Malta is full of delicious delights

FROM its art to its national dish, one is constantly reminded of Malta's colourful past.

The coastline of Malta is spectacular / Brian Johnston

THE fried rabbit was smothered in a heavily muscled sauce redolent of red wine, garlic, onions and tomatoes, its aroma mingling with that of the bragioli being devoured at the other side of the table.

The rabbit – stuffat tal-fenek – and my partner’s bragioli, which is thin slices of beef stuffed with crumbed local bread, bacon, onion and parsley all drenched in a red wine sauce, are two of Malta’s national dishes, consumed on this occasion within 50m of the severed head of John the Baptist.

Malta will now forever in my mind be identified with rabbits and St John, the ‘‘rabbit restaurants’’ of this small Mediterranean island offering a stand-out and unexpected culinary experience.

St John never made it to Malta and thus missed out on the rabbit, but his image can be found in the painting by Caravaggio titled The Beheading of St John, a magnificent work which hangs in St John’s Cathedral which is opposite the San Giovanni Restaurant which, as you would expect, is in St John’s Square.

If you go there for the fenek and bragioli you might try the local 2007 La Torre merlot and toast Malta’s history which is one of violence, invasion and siege, its position off the southern tip of Sicily placing it in the path of the great powers which have roamed across these waters.

Everywhere on the island you are reminded of this past, with the medieval fortifications which command the hilltops having been occupied by Moors and Christians alike, the latter in the form of the Knights of St John who made the island their bastion and built Valetta after resisting a siege by 40,000 Turks in 1565.

The British were here more recently, staying for a hundred years, with the last British soldier packing his kit and departing barracks in 1979.

The soldiers have gone but the tourists remain, Malta being a favoured destination for Britons.
The capital is Valetta and within 15 minutes of arriving at its small but neat airport, we were in a cab en-route to the majestically named Hotel Grand Excelsior, one of the five-star hotels to overlook the Grand Harbour, one of the natural features that has made the island so attractive to invaders.

The cost of airport taxis is controlled, the price being quoted and paid at a tourist service desk before entering the cab.

The reason for this became obvious over the next 48 hours.

Maltese taxi drivers, when left to their own devices, are a particularly rapacious breed.

Valetta, a UNESCO World Heritage site, rises and falls around the harbour, the main hopping street intersected by narrow alleyways running down to the port and surrounded by the fortifications of the old walled city.

Malta Sightseeing runs the opentopped, double-decker bus tours ubiquitous throughout Europe and we boarded one at Sliema, a short ferry ride across the harbour from Valetta, and toured the northern half of the island.

Its dry, rocky fields present constant challenges to its farmers who have managed over the centuries to extract a living growing fruit, vegetables and grapes, the last named producing some decent labels.

To the island’s north and northeast there are beaches such as Mellieha Bay, Golden Bay and Gnejna Bay, although these are small and accordingly, crowded.

It’s charm, at least for us, lay in its quiet villages with their narrow alleyways and townships with seafront restaurants where brightly painted fishing boats rode at anchor.

The most recent invasion was during World War II when Germans and Italians laid aerial siege to the island and dumped 16,000 tonnes of bombs on the place during 3340 air raids.

The Maltese prevailed and for their stoicism and valour, the island was awarded the George Cross by King George VI..

In this context, a visit to the Malta At War Museum is essential to appreciate the turbulence that has been compressed into the island’s 7000 year history of settlement, the first Neolithic farmers arriving in 5000BC.

Beneath the museum, 15m belowground level is a maze of tunnels dug into the rock which served as air-raid shelters for the civilian population during the war.

Round-island cruises to the sandy beaches and small bays to the north are popular, these crossing to the small island of Comino with its Blue Grotto, named because of the striking colour of its water and past the island dedicated to St Paul who was an early but unwilling tourist to the island, being shipwrecked there together with St Luke in AD 60.

The pair stayed long enough to convert the entire population to Christianity before continuing on their way to Rome. Turkish style gulet sailing boats provide a number of these cruises as well as the usual sunset harbour cruises.

After touring the island by bus, we abandoned plans to hire a car as the lacework of narrow, twisting roads seemed to provide an excellent scenario for a debacle which would be titled Hopelessly Lost in Malta.

There are, however, Jeep safaris available on both Malta and Gozo which, while costing more than the tourist bus at 55 euros, probably provide the best option for getting a complete picture of what is a compact yet complex speck in the ocean.

We visited in late September towards the end of the tourist season which was probably a good thing for it was easy to imagine the narrow streets and small, sandy bays becoming impossibly crowded during the summer months.

An agreeable climate which varies little throughout the year is one of Malta’s drawcards and the spring and autumn months would seem to be the best times to enjoy it.

Back in the luxury of the Hotel Grand Excelsior, it appeared to us that the average visitor to Valetta weighed at least 150kg and had a physique which resembled a block of flats.

The reason for this became clear when I looked out from our balcony to the harbourside below and saw a man lifting up a car.

It transpired that the contest to find The World’s Strongest Man was being held at the hotel which, given the heroic struggles which this small, rock-strewn island has witnessed over the centuries, seemed appropriate.

Useful websites: aboutmalta.com, gozo.com, excelsior.com.mt