Ben Simon

Ben's Journal is a random collection of comments and thoughts. In this post he discusses a trip to Malta:

When we woke up this morning, we had a surprising site - our porthole, which all yesterday was filled with endless blue, was now filled with the skyline of a clearly Mediterranean country. We were officially in Malta. We had a quick breakfast, and fled the boat. Rather than using one of the cruise offered trips, we decided we'd wing it. There's only one small detail - we had no idea what to see in Malta. So, last Saturday night, while in Barcelona, we used the free WiFi to do our research. Along the way, we recorded various waypoints to use for reference.

Our plan was to first find the main bus station, and then find the Ghar Dalam cave. After that, we'd head back to the port city of Valletta, do some shopping, and leisurely get back on the boat...Finding the cave turned out to be a bit trickier. We had only a vague idea where it was and the bus driver was of limited help. Finally, we figured out we were in the right town, and got off the bus. After asking around, we did indeed find our way to the cave - we had missed the stop on the bus, and earned ourselves a 15 minute walk to site. The sun was out, the streets of Malta beautiful, and the harbor gorgeous - so we hardly suffered.

The cave of Ghar Dalam was interesting as expected. They hard part of the cave closed off, but you still got a feel for what they found there. The museum that accompanies the site was almost as interesting as the cave itself. Somewhere I read that the museum is laid out in a classic Victorian style - much more interested in impressing you with the shear size of the collection, rather than, say, educating you. It's amazing how many hippo teeth they found - I was surely impressed..

My overall impression with Malta is a positive one. One surprising aspect was that the ancient ruins aren't off in some distant country side, but located right in town. I asked the guide at the Ghar Dalam cave about two structures in the back of the museum and he explained that one was a WW II pillbox and the other a watch tower from the middle ages. Or at least that's what he thought. Could you imaging having a structure from hundreds of years ago, far older than the US, and not knowing any details about it? Yet, for the Maltese, buildings from the middle ages apparently aren't that exotic. I could definitely see going back to Malta and taking in more of the country...