Photographic Malta

Don Ravey is a retired database consultant who lives in California. He keeps a record of all his travels and interests. He spent February and March 2004 touring Malta and kept a blog to record his daily activities and his numerous photos:

The next photo is a picturesque archway in Valletta, and the last one is looking across Grand Harbour to Fort St. Angelo in Vittoriosa. I also visited the Lascaris War Rooms which are very impressive, where General Dwight Eisenhower and Admiral Sir Andrew Cunningham had offices overlooking the underground war planning operations in the Mediterranean. I'll have photos from that fascinating visit on my travel photos pages soon.

Some of you have inquired about the Maltese Falcon that played a prominent role in the 1941 movie of that name starring Humphrey Bogart. When I first came to Malta I looked in dozens of souvenir shops and was surprised that I didn't see any little Maltese Falcons. When I visited Mdina I chanced upon one shop that advertises that it has the exclusive rights to manufacture and distribute replicas of the movie statue.

They have a web site: http://www.themaltesefalcon.com/ that presents interesting facts about the legend and the movie. But the origin of the connection is that when the Holy Roman Emperor Charles the 5th ceded the island of Malta to the Knights of St. John in the early 16th century, he demanded the token payment of "one black falcon from Malta" to be delivered to him annually on All Saints Day, the 1st of November. Falcons were once native to Malta, but apparently the bombings of World War II drove them all away and they have never returned..