travel
Architecture in the Grand Harbour of Malta

The final destination on our Mediterranean journey was Malta, an island between Sicily and the North African coast. Malta is the largest island of the Maltese archipelago situated in the centre of the Mediterranean Sea. We sailed into the Grand Harbour and docked at the Valletta Waterfront.
Valletta is one of the southernmost capitals of Europe and lies on the Sciberras Peninsula. We did not have any exciting trips planned to explore the city due to our travel arrangements. My granny, who I was travelling with, was due to fly out before lunchtime and my flight was early the following morning. I went to the airport with her, to make sure she got on the flight safely and then I headed back to the ship to gather my belongings.
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Mediterranean Sea Sunrise |
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Rays of sunlight on the Mediterranean Sea |
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Villa Bighi, Kalkara - Valletta's Grand Harbour |
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View of Valletta's buildings |
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Fort St. Angelo, Birgu, Malta |
I made my way to the hotel and had a couple hours of daylight left to wander around the city centre. Most of what I saw of Valletta was from the cruise ship, this is why the post is centred around the harbour rather than the city itself. After 2 busy weeks of voyaging and exploring, it was nice to slow down and relax a bit before another hectic day of travelling. I would be up long before the sun rose to make my way home the following morning.
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St. Angelo fort and the Vittoriosa Yacht Marina |
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Bastioned Fort St. Angelo |
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Senglea Waterfront, Malta |
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Fort walls and yachts in the Grand Harbour |
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Senglea, one of the Grand Harbour's cities |
Despite its size, Malta has a lot to offer. It would have been nice to have more time to explore and to venture out to the other Maltese islands containing several pre-historic temples. Malta's second-largest island, Gozo, is home to Megalithic Temples dating back to 3600-2500 B.C. The history of this country is diverse and influenced by many cultures. Sicily lies less than 100 km north of Malta and the coast of North Africa is about 300 km south-west. The Arabs were one of the first occupiers of the islands, and this impact can still be seen in the cuisine and architecture. Even the Maltese language is a result of the merging of Arabic and Sicilian dialects.
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The Grand Harbour, Il-Port il-Kbir |
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The Port of Valletta |
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Vittoriosa Yacht Marina |
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Grand Harbour Marina, Vittoriosa |
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Fortifications of Valletta |
There are over 80 ships, submarines and fighter planes submerged in the waters surrounding the Maltese archipelago, making it a great destination for diving. I found it most interesting that Malta does not have any rivers, forests or mountains. The islands are mostly formed from limestone rock and the landscape somewhat resembles The Burren in County Clare. The rocky landscape together with the central Mediterranean climate create a less than perfect climate for woods, but ideal for fruit trees that we can only dream of growing in Ireland.
While this post concludes the cruise ship adventure, I may still do one last entry containing sunrise and sunset photographs. This will give me the time to decide on the type of photo collections I will do next and the direction I want to take with this website. To those of you returning here for the last year, I want to say thank you for following along on this journey. And to those that are new, I hope you enjoyed reading and continue exploring this space.
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The Port of Valletta |
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Walls and buildings on the Valletta Waterfront |
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The Valletta Waterfront |
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Coloured shutters, Valletta Waterfront |
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Great Siege Square, Triq San Gwann |
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