Csíkszereda musings

Writing in his blog in Romania, Andy H writes about his discovery of Malta:

Malta is (to me) the most obscure country in Europe. Even places like Andorra or Belarus, Liechtenstein or Iceland, seem somewhat higher up in my consciousness than Malta. I didn’t even really know where it was (and I pride myself on my atlassic knowledge – if one can have atlassic knowledge, and not just encyclopaedic knowledge of atlases). I knew it was in the Mediterranean, that it was an island, and that it had some long standing links with Britain. Beyond that there really wasn’t much..

Valletta, the capital, is an old city, which is a UNESCO thingamajig. It has an odd motto/branding slogan which is “A city built by gentlemen for gentlemen”. In the old days the word “gentlemen” meant “posh blokes” but these days it seems that it means “blokes who go to strip clubs”. I presume the gentlemen bit in the slogan refers to the knights rather than sex tourists. There is an even older capital than Valletta, though, which we visited on our brief tour – that is M’dina (which was pretty funky, though not particularly cold).

It is a small island, and it appears to be almost entirely built up. Certainly in the eastern end of the island in which we spent most of our time, it is basically impossible to ascertain where one “town” ends and another begins. It’s sort of an ancient European Singapore or Hong Kong, though the crumbling nature of some of the buildings and the ancient buses actually put one in mind of Havana at times. The national food appears to be rabbit, which is understandable since there is no real room to breed anything larger..

I’d do my usual “name 5 famous” routine, but I have to admit I’m struggling myself. There’s Michael Mifsud who plays up front for Coventry, and Tony Drago the mid-ranked snooker player, and after that, I can’t really think of any. Edward de Bono, apparently is one. That’s about it (as far as I know)...