Wednesday 29 May 2013

Syracusa (Terry)


We sailed from Porto Palo after a slightly disturbed night (wind across swell) and made good time to start with – wind was off our beam at about 20 and we made 5s to 7s for quite a while before it quit on us.  On with the noisemaker before the wind returned.  Unfortunately it was a Noserly so it just made the motoring uncomfortable as we had to head out directly in to it to avoid a no-go nature reserve that two other yachts didn’t seem to give a stuff about.  When we turned after clearing the corner of the reserve we had 20 knots on the forward side and turned off the engine to sail into the Grand Harbour of Syracusa.  Sailors have been coming into this harbour for thousands of years so we were probably boat number 1 squillion and twenty.

 
Entering Syracuse harbour
 

It is magnificent and when we arrived I saw a yellow boat in the distance.  It was Benoit, our friend from Monastir with his family and Guy and his family in front of them!  Off to the port was Eric, the solo French sailor we spent time with in Monastir, Lampedusa and in Malta.

 
Benoit, Flo and family aboard Baba
 

Wonderful.  Off we went to the market this morning – one of Europe’s best.  Got two large Sole for dinner – cleaned and skinned in front of us, €7.  Fresh baked ricotta, €4.  Stuff, stuff, stuff.

 

Then we walked all over town trying to find the Immigrazione (about time we behaved ourselves).  I think we are rare and nobody bothers because we got sent all over the place from Guardia Costiera to Immigrazione and finally to the Polizia Frontiere.  They were excited that we were there and about 5 of them came out to see us.  The man we were dealing with took our passports to stamp and came back and told us “Special stamp, Syracuse” and indeed it was, a Syracuse stamp in the passports.  Shook hands all round with him and his boss and off we went.  Legal!

We dinghied back later in the evening and went for a wander on the promenade.  We wound our way up the stairs to the Cathedral but couldn’t go in for a stickybeak because there was a wedding under way.  We went across the piazza a few metres for a drink and sat outside with children kicking soccer balls, kids riding bikes with dogs chasing them and a very accomplished accordion player entertaining us all.

The bride came out of the church to an honour guard and the whole square erupted in applause.  She was impossibly beautiful, and his nibs was just the picture of elegance and charm (possibly a little pride in there also?)  Off they went for a promenade to the north for a while, then they sauntered back for a promenade to the south and departed.  All the stuff of romance novels and movies.
 

Everyone in the bar switched from beer and wine to Aperol Spritz.  Although I have resisted being a trendy in the past, this seemed like a good trend to follow and a pleasant glass it was too.

 

Across the way, a couple of old-ish nuns came out of the Cathedral admin doors.  All at once, the group of children kicking the ball around ran over to the older of the two for a hug and a kiss.  They genuinely fussed over her and she hugged and kissed them all.  They went back to their game and the two nuns wandered off across the front of the Cathedral and another group of kids spotted them.  Same deal, they all ran over to the older one of the two for hugs and cuddles and kisses.  She must be somebody special because they all ran to her, boys and girls alike.

We wandered through the old streets for a while and then returned to our dinghy to get back to the boat.




What a wonderful city this is.

Next day was not so pleasant with some savage southerlies so we all kept our heads down.  We went into town for a visit to the Archimedes Museum (he lived in Syracusa) and a visit to the Fonte Aretusa for a Geocache (through a small aquarium which was nice).  We found a small deli for lunch and had afor €1.70 each.  They were the best arancini we have ever had anywhere. (they were a Sicilian invention)  I also discovered a beer made in Sicily called Ceria, which was twice the price of the arancini!  But it wasn’t bad at that.

One of my favourite TV characters, Inspector Montalbano, is a well known arancini lover and has contributed to the popularity of the dish.  I was very excited to see a TV Weekly type magazine in Malta that announced yet another season of Montalbano with almost all the original characters.  He is placed in the Ragusa area, where we are likely to spend next winter so I can see all the Montalbano places – there was a book in the bookshop we went into yesterday all about the series, with all the common scenes from the TV show.

