Malta

We woke in Malta to the sound of cannon fire. Later we learned that it was a bank holiday. Malta has been in so many wars that they have to double up on anniversaries. This bank holiday was celebrating the surrender of Italy in 1943 and the lifting of the great siege of the Knights of St John in 1565.

A man from Stockport Highways Department once tried to sell me a roundabout. He said I could name it, use it to advertise my firm and pay for its upkeep but I couldn't live on it and he rang off when I asked about keeping dairy cattle. Someone in Valletta’s Highway Department has thought of an even better scam to raise money. I guess that before they put up signs to tourist attractions they find out which of the local cafés and shops will pay to be on the route. They then direct you past these businesses irrespective of their location. It's the only explanation that I can think of for why we did two laps of Valletta, following the signs to the Lascari War Rooms, before we actually found them.

The walk gave us chance to visit a conveniently located café and to see (and hear) the noonday cannons, a very large bell and fireworks being set off from a barge in the harbour. I thought that they hadn't quite got the right idea about fireworks until I realised that all they really wanted was the bangs. I suppose that, after several hundred years of being shelled by various armies, they get a bit nervous when it's too quiet. We never found Marks and Spencer’s so I assume Highways didn't get them to pay up.

The Lascari war rooms, where the invasion of Sicily and then Italy was overseen, were interesting and well restored but no attempt had been made to create an atmosphere. However, in an adjoining cinema, they played a film about a winter convoy trying to get through to Malta in 1943. It was grainy old black and white footage - the weather was appalling and German planes were sinking ships or being shot out of the sky. After a luxury cruise to the island it brought home to us how different the journey must have been in wartime.

The receptionist, taking a lead from Highways, showed us a very complicated route back to the ship. After two corners we were lost again but we found a rock garden (mainly rocks) on some high ground overlooking the Aurora with lots of local men gathered by an ancient wall. They were watching the Victory Day Regatta in which teams, in what looked like sea going gondolas, rowed against each other in a race across the harbour.

Janet chatted up a local and discovered that the races commemorated the boatmen who used to do the dangerous job of ferrying sailors to and from the hundreds of ships moored there in the war. Each district enters a team but apparently competition is now so hot that the districts employ the best athletes they can find and don't look to closely at post codes. The race we saw was fast, furious and exhausting. The winners crossed the line to loud cheering and, of course, the inevitable sound of cannon fire.

Dave