Malta - a day at La Valletta
13 April 2006
h 11 Malta is the third leg of our cruise in Mediterraneo.Arriviamo at Valletta at around 11 am after a night of browsing rather tranquilla.Già arrival by sea, the performance of Malta and La Valletta are breathtaking: the town is a single color, the ocher stone with which he houses and buildings and creates a beautiful landscape with the backdrop of blue sea and sky blue.
13:30 h after lunch on the ship, go down: you will visit La Valletta on foot, since the city is quite small, is situated on a hill and is completely surrounded by walls.
From the port go up along a fairly steep route and then through a pedestrian crossing, we arrive all'Upper Baracca Gardens: The garden is well cared for, looks onto a terrace in front of the sea and from where you can have a beautiful view and where we can see our ship "parked" at the port.
The gardens are well kept, the rest of the city is a bit dirty, but it has its appeal: it seems to be in a land halfway between Sicily, Greece and Africa.
The language they speak the Maltese is a strange mix of English, Sicilian and Greek, which is incomprehensible to us, while the inhabitants seem physically Sicilians are very dark complexion.
Let us enter the gardens in the city center and aprtendo from a square, walk down the path of the Republic, the main street of Valletta, where you can find the main artistic attractions.
The first building we see is the palace Auberge, then get to the Co-Cathedral
The church is also built with the ocher-colored stone found in all buildings of the city, but not visit the inside because there is no possibility to enter.
After cattedralem always on the same side of main street, we find the Grand Master's Palace, the seat of government Mlatese.
At the bottom of the main street, from which many-sided winding and steep narrow streets, called triq, we arrive at the Fort St Elmo, built as the first defense of the sea by the island that abitnti feared an imminent foreign invasion.
The Fort has a plant in the shape of a star, but unfortunately you can not visit the inside.
Now arrived at the end of the main street of La Valletta, walk the low road on the right that runs parallel to the sea and that we return to port.
Mind descend a large bell is set up inside a tower and overlooking the statue of a man lying.
Not far away are still other gardens, but this time it comes to Barakka Lowers Gardens, also located on a terrace overlooking the sea.
We arrive at the ship which are now almost h17: we must go back soon because we start to another destination in the Mediterranean, Malta .... hello!