Enough fantasy stuff.  Today we went to town to get some wine.  We were told by our friend Rene that there was a wine retailer over the bridge near a florist by the church with the round front (but not the ugly new monster church in Syracusa).  Off we went to find this purveyor of fine wines.

He is located in a small shop near two mechanical repair shops with a handpainted sign advertising different wines.  Inside are about 10 massive hogsheads with labels on them advertising the wines within.  The old man’s name is Sebastiano Russo.  We tasted a couple and bought 2 litres of a red for €3.20 and two litres of a white for the same.  He fills up used 2 litre water bottles for you to take.  4 litres for €6.40?  Of a three year old red and an aged white.  He also gave us a sample of a dessert wine that we will go back for – that was upmarket stuff at €3.20 a litre.

Then we wandered back over the bridge to the old city, picked up our laundry (€10 for 8+kg) and sat on the quay to have a couple of beers before dinghying back to Common Sense.

This is a nice place to be, for sure and certain.

 

Thursday 23 May 2013

Gozo Rocks


We seem to be establishing a pattern here: 1. go to a place we’ve barely heard of with a plan to stay a couple of days. 2. Get caught by a boat malfunction or bad weather. 3. End up staying for a few weeks, with the positive side being that we get to really explore the place properly. Well, that has happened again here in Gozo, Malta’s smaller sister island just a little to the north west.

Santa Marija Tower
 
We sailed over here on a pleasant day and wandered around the coast a bit looking for a good anchorage. St Niklaws Bay on the tiny island of Comino (between Malta and Gozo) offered the best protection from the wind, so we settled in there and spent the next day checking out Comino Island. There isn’t a lot to it, apart from the spectacular views of the other islands and the famous Blue Lagoon, which is indeed very blue. We hiked up to the Santa Marija watchtower, the “guardian of the Gozo Channel”, built by the Knights of St John in 1618 as part of the system of inter-communicating towers across the Maltese Islands. The main role of these towers was to guard against the very real threat of Turkish invaders and Corsair pirates. In 1551, the formidable Turkish admiral Dragut Reis had carried off virtually the entire population of Gozo (about 5000 people) as slaves. The tower has been beautifully restored and is well worth a visit. Apparently it came at an environmental price, however: Grand Master Alof de Wignacourt originally paid for it by selling all the wood on Comino, which is now nothing but limestone heath, sustaining a population of four.

At one time several farming families lived on Comino, and, in keeping with Malta’s identity as ‘more Catholic than the Pope’, they had their own church. When the weather was too bad for the priest to cross the channel, Mass was conducted through a system of semaphore flags from the church in Mgarr.

Dwejra
Well, for us the wind arrived on cue with worse to come, so we headed over to Mgarr, Gozo’s fishing harbour, ferry port and marina. The marina is a work in progress, but it’s really nice and will be even better when all the work is finished. The staff are particularly helpful docking boats and ensuring that everyone is safe when the weather turns ugly. As I write, it is so ugly that nothing is visible from our boat – the air is completely whitish-pink with sand – where normally you can see for miles across to Comino and Malta (I don’t know how the Comino Catholics would manage Mass under these conditions – bells or foghorns perhaps?) We’ve been told to expect winds upwards of 50 knots, so everything is battened down.

Onto my rock theme. People say that rocks are Malta’s only natural resource, and Gozo is similar, though it does have some pretty farmland in the valleys between the rocks, and Gozo is famed for cheese, tomatoes, honey, capers and wine. The most eye-catching rock is the beautiful honey-gold globerina limestone. It is soft enough to be carved easily, as demonstrated by the facades of many homes both old and new, and especially by the churches. Of course this also means that it weathers quite quickly, so many old carvings have lost their definition. Nature too is a great sculptor of stone on these islands.
Walls in the Citadel, carved by the wind

Typical house front stonework
 
Stonemasonry must be a kind of instinct for Maltese. When we went to have a look at the famous red sand beach at San Blas, it was blowing a howling gale. But there on the beach, groups of sunbathers had built themselves neat little dry-stone windbreaks. Gozo must have thousands of kilometres of rubble walls interlaced across the countryside in an attempt to retain the soil. And of course stone has been used for protection too – so it’s not surprising that, when a Maltese bloke sees a rock he has a strong urge to put it on top of another rock.
Sunbathing fort at San Blas

