewhat) comforting.
sab
@HinTN: If it were actual coal oil it would be outright toxic.
sab
@otmar: Yes, please.
MCat
Fascinating place. Great photos. Thanks!
sab
If you look up the Maltesian language, no wonder Mayor Pete is so good at languages. His father was from Malta and his mother is a linguist. Semitic language structure with Romance language vocabulary. Then his native language ( English) was Germanic.
JML
Great pics! we went to Malta when I was a kid and it was a cool trip. Would go back again for sure.
During the worst of the DOGE depredations a friend of mine in the federal civil service sent me an article on the best places for US citizens to retire to outside of the US, and Malta was on the list. My sister and I half-seriously started talking about it…
twbrandt
What a fascinating place! I’d love to visit.
The mother of a friend of mine was Maltese, and he was able to get Maltese citizenship which he intends to use if things go completely to hell here.
Scott P.
The reason folks from Malta can understand Tunisian by ear is that Maltese is a dialect of Arabic that has significant borrowing from Italian, with zero or almost zero “Phoenician” or “Carthaginian” elements, although national pride means they can’t really say that.
See discussion here: https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=64045
Ph64n
My middle son lives in Xlendi, Gozo, and I took his two brothers to visit him in December, 2024. Valletta was all lit up for Christmas, plus they were celebrating the 50th anniversary of Independence from Britain. There were lots of reasonable VRBOs on Malta and Gozo. If you go, there is a VRBO within the Citadel on Gozo. The Citadel is a 500+ year old World Heritage nominee, and the three-bedroom apartment is close to the belltower (fair warning: The bells go off every hour, and go crazy at 6, 7 and 8 am).
We didn’t eat anything like that menu, staying with small cafes and restaurants. Get the pastizzi for breakfast (peas, chicken, ricotta fillings were common and delicious at about 70 cents each), or the ftira (a wide sandwich with anything that fed two for 5 Euro). If you are on Gozo, make reservations at Cafe Vosotros in Victoria for lunch or dinner. It’s not expensive, but it is always packed. They had the best fried chicken in Malta. Gozitan wines are inexpensive and drinkable.
And if you go, download Bolt and Wolt apps to your phone, Euro versions of Uber and Doordash. They have Uber, but Bolt was always cheaper. I don’t think we ever waited longer than 5 minutes for a ride. Oh, and everything is uphill, both ways, so wear good shoes.
Ruckus
I’ve been to Malta and it is delightful!
I was lucky when in the USN, in that the ship I was stationed on was most of the time actually doing NATO duty, so I got to visit a lot of Europe. Actually much of the Atlantic ocean bounded countries, from Antartica (which I’ve stood on) to the very north of Norway, and much in between. A wide variety of countries and human beings, much of it with history far older than the history of USA. I’ve told some of the stories here before. But one thing is that most of the countries histories are far older than ours. Some had far smaller numbers of humans living in them but then this was over half a century ago. Most of them had aged extremely well.
J.
So interesting! Thanks for sharing!
Deputinize America
@WendyBinFL: about two-three bites per dish- it was amazing.
I’d have answered earlier, but we’re in Florence now.
Deputinize America
@eclare:
More like ice cream.
BigJimSlade
Interesting place! Crazy menu – I, too, was wondering about the coal oil (which Layer8Problem kindly explained – I had googled it but didn’t find anything good at first glance).
exbarrowboy
We had a week in Malta back in 2018, staying for a few days in Valletta and then in a hotel in Mdina.
My wife had done the research to book in advance to visit the “hypogeum”, an underground neolithic structure that was discovered when builders were excavating to build a well for new houses being built in the early 1900s. The entrance is effectively just one ordinary house in the ordinary street that the builders were working on. https://heritagemalta.mt/explore/hal-saflieni-hypogeum/
As a schoolkid I remember reading a book in the school library about the WWII siege of Malta and one particular convoy taking supplies where they managed to get a tanker, the SS Ohio, into Valletta harbor with a destroyer on each side to keep her afloat. Seeing the harbor gave some extra perspective on that.
From our place in Mdina we could walk the city walls and it seemed that every other day was some kind of saint’s day and a reason to let off fireworks. On a different trip to the UK we found that an old work colleague couldn’t show up at a reunion because he had a sideline hobby/profession of doing firework displays and was off to Malta on some kind of commission.
Gloria DryGarden
@Deputinize America: when I was in Florence in 1979, they had the unfinished Michelangelo marbles on display. A whole hall of them. I wish you could see them.
Gloria DryGarden
@sab: I didn’t know this about Mayor Pete. He must have grown up speaking several languages.
Being bilingual makes more pathways in the brain, meaning it makes you smarter. No wonder.
sab
@Gloria DryGarden: My Chinese brother in law from Shanghai thinks that is why Shanghai is booming with international trade. They speak Shanghainese at home, but when they go to school at age six it is all Mandarin. A foreign language to the little tykes. So they start school learning a second language.
Later in life when they have to learn English or German or Japanese, or Cantonese, they already are bilingual. A third or fourth language isn’t that big a deal.
My brother in law speaks Shanghainese, Mandarin, English, Japanese, possibly Cantonese, and some Korean.
Beijing people only speak Mandarin. American level language skills. That is a disadvantage in world trade.
fancycwabs
My boss’s twin sister is an ex-pat living in Malta and he claims she’s singlehandedly responsible for the presence of Dr. Pepper on the island.
Debbie(aussie)
Thank you so much. That was absolutely amazing. What an amazing place for history buff or just the curious.