Sightseeing date: October 31, 2014
The second day was a whole day of sightseeing around Valletta. Because the number of days is quite limited, I have a feeling that today will also be a rush sightseeing.
In the apartment where we are staying, you have to arrange your own breakfast, so we left the room at about 7:30am anyway.
I thought about buying something at the supermarket and having it in my room, but in the end I decided to have it at a nearby cafe.
From the atmosphere of the breakfast, I felt like Italy. By the way, the lady in the cafe speaks beautiful English, but her daily conversation seemed to be in Italian. Maybe it’s Maltese, though.
Ticket to visit Hal Saflieni
It’s still early in the day for sightseeing, but there’s a reason why we rushed a bit to have breakfast and rush to the National Gallery.
それは、マルタ島にある世界遺産「ハル・サフリエニの地下墳墓」のガイドツアーのチケットをゲットするためです。
こちら、インターネットから予約可能だったのですが、そんなことはつゆ知らず、予約がいること、そして一日20,30人程度しか見学できないことを、現地で知ったという有り様。
However, since some same-day tickets seem to go out, I decided to line up first thing in the morning for a same-day ticket.
It’s a small country and it’s not high season, so I thought it would be okay. Still, we arrived in front of the Archaeological Museum around 8:30, 30 minutes before the opening of the reception. There were already several groups of about 15 people lined up. It’s a little bit delicate, I’m afraid.
By the way, Valletta has free Wi-Fi spots all over the city, which is very convenient.
The speed is also not bad. Maybe it’s because we’re small, but we’re overwhelmingly agile when it comes to these things. Since tourism is one of the main industries, it is important to develop the infrastructure for tourists. I think Japan has a long way to go in this respect.
At 9 o’clock, the window of the Archaeological Museum opened, and unfortunately the registration for the day was closed two groups before us. It’s a pity…
I regret lightly that I should have done a little more research beforehand.
To the bus terminal.
Next, we went to the Knight Commander’s House, which we had missed yesterday, but before that, we went to the bus terminal. Because we were going to visit the ruins of Tarsine in the suburbs of Valletta this afternoon.
There are three World Heritage Sites in Malta. The Old Town of Valletta is one of them. And the second one is Hal Saflieni, which we unfortunately couldn’t visit this time, and the last one is the Maltese megalithic temples, which are scattered all over Malta, and one of them is in the suburb of Valletta called Tarsine.
From Valletta, you can go there by yourself by car or by bus. We decided to take a bus because we were only going to rent a car the next day.
I’m planning to visit in the afternoon, but it’s my first time to take a bus in Valletta, so I decided to do some research in the morning.
Valletta’s bus station is located at the entrance to the old town.
The main way to get around Malta is by bus, there is no train in this island. There is no train in this island, so there are many bus routes. However, it seems to be inconvenient to take a bus in the countryside because there are very few buses.
We bought a one-day ticket. We only went to Tarsine and Valletta and back, but we decided to buy a day ticket because it was so cheap.
Of course, we checked out how to get there, and after a quick understanding, we went back to the old town.
Knight Commander’s Hall
We then headed to the Knight Commander’s Hall, which we had foregone visiting yesterday.
This place is said to be one of the most popular spots in Malta, along with St. John’s Cathedral. We were able to visit two parts, the mansion and the weapons museum. The ticket office is on the side of the Arms Museum, and the mansion is also on the same site, but the entrance was a bit far away.
So after purchasing our tickets, we headed to the Arms Museum first.
A very extensive collection, I’ve seen many arms museums in Europe 10, but this one in Valletta was particularly worth seeing.
The very stylish armor is also impressive. It is said that it was designed in Milan. Italy was very fashionable in those days, wasn’t it? However, it was only for fashion and not for battle.
But well, even 2.5kg (equivalent to a helmet) is quite heavy, and 10kg (equivalent to armor) is really crazy.
There were two rooms here. One was the armor room and the other was the weapons and firearms room. The weapons and firearms room was also very well stocked.
The next stop is the Knight Commander’s residence. You can visit one floor, a large promenade and several rooms. The promenade and corridors are very beautiful.
And one of the rooms you can visit is this one, which is still in use today. Apparently, the government uses it from time to time. The subject was so close that it was hard to get a picture.
I think the tour lasted a little over an hour.
archaeological museum
We still had some time until noon, so we went to another sightseeing spot in the morning. We chose the Archaeological Museum.
It was quite a plain spot, but there was a kind English commentary, so I could study there. Anyway, the history of Malta seems to be interesting.
First of all, it’s ancient, much older than Greece and Rome. About 4,000 to 3,000 years BC. The so-called megalithic temples, which are also a World Heritage Site, are from this time.
After that, the island was ruled by the empires of Greece, Carthage, and Rome, which are indispensable to the history of the Mediterranean, followed by Germanic and Islamic rule, and after the Middle Ages by the Knights of St. John. The island has a very diverse history. We were able to learn about the history of such a magnificent island, although to be honest, there wasn’t a great deal of exhibits.
Also, this year was the 50th anniversary of Malta’s independence from the British Commonwealth, so there were some exhibits related to that. It’s not really archaeology, though (laughs).
It was decorated with the signatures on the documents approving independence, and memorabilia sent by the British government and Her Majesty the Queen to commemorate independence. Replica?
There was also a corner with a commentary by Hal Safrieni, who unfortunately couldn’t make it this time. There were no exhibits at all, though.
It was a very plain spot, but I enjoyed it unexpectedly.
以上、午前中の日記。正午以降は次回となります。（続く）
