Valletta to Tunis

I'm sitting outside! It's warm enough to sit out on the deck facing east, waiting for sunrise. The city is pretty quiet; there are lots of lights on in the drydock across the harbor, but not many elsewhere. Some of the fortifications are lit up dramatically. Occasionally a boat chugs quietly by us, heading for the breakwater – fishing boats, I'm guessing.

It seems I've hit the sunrise jackpot. It's overcast, except for a thin strip of sky on the eastern horizon, and here comes the dawn, turning that strip golden-orange. Ragged clouds border it, and one castle's towers are silhouetted against it. The show is starting.

A Grimaldi Hybrid ferry (“Zero Emissions in Port” in English on its side), only a little smaller than our ship, hums by us, does a stately turn right in front of me. There are big windows through which you can see the trucks that the ferry is full of. Everything Malta needs – except stone and lace and honey, I suppose – comes on trucks on the ferry.

A church bell tolls. A catamaran ferry, large but maybe half the size of the Grimaldi, whooshes by, heading out to sea. It's white, and designed, I think, to look like a yacht. The Grimaldi is heading up the harbor, backwards.

The dawn is progressing, although the colors are getting a little washed out. Now that it's lighter, I can see that the northern sky is only partly cloudy, but there are very dark clouds above us and to the south. The darkest of gray, ranks and ranks of them off to the south and east.

Now that strip on the horizon is widening, and the sun is lighting up – red and orange – the undersides of the clouds in the east. And I'm finally, after an hour and a half out on the deck, getting cold, so I'm going inside.

I woke Abbey, we had breakfast, and headed out. Brought rain gear because of the weather report. It was a long walk to the elevator, and when we got there, there was a guy in a white shirt sitting at a folding table. On the table he had a few piles of euro coins, a pile of tickets – and a credit card machine. Aaargh! Anyway, the elevator was in a kind of cool man-made grotto, separated from the road by an ancient arch.

The Barrakka Lift is the second elevator on that spot; the first one was built in 1905. The current one is 190 feet high. 'Barrakka' means, according to Merriam Webster, “a blessing that is regarded in various Eastern religions as an indwelling spiritual force and divine gift.” Pretty heavy for an elevator. We got on the elevator, got up, and got out – into a beautiful garden – Barrakka Gardens. Oh – I get it now. The gardens are flanked by rows of arches, and on one side was a railing, with a view out over the Grand Harbor, where our ship and the ferries and the drydock and the

yachts and the fortifications and the sky were. Outstanding view. Just below the railing was a terrace with two cannon; they fired one at noon – the noon gun, a centuries-long tradition in port cities, to let all the boats in the harbor know when it was exactly noon* - and the afternoon gun, which probably a sign to, um... break out the gin and tonics?... I don't know.

Anyway. Valletta inside the city has the same look as Valletta outside the city – same stone, same colors; old, elegant, restrained but unforgettable architecture. Stone streets. Lots of people, festive atmosphere. Lots of schoolchildren running down the street. Elaborate carvings on big, formal buildings. Pubs and shops. We found our way to St. John's Co-Cathedral, in order to see the Caravaggio, but it was 15 euro each to get in, and that seemed extreme. So we looked up the archaeological museum, because we had run into some people we knew from the Barcelona pre-tour who were going there. I consulted the map and we went up the steps of a huge building with six giant columns in front. We asked the guard at the door if there was a charge to get in. He said that this was a courthouse. The museum was a block away. So much for my awesome map-reading skills (but to be fair the map was really hard to read).

We found the museum – the National Museum of Archaeology – and we're glad we did. We spent most of our time in the Paleolithic section, because by the time we finished there it was almost time to go back. I don't want to nerd anyone out, but I am fascinated with how primitive societies started to figure things out, to invent and discover and adapt. Sometimes it didn't work – the Paleolithic Maltans were apparently very advanced regarding tombs and temples, among other things, and created objects and icons of surpassing beauty. But – they disappeared – no one knows why – and the next thing you know Malta is populated by Bronze Age immigrants. But the intellectual problem-solving and practical work-arounds, and the artistic impulses, which led to each step on the road to today are extremely interesting to me.

