I had been aware of this small island nation in the Mediterranean since childhood (I had a classmate who emigrated from there) but it wasn't until I saw Nas's video (Oh My Malta!) that my interest was piqued to visit.
When I met someone from Malta at a conference in Barcelona a few days earlier, I knew that this was the time to visit.
Malta is tiny - only 44% the land area of Singapore (316 km^2), and 1/10th of the population (514 K), yet it has played a disproportionately large role in history.
It was a strategic naval base for pretty much every major Western civilisation, and changed hands between the various dominant players throughout history, with the British being the most recent, in 1813. It is now a member of the EU, and aiming to be its financial regulation innovation capital, especially in the domain of cryptocurrencies.
They have a unique language, which bears some similarity to Arabic although written in Latin script + a few new letters (Ċ,Ġ, Ħ, Ż), and the culture and food has some shared elements with its European and North African neighbours.
I was struck by how densely packed everything was, and the diversity of architecture representing the various periods in Maltese history. As a result of the density, there wasn't much room for new infrastructure, and traffic was therefore unsurprisingly bad for a city of so few inhabitants (it was probably better to have taken scooters or bicycles instead of cars).
The most pleasant surprises were the beautiful azure waters and land formations beyond the city limits (part of which was hosted a set village for the 1980 Popeye musical film), and the supremely ancient megalithic structures (pictured below is Ħaġar Qim), which are some of the oldest in the world (estimated to be over 5,500 years old). The thought that this large rock could sustain a complex Neolithic society so long ago really is mind blowing - even today, there is not much soil, and it is difficult to cultivate crops. It makes me wonder if the Mediterranean sea level was a little lower back then to have supported a larger agricultural community around the island given these temples were religious in nature and perhaps analogous to other holy sites in the world that were placed on high ground - this recent paper (which was published 2 years after our visit) suggests this may have been the case.
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