Malta

Another envelope full of great postcards from Brian.

 

The Neolithic temples of Hagar Qim. They are a UNESCO world heritage site, together with other Neolithic temples one finds in Malta.

 

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.



 A cartoon of Maltese traditional costumes surrounded by various historic sites.

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.