Another envelope full of great postcards from Brian.
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The Neolithic temples
of Hagar Qim. They are a UNESCO world heritage site, together with other
Neolithic temples one finds in Malta.
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Maltese buses. I was
excited to find out they look exactly like a Swiss “Postauto”, or postal car,
or buses to remote areas, where they sometimes still are used to transport
mail. I remember once having helped to load up mail bags on a route near Davos,
in the canton of Graubünden, in the southeast of Switzerland. Since July 2011,
the Maltese buses have been substituted by more modern buses operated by
Arriva. The old buses are missed a lot by tourists and some of them have been
kept as tourist attraction for sightseeing. In Switzerland, the buses have been
substituted by more modern ones as well but the color scheme has been kept.
Their famous characteristic horn is heard less and less often though. The best
chances to hear one are on mountain roads or if you happen to be on a bus with
a school class on their yearly traditional trip. An enthusiastic “Tüü-taa-too,
Postautoo!” often follows the sound of the horn. The last time I heard the horn
was in the late 1990s on a steep, winding mountain road in the Entlebuch area
of Lucerne, central Switzerland.
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A cartoon of Maltese traditional costumes surrounded by
various historic sites.
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St John’s
Co-Cathedral, Valletta. It was built by the knights of St. John and is full of
artistic treasures including the Beheading of St. John by Caravaggio.
Left: A general view
of the splendid interior of St. John’s.
Top right: The Chapel
of the Langue of Aragon.
Bottom right: The
monument to Grandmaster Emmanuel Pinto (1741-1773) by Roman sculptor Vincenzo
Paccetti in the Chapel of Castille et Leon.
