We love wandering around the streets of Sliema, and truth be told, we still get lost in the hodgepodge of narrow streets. But no matter, the more lost we get, the more fun we have traversing known and unknown streets. As you know, I have a fascination with the architecture of the old Maltese houses, the two or three story limestone houses with balconies, fancy balustrades, double doors, and shuttered windows. Once off the main tourist roads, the streets are lined with these types of houses, block upon block. Many of the houses are vacant or in considerable disrepair. And, many are under total gutting and renovation, but less so the farther away from the main tourist areas. Elders still sit between the outer and inner door watching the world go by, men congregate in the shade at a corner and yak, woman stand at the entrances to small shops catching up on the gossip. It really seems like another world when we get off the beaten track. And we love it!
Today Christine needed to return some books to the library. Cousin Carol very nicely arranged for Christine to use Rowena’s (her daughter’s) card so Christine has been filling herself full of Melitensia, novels about Maltese history and culture. She’s made a friend of the librarian who today told her to pick out a book from a certain table to read on the airplane, no return necessary. How nice!
After the library, Christine wanted to find Mary Caruana’s neighborhood again and go to the confectioner’s shop to thank the proprietors for filling Joe in on Mary’s whereabouts when he was being a detective in Mary’s neighborhood working to find out information about Mary. We were happy to meet Cecilia and Manuel and give them our thanks, and were even happier to learn that they also visited Mary for her birthday. Nice to know that Mary does receives some visitors.
We then wandered around until we found our way home enjoying all the assorted architecture and decorations seen along the streets.
In addition to doors and door knockers, I have been collecting photos of house names. It is so interesting that many of the houses along the streets have been named. Most of the names are visible in older style carvings or painting on the limestone. But, there also appears to be quite a fondness for hand-painted tiles. You can walk down the street and see very interesting house names, which become part of the address. We’ve seen U.S. state names, city names, directions, likely family names, personal names like Rose, Misty, William, and Billy, whimsical names, and saint names, lots and lots of saint names. Here are a bunch of photos of house names.
You might have noticed that some of the above names also had little religious icons. Well, with Malta being 95% Roman Catholic, it is not surprising that there is religious iconography everywhere. Most houses have a small religious icon on the exterior wall by the front door. Some of these icons are elaborate and some are quite simple, some are really beautiful and some not so much. Many have a light above so that the icon is illuminated at night. Here’s a sample of the icons we’ve seen.
Also, in many neighborhoods, at street corners, is a niche containing some religious statue. And, you will find niches all over the place, some very small, others quite large, along buildings, in vacant spaces, and in parks. The Catholic Church is quite dominant in Malta and I have been totally amazed by the huge Catholic churches in every small village, and I mean huge buildings, all ornately decorated. I wonder how there are enough priests to preside over all these churches and money to maintain these large buildings. We learned that there are some 372 Catholic churches in Malta, meaning one could visit a different church every day and still not see them all in a year. Here are a couple of the corner niches we’ve seen.
With all this Catholic iconography everywhere, I take great delight in seeing the balcony balustrades. Some are just very nice limestone carvings in geometric patterns. Others are classic figures seen all around the world, like lions and gargoyles. And others still are quite irreverent.
There is just so much of interest to explore in Malta. We definitely need to come back to continue the adventure.