After my first day in Valletta, Malta’s capital, I was eager to see more of the country. My second day in Malta focused on the city of Mdina. Since this was the day we left our ship, we were out of our cabins early and on our bus, en route to Mdina, at 9am.
Mdina is located on the same island as Valletta. However, while Valletta is on the east coast, Mdina is in the center of the island. The distance between the two cities is only about 8 miles. Before we reached the Mdina, we made a couple of stops.
Our bus driver pulled off the road where we had a good view of Mdina’s fortress in the distance. The fortifications were built by the Arabs after they conquered Malta in the 9th century and made Mdina was their capital.
Next, we stopped at the windswept Dingli cliffs on the southwest coast of the island. The chapel of St. Mary Magdalene, built in 1646, is perched on a cliff overlooking the Mediterranean Sea.
The short drive to Mdina brought us through an agricultural area. Our guide mentioned that Malta grows tomatoes, potatoes, onions for export. Other important crops are watermelon and apricots. She also called our attention to the Friesian cows in the fields, which came from the European mainland, and reminded us that when the Knights came to Malta, there were no deer, wild pigs, or other animals to hunt. That’s why they imported rabbits and started breeding them.
Shortly after 10am, we arrived in Rabat, an area adjacent to the compact historic walled district of Mdina. In the Arabic language, Mdina means “city” and Rabat means “suburb.” From the drop-off point, we only had to walk a couple of minutes to reach a short bridge that led to the main gate into the fortified city. Known as the Mdina Gate, it was built in 1724.
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| Looking back at the Mdina Gate from inside the walls |
Horse drawn carriages were waiting to transport tourists through the medieval streets. But we embarked on a walking tour with our local guide. Did you know that Mdina was used as a location for some episodes of Game of Thrones?
One notable building was the Palazzo Vilhena, which was once the home of the Portuguese Grand Master of the Knights. It was rebuilt in the early 1700s in the French Baroque style. Today, it houses the National Museum of Natural History.
We looked at the exterior of Mdina’s Metropolitan Cathedral of St. Paul, dedicated to St. Paul the Apostle. The original building was a Sicilian Romanesque church founded in 12th century. Shortly after the earlier building was badly damaged by earthquake that occurred in nearby Sicily in 1693, it was dismantled and rebuilt in the Baroque style.
At the northern edge of Mdina, not far from the cathedral, I saw a sign indicating that a synagogue had been located here in ancient times. There definitely was a Jewish community in Malta during the time of Roman rule, and it is even possible that Jews lived in Malta during Phoenician times. Jews lived in Malta through the years of Byzantine and Arab rule, and remained when the Kingdom of Sicily ruled the islands starting in the 11th century. However, when the Kingdom of Sicily united with the Kingdom of Aragon in the mid-15thcentury, the situation changed. Once the Jews were expelled from Spain in 1492, Jews were forced to leave Malta.
By the time we finished our morning walk around Mdina, my Maltese vocabulary had increased from zero words to one word: “Triq” means street. I just had to remember that the “q” is pronounced as a glottal stop.
We got a good look at some of Mdina’s 3.8 kilometers (nearly 2 ½ miles) of limestone walls that enclose the medieval city.
It was lunchtime when we started our walk back to Rabat. I was looking forward to finding a good Maltese restaurant and then exploring the area on foot. Unfortunately, the morning drizzle turned to fairly heavy rain as we walked through Rabat to an area with restaurants.
After a quick, non-memorable lunch, I dashed over to nearby St. Paul’s Grotto, a site sometimes called “the cradle of Christianity” in Malta because it was one of the island’s earliest places of Christian worship. St. Paul arrived in Malta in 60 CE when he was shipwrecked off the coast. The grotto where he preached is a natural cave. When the Knights came to Malta, they became guardians of the site. Over the centuries, it has continued to attract pilgrims.
The Sanctuary of St. Publius, dating back to 1617, is directly over the grotto.
More than 800 air raid shelters were dug under the grotto during World War 2. The shelters housed individual families, who paid for these underground homes. Some dwellings were quite humble while others were surprisingly luxurious. Walking through the tunnels and peering into the homes was very eerie.
There was only time for one last bit of sightseeing before we had to leave Rabat. The Domus Romana was a Roman townhouse built in the 1st century BCE. It is the richest house ever found in Malta. In addition to serving as the private residence of a wealthy Roman family, the house was used for business and public functions. It has beautiful mosaic floors. Inside the Domus, there’s a museum with interesting exhibits about life in Roman times. Excavation of the Domus also uncovered an Islamic cemetery on top of the Roman remains.
On our way back to Valletta, we made a stop in the town of Mosta to see its beautiful 19th century neoclassical church with its world-famous dome. The dome, known as the Mosta Rotunda, is the third largest dome in Europe (and the ninth largest in the world). The church is especially famous in Malta because of an event that took place during World War 2. A German bomb, dropped from an airplane, pierced the dome and fell into the church during Mass, but it failed to explode. The Maltese consider this to be a miracle.
After a busy day of sightseeing, I was happy to relax on my balcony at the Hotel Excelsior in Valletta.
At dinnertime, I went out with fellow traveler Carol in search of a light dinner. Republic Street and Merchant Street were thronged with tourists. The crowds made me realize that after six weeks, I was tired of traveling and mentally ready to go home. But first, there would be one final day in Malta.
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