Then there are the most mysterious and fascinating rocks of all – those of the Ggantija temples, largest of Malta’s megalithic ruins with some stones over 6 metres high. These are the oldest known free-standing structures in the world, dating from 3600 BC. Very little is known about the people who worshipped at the carved stone altars, but you can stand there on the crest of the hill overlooking most of Gozo and try to imagine someone doing the same thing back in the dawn of human history.
Ggantija temple

Sunday 12 May 2013

Old Friends and New


We were really impressed with the ANZAC Day service in Malta.  Attended by the President of Malta and ambassadors from France, Italy, Greece, Spain, Japan, The Netherlands, Germany, China, Turkey and the High Commissioners from The UK, India, Canada, Australia and New Zealand as well as military and community representatives, it was held in the Commonwealth War Cemetery in Pieta. 231 Australian and New Zealand servicemen are buried here, most of them young men sent to hospitals in Malta after being wounded in battle in World War I.  They never made it home, and almost a century later it is still a sad and humbling experience to read the inscriptions on their graves.  The Australian High Commissioner spoke very movingly, reading from a letter sent home by one of these young soldiers.  The Turkish Ambassador quoted the famous words of Kemal Ataturk, wreaths were laid and we observed a minute’s silence followed by a rousing rendition of “Abide With Me” by a Maltese choir.  Afterwards we enjoyed a reception at the High Commissioner’s residence.

As you might recall, we were invited to the service by Victor Platen who works at the High Commission, and happened to notice our flag.  We met some more Aussies at the service, in particular Carol and Sean Richardson who had a wealth of valuable ideas and advice about things to enjoy in Malta, and were kind enough to invite us around for a family meal of traditional Maltese food, including a delicious rabbit pasta.

Another new friend turned up in a Brazilian-flagged yacht in the slip next to us in the Msida Marina. Elio Somaschini is sailing his Beneteau First 40.1 solo around the world.  A physicist and successful entrepreneur, he decided it was time to educate himself about the “human and cultural side of life” – and what better way to do it?  He is a fascinating character, full of entertaining stories and a true scientist’s curiosity.  He is now on his way to Lampedusa, then Tunisia.

And then there are old friends.  Back in the early eighties, we lived at Currie Hall, one of the residential colleges of the University of Western Australia where I was a Masters student and tutor. There were students there from all over the world, including an engaging young fellow with a mop of curly black hair – Tano Role, a geography student from Malta.  We got to know Tano well through the UWA Scuba Club and his association with a bunch of famous reprobates who shared a unit in C-House.  Well, here we were in Malta, where it seems there are at most two degrees of separation, so it was time to track him down.  First contact was a young guy who came to fix our AIS.  He’d been taught geography by a Dr Role and thought he might now be at the university.  Yes, there he was on the staff list, but without a photo… Next contact was a trio of sisters whom we met at the Australian High Commission when we called in to get some documents signed.  Ah yes, they had a brother working in the Biology department at the university, they would ask Mario… After a few more twists and turns, Mario found Tano, who emailed us, and shortly after, there he was on the dock ready to join us for lunch!  The curly hair was a little bit whiter, but it was unmistakeably our friend from 35 years ago!  We had a wonderful time reminiscing and finding out more about this amazing country, from the inside.

Tano and his wife Sharon, and their boys Alex and Stephan, live in a beautiful home in Zurreiq, just a few hundred metres above the famous Blue Grotto. Of course they designed it with the sun, wind and water in mind, and the bonus is a view that takes in a great sweep of the island.  Tano has installed a large solar system on the roof to sell power back to the Malta Energy Dept, (Enemalta would you believe) and has a water collection system under one his side buildings.  Tano’s field at the University is Soil and Soil Erosion in the Mediterranean.  He travels widely around the Med and was also a Ministerial Adviser for a time. Sharon is a chemistry teacher.  The house is huge and magnificently appointed.  The high balcony is apparently great for watching the endless fireworks competitions and displays that are a big part of Maltese life. Tano’s theory is that people have a subconscious nostalgia for the relentless bombing of the Siege of 1941-2, and perhaps even a race memory of the centuries of explosions before that.  We enjoyed a couple of great family meals, including fish couscous and a delicious broad bean dish called kusksu.  We spent one day at home with them entertained in high style, and then Tano took us on a tour mid-week when he had no lectures.

