August 10, 2019 Saturday Valletta St. John’s Co-Cathedral & MUZA

We had breakfast at the hotel, and the attendant carried them up one level of the spiral staircase to our table.  They need to put in a dumb waiter, but they didn’t ask me.  Then we were off to see the two Caravaggio’s at St. John’s Co-Cathedral.  I had read on Trip Advisor that if a couple of cruise ships came in overnight there could be 5-6,000 people coming into town, so we didn’t want to be behind that.  

There wasn’t even a line to get into the Cathedral.  I immediately went to the St. John Oratory to see paintings.  Sue who is only humoring me in the pursuit of Caravaggio, liked the large “The Beheading of St. John the Baptist."  She thought it was the most impressive Caravaggio painting.  It is certainly the largest.

The church is a Baroque masterpiece, as you will see from the photos.  There is actually too much to see, and everything has a history related to the Knights of Malta.  I should have been more systematic in taking the pictures, but no one really cares but me.  There are many photos without comments, I just wanted to capture how ornate the decoration of the entire church is.

Our next stop was MUZA, The Malta National Community Art Museum.  I think the museum hasn’t been open very long, because many, if not most of the displays were not identified.  This time we were not the only people in the museum, there may have been four other people there with us.  

There is an area of the harbor identified as the Waterfront, so we were off.  We took a bus right to the location.  It wasn’t a beach.  It is a small shopping and dining area probably for the people from the cruise ships.  It wasn’t very crowded when we were there, in fact it was almost deserted.  

Valletta is a very interesting place with history going back for centuries, and it is also a tourist town.  The city is car free except for a few streets so taxis can get people in and out, so you can walk everywhere.  There are shops, cafes, and restaurants lining almost every street.  The Cathedral is the big draw, but there are other things to see: The Knights Hospitallers Museum, The National War Museum, and many churches.  It is obviously a cruise ship stop in the Mediterranean.  Many people come here, and then go to other small islands, probably where the beaches are.  We met a German couple at our hotel who spent a week on the island Goso scuba diving.  

For dinner that evening we walked around to find a place to eat.  We picked a restaurant where people were waiting for outdoor seating, we actually waited about 5 minutes for a table.  Just like the night before, we beat the crowd, the wait got much longer after we were seated.  Of course the food was great (isn’t it always?), Sue had swordfish and I had risotto with something in it, maybe seafood.  Tomorrow we have a flight at 11:40 to Rome where we will stay overnight, and then fly home.

August 10, 2019 Saturday Valletta St. John’s Co-Cathedral & MUZA