Foyer ceiling -
Archeological museum

But more than that – this museum was just really well done. It helped that there was always an English translation of the Malti commentary. But in addition, the displays and their descriptions were thorough, concise and well thought out; the sequences made sense; the context was always clear and present; the questions I had always seemed to be answered in the next panel. And there was always a generous display of artifacts to illustrate everything we read, from three-foot-diameter clay pots to mysterious slabs of shaped and carved limestone the size of small cars from temples and tombs to gorgeous human figures, including a wide variety of the iconic Earth Mother figure, to tiny tools for carving designs in clay. As noted, by the time we were done with Paleolithic Malta (which was the bulk of the permanent exhibit), we had only a couple of minutes to absorb the display of artifacts from the only known well-preserved and intact cargo of a Phoenician ship, found in 2007 off Gozo (one of the two main islands of Malta). Wine and oil jugs (amphorae) from a Phoenician ship that sank over 2,500 years ago! Right there in front of us, barnacles and all. What a thrill.

Where the elevator goes

Well. That was a treat. We stopped at another ATM to see if we'd do any better in a different country, but no luck – same result. On through the city – where the same Christmas music seemed to be playing throughout the city, wherever we went – and back to the Barrakka Gardens. It was almost time for the noon gun, but it was also starting to rain – an hour and a half earlier than the weather report predicted. We got on the elevator, put up my umbrella and Abbey put on her poncho, and we headed back to the ship. Halfway there, the wind kicked up a lot, and my umbrella became almost useless. We made it back, just in time to avoid the real downpour. The storm was on us, and there were a number of simultaneous incidents of lightning and thunder. On such strike was visible to us, from where we were eating lunch, up at the top of the elevator, and sparks, or embers, or something drifted down afterwards. All very exciting.

[ABBEY: We enjoyed Malta a lot! It's beautiful, fascinating, and very different with all the limestone walls and forts. We didn't have time to go into the fort museums. Maybe next time?? The elevator was an interesting experience, partly because the clerk receiving our euros (1 euro /round trip) exclaimed that of course they accepted credit cards- it's Malta, everyone takes credit cards. The ride itself was smooth and fast, no wait. They know what they're doing!

After the downpour and lightning, we stood out on the ship's rear deck to watch our departure. As soon as we left the harbor, it got windy and the seas got rougher than we'd experienced. I recommend not playing a game on your phone that requires tight focus. Feeling somewhat seasick, I got outside and we promenaded, that is, blown about. Gary lost his hat, but fortunately recovered it before it was blown off the deck. After eating dinner, I felt fine, and walked another lap. The almost full moon shown down on the water and waves all the way to the horizon.]

Leaving Valletta, we once again passed through the Grand Harbor and out through the breakwaters. I

had planned to be on the back of the seventh deck of the ship, because we would be outside (no outside deck on the bow) and we could move from side to side easily, to see everything on the way. During the thunderstorms, the deck had been closed, but the rain had stopped and the doors were open by the time we shoved off. It was overcast, as was the case when we entered the harbor, but the view was still unforgettable. Interestingly, we were joined on the only outside deck with a good view of our departure from the most beautiful harbor we would see on this cruise by exactly two other people. Out of nine hundred.

A lazy afternoon; Abbey took a nap again, I read and wrote (OK, I nodded off once or twice too). Before we had passed out of sight of Gozo, the seas were high and the wind was a steady 25 mph with gusts to 35 mph. The ship shuddered and creaked a little bit – just enough to affect how you walked, and enough to set up some wave action in the pools. The crew has been piling up and tying down all the furniture on the outside decks. The weather report forecasts the same – high winds, high seas, for the next three days – except sunny.

Casual dinner at the buffet, and back to the room to watch the Tunis port talk. Then we watched a lecture on the history of northern Africa, which, like Malta, was a succession of takeovers and occupations by the Phoneticians, Romans, Arabs, French, and British, with independence coming in the twentieth century. Then – turn off the heat, and off to bed.

* - You will be happy to know that I am restraining myself from going into why it is important for the crew of a ship to know exactly what time it is. It's a great story, and I refer you to Dava Sobel to fill in the details.

Valetta