In The Lair of the Maltese Falcon

We arrived in Malta after flying out of the perfect warm sunshine of Italy and into the heart of a raging Mediterranean storm. Our good friend Ian Horswill has taken up Maltese residency and keeps an 8^th floor apartment in the town of St Julian overlooking a beautiful bay that faces to the North East and the open seas of the Mediterranean. One small hitch: the storm was from an odd direction, directly out of the North East, forcing the raging ocean into this normally tranquil bay. So our first 24 hours on the island was spent watching the spectacular show. The boardwalk around the entire bay had waves bashing completely over it – flattening lamp posts and fences in some sections (see picture of the action below our balcony!). We watched the waves pounding on the point 400 meters across the bay, surging up and over the seawall onto a luxury hotel's deck and right through their swimming pool.

Fortunately the weather did break the next day so we got out and explored the island by foot and bus - which were an entertaining throwback of 1950's era that each driver completes with their own decorations and personal memento). Malta is a very unique cultural mix with the islands being claimed by numerous invaders over their history, the final group to leave their mark being the British. It was a Colony until '64, so the road network of cars driving on the left side is well established, but apart from that it fells much more like an offshoot of Sicilian culture that the British only partially suppressed by making Maltese and English the official languages. Malta was also a strong Arabic trading outpost and their local language sounds sort of Arabic but with an Italian flair. Some great names have put their stamp on the history books of Malta: from the Romans to Napoleon raiding riches and King Charles V of Spain (whose annual gift is the history behind the real "Maltese Falcon"), to St. Peter who was shipwrecked on Malta en-route to Rome for one of his tours to establish Christianity, and ultimately the famed Knights of St. John who became the developers of the 16^th C. fortifications and guardians of Malta from the many threats of continued invaders. What was really interesting was the ancient history of the islands with cultural settlements noted as far back as 5000B.C. and very significant ruins from 3600B.C - which is 1000 years before the building of the great pyramids, 3000 years prior to the Acropolis in Greece and 3600 years before the Coliseum in Rome where we just came from! It seems these ancient civilizations of Malta were the first to construct monuments with massive monolith rocks and also built with a great understanding of astronomy by the alignment of key stones with significant solar patterns.

The food is fantastic with endless restaurants set along the bays' of each village. The lifestyle is all about the sea – with local fishermen in their dinghies with their dogs paddling next to multi-million dollar private yachts and tourist "cattle boats" going for tours. Access to the ocean is abundant for swimming, any type of water sport imaginable, and scuba diving in the crystal clear waters. We will definitely return during a warmer time of year and hope for calmer seas so we can enjoy the amazing sea surrounding Malta.

A quick layover in Frankfurt and then we will be spending Valentine's day in Cape Town South Africa and catching up with our good friend Tessa Graham!