There is a lot to see and do here. In the interests of brevity I’ll try a sort of condensed photographic journal of some of the highlights.

Tarxien Temples and the Museum of Archaeology
We’re talking serious history here. The oldest of these temples dates from 3600 BC, making it older than Stonehenge or the Great Pyramid.  I had expected to have to use a lot of imagination on a few stone circles, but this is a clearly visible temple complex, with skilfully worked stone joinery and carved surfaces. The means by which the stones were moved are also evident – perfectly round boulders and the tracks in which they were contained – the first roller bearings?

Artefacts from this and other ancient temples are housed in the Museum of Archaeology. The most extraordinary are beautiful stylised women, popularly known as “the Fat Ladies”, probably icons of fertility goddesses.

Marsaxlokk
This is Malta’s ‘other’ harbour, and its main commercial and fishing port. There are some touristy markets here, and a row of good fish restaurants along the waterfront, but the best thing is all the activity on the water, especially the colourful Maltese fishing boats with their watchful eyes.

 
Vittoriosa
This is one of the “Three Cities” that occupy the fingers of land extending into Grand Harbour across from Valetta. It is a picturesque old town with narrow streets and traditional balconied houses, and a fine marina where some seriously classy boats hang out. There is an excellent maritime museum, and also the Inquisitor’s Palace. The Inquisition was not so brutal here as in Spain, though there is a prison and a torture chamber. Apparently the Inquisitor’s main role was that of referee between the Knights and the Maltese Catholic hierarchy.  It was a bit of a stepping stone to greatness as something like 23 of the Inquisitors went on to become Cardinals and of those, 2 became Pope.  One of the Inquisitors’ roles was to instil a great devotion in the Maltese.  This sure worked as Tano said one of his friends passed a comment about a Patron Saint’s statue in his (his friend’s) wife’s suburb and she was outraged and refused to speak to him.  Every suburb has a Patron Saint (big festival on the Feast Day) and a Second Patron Saint (smaller festival).

Inquisitor's throne
 
The War Museum and “The Fortress Builders”
“The Fortress Builders” is a new display, built into the old fortifications near where the Sliema ferry docks in Valetta. We dinghied over from Msida and tied up at the old wharf where the Knights’ ships came to unload dutiable goods.  We walked up the hill through what was the old main gate to Valletta and came upon a new museum – the Fortress Builders.  We were shown around by an enthusiastic young guide named Pol who gave us new insights into Fortress Malta and how its towns and harbours have been shaped by evolving technology. After this tour, the structures we saw everywhere were much more meaningful.

The war museum is mostly concerned with Malta’s experience of World War II, where it still holds the record as the most heavily bombed area on earth.

Maltese camouflage - rubble pattern
 
Coastal scenery
Spectacular views of the countryside and the ocean from various places, especially the Dingli cliffs in the south west.  Tano took us to some rarely visited places not on the tourist trail where Bronze Age peoples had a fort of sorts, with water and food cisterns hewn out of the rock, and also down a gully to sea level where he and his friends from his Dive Club go cave diving in some deep caves.

 
Back to the New Friends, a UK flagged Hunter Legend, Moonglade Horizons, pulled in alongside us the day before yesterday and on board are two Australians, Ray and Lainey from Sydney and the Whitsundays.  Great to spend some time with them and their friends who called in also.

To top it all off, we were supposed to leave Malta for Gozo on Saturday morning.  However, we delayed to Monday and were wandering along The Strand in Sliema when we ran into our friends from Monastir, Benoit on Baba and Guy on Skaf IV!  Had no idea they were even there, and thought that Benoit had headed West to the Atlantic anyway.

It’s an interesting life.