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Still a bit old fashioned.


The George Cross awarded to Malta on display at the St Elmo War Museum

Street Art in Sliema.

There is a rather home made animal sanctuary on Manoel Island, ducks, rabbits, geese, guinea pigs, and cats are living all together in a shanty town of hutches, all seem very well fed and contented.

Sun rise over Marsamxett harbour.


Marsamxett harbour.

Do they still have a Gloucester Gladiator?

As for walking around an island, Malta is a little too large.

I did walk all the way around Gan though.
The only RAF Station I was on that didn't have a fence around it!

Lovely piccies om15, the sunrise is my favourite.

Looks like you have a Banksie (Street Art in Sliema).

The Gloster Sea Gladiator "Faith" was being restored by Eng Wing in the Nimrod hangar in 1974 when I was there , here it is below on display in the St Elmo War Museum today.


On to Gozo

Church in Gozo.

Street in Victoria.

Grand Harbour from Valetta.

Emotive pictures for me Mr on. I finished school at the Services Secondary Comprehensive Tal Handaq and will confess to sewing a few wild oats on the islands. Two of us once dived off the stern of that Gozo ferry and swam into port. Memories of Marsovin fuelled parties and skinny dipping at Golden Bay, some great music, crewing yachts from Manoel Island, the Middle Sea Race.... find memories

We went to Malta and Gozo in February 2010, not the best season to go, but loved it.

I had some misgivings as there is a bit of Maltese Mafia in ZA and they are rather unpleasant and dishonest people, Zammit, Mifsud, Xabbia, Vella.
Once there, we found the Maltese to be delightful.

I like Malta a lot, and have been there several times. I appreciate the photos by om15 and Cape, some of them very evocative of the island's buildings and scenery. I have visited the St Elmo War Museum, where I found the dress uniform of the famous George "Screwball" Buerling on display in a glass cabinet on the first occasion. On a later visit it was no longer on display, so I queried this with the staff, and was told that it had been badly affected by the museum's location adjacent to Grand Harbour, due to dampness. Shame.

Another location where I felt it would have been better preserved is at the Malta Aviation Museum at Ta'Qali, which is inland and thus a drier environment. But I believe there is no direct connection between the two museums, and it seems possible that there's an element of rivalry between them over WW2 artefacts. The Ta'Qali museum is excellent I think, with a number of static aircraft on display in the hangars, including a Mk IX Spitfire and a Hurricane in fine condition. They also have several parts recovered from W/C Adrian "Warby" Warburton's Lockheed Lightning photo-reconnaissance aircraft crash site. He was the renowned recce pilot who was stationed in Malta, on whom the film "Malta Story" (starring Alec Guinness and Muriel Pavlow) was based.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malta_Aviation_Museum
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrian_Warburton

We have mentioned Adrian Warburton before, further recommended reading,

"Warburton's War" by Tony Spooner, ISBN 0907579434
"Malta's Greater Siege & Adrian Warburton" by Paul McDonald, ISBN 1473860083.

Tony Spooner flew Wellingtons from Malta and knew Warburton, Paul McDonald flew Canberra PRs from Malta in the 1970's, therefore both authors are able to write sympathetically and with insight about Warburton.
I saw the BEM awarded to Christina Radcliffe in the St Elmo museum.

Talking of books, Nicholas Monsarrat's novel 'The Kapillan of Malta' is a fascinating read and gives a lot of insight into the history and complicated demographics of the island(s).