8. Final Day in Malta. 5/20/22

Greetings –

May 20^th–our final day in Malta, we headed to Rabat which was originally part of Mdina or vice versa but about a thousand years ago the Arabs walled and fortified Mdina. Actually. yesterday, when we went to Domus Romana we were at the edge of Rabat. While there are many religious sites in Rabat including the grotto where St Paul is said to have lived when he was shipwrecked, and a cave painted with 14^th century murals (where St Agatha—the one whose breasts were cut off) was supposed to have hidden.. we opted for the 21^st century and strolled the wonderful narrow streets (which are actually several centuries old) where people still live and work.

We stumbled upon an open door and were greeted by Harry Mallia, a former “tree surgeon” turned woodworker who invited us into his teeny studio. In what is probably less than 100 sq ft, he is turning wonderful wood bowls and other small vessels, in shapes driven by the grain and shape of the wood. He collects stubs and branches of pruned trees grown on the Maltese Islands as his medium and as he explained, he feels he is keeping pieces of Maltese trees alive forever. Basically he turns and hollows the stub to his desired thickness (really thinness) without letting the wood split, and then he preserves the wood by using natural oils which sometimes he must do over and again for as much as 300 days. He signs all of the pieces HMH, which doesn’t stand for his name which also happens to use the initials HM; rather it stands for something like “heart, mind, hope”. We were totally captivated by not only the objects and his love of wood but his passion for the integrity of wood and of his work. This is a guy who truly loves what he does. We wound up talking and seeing all of his tools and his lathe. 

Of course, now Mike is set on getting a lathe and adding this skill to his own passion for carpentry. Harry loves to talk about wood and he found a good listener and questioner in Mike, so he went on and on and would have been happy to keep going, but we might have missed our flight. Since we spent so much time there we figured we should make a purchase. Each piece is signed and at the bottom he carves the number of hours each piece took him to make. His prices are based on that number (of hours it took him to create) times 12.5 euros. The pieces are all very small—between 2” and 8” I’d guess. I was most interested in a  very simple plate, but It turned out that was his plate.. the one he’s been eating on for several years. It’s clear he practically lives in this tiny studio. So, the plate was not for sale. We bought a lovely little (2.5”?) vessel made of hibiscus wood. He made sure it was signed and then gave us some authentication papers and some instructions for keeping it in good shape… mostly we need to remember to oil it once every century!!! I think we will pass on this information to someone else.

From there we hustled to grab a quick bite along our walk back to Mdina and the hotel where our bags were waiting. We then drove to the Malta Airport in Valletta, dropped off the car, and flew to London (about 3.5 hours). We were reminded by the rental car folks of our little mishap with the car being stuck in that nasty hole and AAA coming to tow us out—-they had a video to remind us. Funny, so much had happened between then and now, we totally forgot about it!

And then we realized all the places we wanted to see but didn’t find time. It was a good trip and I’d definitely recommend a visit to Malta. You need at least a week to really see it and feel it. It’s known for its beaches and diving and we never went anywhere near those places, but we did note that the water was crystal clear. The old settlements and towns are incredible—wonderful to walk in the day and also in the nighttime. It’s unfortunate what they’ve done in recent years on the outskirts of all these wonderful towns and villages—uncontrolled growth and very ugly buildings. Not sure who is building all these apartment complexes and for whom; their population is not growing and it appears that these new condo or apartment high-rises are empty. My guess is developers see Malta as a prime location for second homes for Europeans??

Anyway, if you stay inside all the wonderfully charming older cities and towns you’ll never see those places. You only run into them when you’re on the road driving from one place to another. People are delightfully friendly; the streets are immaculate; food is good and at times great; and though it’s a small island with about as many people as Oakland it’s quite international because so many foreigners come here to work. It’s also more cosmopolitan than you’d expect given that so many young and middle-aged Maltese return after living abroad.

Enjoy Malta. Happy to make suggestions.

Fern