Best of Beth Ashley: An island rich with history and some surprises as well

Editor’s note: The IJ is reprinting some of the late Beth Ashley’s columns. This is from 2010.

Malta, the Mediterranean island I had wanted to visit for years, was quite a surprise.

I had not expected this long, low stretch of land — pale, parched and almost treeless, its main coloration the brown of limestone and the green of olive trees and cactus.

We fell in love with it nonetheless, captivated by the ubiquitous sea and the history written everywhere around us. We took endless pictures of the cathedrals, walled cities and watchtowers and fortresses that told of a storied past.

Everywhere we saw the extravagant hand of the Knights of St. John, who came to Malta in the 1500s when they were kicked out of Rhodes and for more than 200 years built glorious churches and palaces, forming the backbone of a still-evident dynasty. The Knights of St. John, an order founded during the Crusades, were men of wealth who became hospitallers and rigid defenders of the Catholic faith.

The Knights of St. John were evicted from Malta by Napoleon, who sought revenge when the Knights of St. John refused permission for his fleet to stop and refuel.

Interesting, you say, but why would anyone go there?

My interest was piqued because of more recent history — when Malta was a tiny but vital strategic outpost during World War II, a small dot in the shipping lane between Axis-held Europe and the battlefields of North Africa. Malta by then was ruled by the British, and Winston Churchill had presciently refused to abandon it.

During 1942, Italian and German planes bombed Malta for 154 consecutive days. It was the most-bombed site in all of World War II; King George VI issued the George Cross, Britain’s highest award for civilian bravery, to the entire population of Malta.

I wanted to go there because a long-ago boyfriend, an American who flew with the Royal Air Force, had been stationed there during the island’s worst days.

By mid-1942, Malta was running out of food and fuel. London sent a massive relief convoy to run the gauntlet of enemy bombers and submarines, but only five of the 15 supply ships made it into Grand Harbour, among them a crippled oil tanker lashed between two escort warships.

More famous in Maltese history was the siege of 1565, when the Turks, seeking to expand their empire, attacked Malta, sure their 30,000 men could easily defeat the 700 Knights of St. John and ragtag Maltese conscripts. The Maltese resistance is still the major legend of the island: the bravery and brutality of the siege is told and retold.

We spent hours in the island’s two major cities — the medieval capital of Mdina, a walled city of winding streets and pedestrian alleys, and Valletta, the city built by the Knights of St. John to replace it. There was a quiet loveliness to Mdina, dominated by a huge cathedral and a 15th-century nunnery. Valletta was a bustling city whose main street was a pedestrian walkway, flanked on each side by snazzy stores, museums, palaces and places to eat, including McDonald’s. We spent a couple of hours in the magnificent St. John’s Co-Cathedral in the center of Valletta, built by the Knights of St. John and resplendent with gilded ornamentation, statuary, paintings and a vast floor that was a patchwork of tombs made of inlaid marble, each singing the praises of the Knight of St. John who lay below.

In the cathedral museum were two paintings by Caravaggio, now national treasures.

Amidst the sightseeing, Rowland and I took in a number of simpler treats. Once we took a bus to St. Paul’s harbor for an elegant seafood lunch in a restaurant overlooking the barren little island where St. Paul had been shipwrecked in A.D. 60; a statue of the saint was the only construction we could see.

We also took a ferry to the nearby island of Gozo, where we walked through a prehistoric temple dating from 3600 B.C. and climbed through the meandering cathedral-citadel that topped the capital city of Victoria. We bought lace in one of the shops and were tempted by the many souvenirs featuring the eight-pointed Maltese cross.

Other days we relaxed in our luxurious hotel, the Golden Sands, content to look out at the beach below and the gentle waves of the blue-purple Mediterranean. The weather — always coldest in December — was generally nice, but windy.

Our fellow tourists were mostly vacationing Maltese or Brits who said they had come for the sun. Rowland and I had come for the sights, but also for a respite from the Christmas rush at home.

But a respite was all but impossible: on an island of such riches, there was too much we wanted to see.