Day 15 Back to Valletta

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Today we returned to Valletta where we hoped to see the Grandmasters Palace and the armoury but they were both closed.

We went for a walk down Merchants Street to the end of the harbour to Fort St Elmo. This is partially used as the police academy but I managed to get through a hole in the fence to get some unobscured shots of the fort and harbour.

We then went to an audio visual presentation called The Malta Experience. The approach to this is through a long tunnel from the waterfront. This movie is on a large widescreen with a commentary in fifteen different languages. This lasted for about 45 minutes and gave an excellent insight into the history and future of this island.

After the presentation we went to The Sacra Infermia. This was the hospital of the Knights of Malta, which of course was their original inception. It was only later that they were forced to arms to protect themselves and their homes.

This building has several wards and the largest is 155m long, 10.5m wide and 10m high. At one stage this was the largest room in Europe. A large part of it was destroyed during World War II, but has been restored to its former glory. In the wards below, the curators have wax figures depicting scenes that may have happened during the great siege of Malta. Some of the exhibits are a bit gory and some of the surgeons tools would make you wish you were dead.

After we left here, we continued along Mediterranean Street, which runs along the harbour side, to the World War II memorial bell. This memorial overlooks the harbour, a fitting place for it when you consider the importance of the sea and the convoys to Malta.

We then carried along the waterfront and were surprised to see the Sea Shepherd ship Steve Irwin. It’s a long way from here to the southern ocean where she was not long ago chasing Japanese whalers. We went to a cafe to have a coffee and had a chat with a couple of the crew that were there.

The day as drawing to a close so we headed back to Mellieha to watch another glorious sunset. Apart from the first couple of windy days, we really have been blessed with fantastic weather.

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