Hello friends. In October Chris, Florrie, Nemo and I went to Malta. We had two lovely young friends with us, Jennifer and Tashia who were visiting us here in Sicily. Since Malta is an easy trip from here we all decided to go. Malta has been occupied by Phoenicians, Greeks, Romans, Arabs, and more recently France and Britain. Malta gained its independence from Britain in 1964, after the people of Malta were awarded the George Cross for defending the island during World War II. More recently it has become known as the place where most of season one of Game of Thrones was filmed.
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Our hotel was in that building all the way to
the left. We had a nice corner room. The
building in the middle of the top picture is a
place we liked.
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Our hotel was across the street from the water which made Nemo happy. On some of the days the seas were so rough that we got splashed just walking down the street.
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We both enjoyed hanging out on the balcony with our friend Chris.
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On our first day in Malta we took a Game of Thrones tour.
Nemo and I recommend this tour, with our wonderful guide Malcolm, to everyone who is lucky enough to go to Malta and who is a Game of Thrones fan, actually even if you are not a Game of Thrones fan the tour is interesting. We should all spend time exploring other places and cultures, it's good for the human race.
See how many of these places you recognize.
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This is the Mdina city gate in real life. In Game of Thrones it is the spot in King's landing where Ned and Catelyn Stark said good-bye.
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These are actually two separate places; the top is San Anton's Palace and the bottom is Saint Dominic's Priory. In the series they are part of the Red Keep's courtyard.
Inside San Anton's Palace you can see the area that was used as the Red Keep's stables and the balcony where Joffrey took Sansa to see her father's and her septa's heads on stakes.
Here is a close up of Littlefinger's brothel and then a look at it as part of the courtyard where Ned and Jamie fight. It is actually a plaza in Mdina (that means old city).
Here we have a few little local scenes, the top is the spot where Arya chased the cat and the bottom is one of the streets used. You can see Malcolm our guide. If he looks familiar he had some scenes in the series. In fact he and/or his family members have had small parts in many of the movies recently filmed in Malta.
There are many beautiful gardens in Malta that were used for the gardens in King's Landing. I have a special place in my heart for nature so I felt at peace in these gardens. Nemo liked the places with water best. We both enjoyed all the creatures, great and small.
Many areas just needed a little tweaking to represent King's Landing. Malta is a very old place.
This is the area where Daenerys built Khal Drogo's funeral pyre and killed the woman.
At the end of the Game of Thrones tour our guide brought us to another movie site. Does anyone
recognize this place? There is no prize if you know it, just give yourself a pat on the back.
I recognized this place right away, Nemo needed a hint. I'm sure he would have recognized it if it were The Little Mermaid, or Jaws.
Enough about Game of Thrones, we also took a little cruise around the bay.
As you can see the weather wasn't wonderful but our choices were to go and make the best of it or
to miss the ride entirely. We decided to make the best of it. That is actually good life advice.
Here are some of the towers on the town walls,
some of these were also in Game of Thrones as
the city of Valletta was used as the location of
King's Landing.
Did I tell you how much Nemo loved the bay
tour? He even loved the rain!
This is Rinella Battery; a Victorian battery in Kalkara Malta.
The guns have never been fired in anger, (I relish that fact).
They are fired in the evenings now.
Our young friend Jennifer is a Navy Veteran,
she was interested in the armaments.
OPERATION HUSKY
We love Sicily so we are grateful for Operation Husky which was an allied campaign that helped to liberated Italy, otherwise Florrie would have to say she is German American not Italian American. Operation Husky was planned in an underground bunker on Malta. To learn more about Operation Husky you can go here to the Invasion of Sicily site. We also went into a little museum while there.
Here we are checking out the situation room. Nemo just had to climb on that radio exchange.
Even though he knows I am the wiser of the two of us it is difficult to get Nemo to listen, it must
be all that water in his ears. Below you can see us at the maps, we all had to check them out. You can
see Catania on the map but not Acireale, this whole area was bombed heavily during WWII .
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| The war museum had many weapons. Do you see that sign saying 'Do not Touch', well once again Nemo didn't listen and I was forced to go get him. As always happens with me, I do one
little thing and it gets publicized!
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| More weapons of war. |
Many of the architectural details caught our
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Here are some of the sites/sights that appealed to us.
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| Everywhere we looked there were interesting things to see. |
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| Do you see those brightly colored porch like spaces, they are for Muslim women to watch the world without being watched themselves. |
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| We watched the soldiers who were intent on doing there jobs correctly. 
One day we came across this restaurant in the sky.
We thought it would be cool to see the view but
that the food would probably not be very good.
Right after we talked about the view Florrie
this spot. She thought it could be one of the most
beautiful, peaceful little places she has ever seen
her life. She said it could be a fitting place to leave
me but luckily she decided to put me back in my
'Jesus Bag' with my friend Nemo.
 Until next time addiju and peace to all. |
