Field Trips

As part of the classes our students are taking at the University of Malta we are taking a number of field trips around the island. Most of these are led by the same members of the faculty who have been part of the series of guest lectures that make up these courses.

Għajn Tuffieħa Bay

Last week, Dr. Louis F. Cassar, Associate Professor of Environmental Management & Planning, and Director of the University’s Institute of Earth Systems, led our group on an excursion around the north and west sides of the island, and spoke to us about land use.

Għajn Tuffieħa Bay with white cliffs of Gozo on the horizon, left of center.

The problem with land on Malta is there isn't much of it! On the main island, nearly 400,000 people are crammed into about 95 square miles of land. On Gozo, the next largest island, there are another 38,000 people on about 26 square miles of land.

High ground between Għajn Tuffieħa Bay and Gnejna Bay

The rest of the islands are very small and essentially uninhabited. That makes Malta the 10th most densely populated spot on the planet, just down the list a few slots from the likes of Singapore and Hong Kong.

Gnejna Bay

Dr. Cassar took us to place called Għajn Tuffieħa Bay near the Il-Majjistral Nature & History National Park. He pointed out the land and rock formations, types of plants, and noted the interaction of the land with the sea in this place. We hiked to a high point from which we could see Gnejna Bay close by. From here we could also see the cliffs of Gozo across the straight.

Anchor Bay

We also stopped briefly at a land form called Anchor Bay, once a favorite spot for pirates, more recently for fishermen, and more recently still, the location for shooting the 1980 Robin Williams movie, Popeye. The set remains as a tourist attraction. We did not pay the price of admission.

Popeye movie set

We spent some time hiking through the Buskett Gardens, one of the few woodland areas in Malta. This 60 acre valley was replanted in the 16th century after most Maltese timber had been cut clear for fuel and ship building. Overlooking the gardens is the Verdala Palace, built as a hunting lodge for the Grand Master of the Knights of Malta, and now an official residence of the President of the country.

Dr. Cassar explains plant life at Buskett Gardens, Verdala Palace in background.

After driving through the countryside a bit, noting different forms of agriculture, rock formations, fault lines, quarries, and the ruins of various fortifications dating from the Middle Ages up to World War II, we finished at the Dingli Cliffs -- the highest point on Malta, 830 feet above the sea.

View from Dingli Cliffs

This week, after a fascinating lecture by Dr. Timmy Gambin, Senior Lecturer in Classics & Archaeology, it was arranged for one of his former students, Liam Gauci, the curator at the Maritime Museum of Malta, to give us a personal tour of that museum.

A teaching model from the 18th century used to teach Maltese boys how to go to sea.

We were a bit skeptical about a museum filled mostly with models of old ships. And indeed, when we were walking around through the exhibits that's pretty much all we saw. But Mr. Gauci's narrative transformed "just a bunch of models" into a quite fascinating history lesson.

Liam Gauci explains naval warfare.

We had a very brief introduction to ancient shipping from the Phoenician and Roman periods on the ground floor, then skipped over a 1000 years or so, due to constraints of time. Upstairs, we got a look at how the technology of seafaring and naval warfare was transformed with the arrival, in 1530, of The Order of the Knights of Saint John of Jerusalem (known today as the "Sovereign Military Order of Malta" or simply "Knights of Malta").

Artifacts of the period of the Knights found in Malta's Grand Harbor

Having been driven out of Jerusalem at the end of the Crusades, the Knights wandered the Mediterranean for years before the Pope granted them Malta as a home and possession (not bothering to consult the Maltese).

Reconstruction of a naval gun placement.

The Knights were one of several quasi-monastic orders created primarily for military, rather than spiritual purposes during the Crusades. Most of these were phased out or turned into Roman Catholic social fraternities after the end of the crusading era.

100+ year old British diving gear

But the Knights of St. John were well-connected. Most members were nobles, the second, third, and etc. sons of kings and dukes who would not stand to inherit land or title. Many did bring large trust funds, however. Moreover, the Knights of St. John had reinvented themselves as a "Hospitallar" order, dedicated to the care of those injured in battle.

The Maritime Museum is located in a former British Navy building, right on the harbor.

The Knights ruled Malta for almost 270 years, fighting off major attacks from Muslim "Turks" and turning the island into a heavily fortified naval base for raids against Muslim ships and ports in North Africa. (A bit of trivia we learned is that when the U.S. Marines did their bit "on the shores of Tripoli," as the song says, they achieved the victory in part by dressing as Maltese, which scared the hell out of the Barbary pirates!)

As an island, Malta has always had a close relationship to the sea. Even today, in the age of aviation, some 85% of all goods that come to Malta come by sea. On our field trips the last couple weeks, we learned a great deal about the history of that close relationship.