Mdina, the Silent City

Another highlight of Malta (perhaps more legitimate than Popeye's Village) was Mdina, known as the silent city both because no cars are allowed other than those of residents and also because it has only a few hundred residents. 

The city gate

I'm sure in summer it's pretty packed, but we had the city largely to ourselves...just a few other tourists and some horse and carriages. And it's truly lovely...the streets shine, smoothed by hundreds of years of feet walking through history before you, and there are so many narrow, winding alleys in which to get lost. 





It's been inhabited since prehistory, with a Phoenician settlement in 8 BC. Then the Romans captured it and it kept passing hands through the centuries until the Order of St. John (a Catholic military order) took the city over in 1530. It later belonged to the French and then of course the British got it back, and then MUCH more recently it was used as a filming location for King's Landing in the first season of Game of Thrones (which would have been much more exciting had the last season not broken everyone's hearts and destroyed the show).




We didn't so much in Mdina (one drawback of a toddler is that a walking tour isn't much of an option unless Bluey is leading it), but we did have lunch in a restored local house turned hotel, tried local wine, and had a sweet snack in between wandering the streets. The hotels there also looked phenomenal, so if I did ever make it back, I'd love to spend the night and see the streets glowing in the lamplight. 




Oh and I foolishly did NOT buy a Maltese falcon (like from the Humphrey Bogart movie), assuming they'd be all over Malta. Sadly, Mdina was the only place I saw them...though I probably have enough travel trinkets.




Also, final memory, we saw the strangest things coming back from Mdina...a man pulling a very small horse, like large dog sized, down the sidewalk...a man singing to a goldfinch in a cage...and a man walking with a hooded peregrine falcon. It's a wild world out there, friends.


Beef tagliata

Taylor with a local wine from Marvosin...I swear it had notes of salami

Happy on a playground outside of the city gate

Souvenir door knockers...Malta does have amazing doors.




Comments

  1. JackieDecember 26, 2024 at 10:15 AM

    Malta has some unique people, lol. It looks so beautiful there and good there weren't a lot of people. You picked a perfect time to go :)

    ReplyDelete

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