Our final port of call was Malta - a small island off the southern coast of Sicily. We docked in the city of Valletta and, after safely depositing Amy & Emily into the Kid's Club for the afternoon, boarded a coach for a brief tour of the highlights of this cute little country.
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Malta is known historically as the place were St. Paul was once shipwrecked (consult your Bible for confirmation of this story). So our first stop took us to the famous underground catacombs of St. Paul in the city of Rabat - where Paul preached Christianity to the ancient Maltese. We were incredibly grateful we had decided to leave the kids on board the ship because it was downpouring rain all morning and we got awfully wet walking between the catacombs and the "silent city" of Mdina where we visited a very ornate cathedral.
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We also toured a local arts centre where they hand-craft silver filligree jewelry such as the famous "Maltese cross" as well as a glass-blowing factory..JPG)
From there we stopped briefly at another cathedral which is famous for its "miracle of the bomb." Malta was part of the British empire until 1960-something and during WW2, a German plane dropped a bomb on this particular church. Miraculously, the bomb did not explode, but plunked right on through the dome of the church (FYI - 3rd largest in Europe behind St. Peter's in Rome and St. Paul's in London) They have since built a little memorial around the unexploded bomb (now a replica) to commemorate this "miracle."
Above: the bomb
Above: the bombBelow: the dome of the church
Perhaps if it hadn't been pouring rain all day we would have enjoyed our excursion more, but overall I would say there was nothing overwhelmingly exciting or impressive about Malta itself. However, it was nice to break up the long journey back to Barcelona by stopping in a little place with more of a European feel - especially after several days of being in the Middle East!
That evening we enjoyed the cruise-line tradition of "Chocolate Night" at the buffet. Here are a couple of our favourite creations:
Note: we opted out of trying the chocolate sushi - blegh!
Perhaps if it hadn't been pouring rain all day we would have enjoyed our excursion more, but overall I would say there was nothing overwhelmingly exciting or impressive about Malta itself. However, it was nice to break up the long journey back to Barcelona by stopping in a little place with more of a European feel - especially after several days of being in the Middle East!That evening we enjoyed the cruise-line tradition of "Chocolate Night" at the buffet. Here are a couple of our favourite creations:
Note: we opted out of trying the chocolate sushi - blegh!
