![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ewxWork sent me to Malta for Financial Crypto 2017 last month. I've already shared my domain-relevant thoughts on it with my colleagues, but thanks to the extra-mural parts of the conference program I got to see some interesting things on the island too.
The full set of pictures are on Flickr; some highlights appear below.
Sliema. The conference was held in Sliema, which particularly on the edges was mostly modern buildings (of which many more are going up); the interior had obviously been around a bit longer. Still, there’s some visually interesting things to capture if you look for them:
I’m uncertain whether the misquotation is deliberate.
It’s not exactly a beach resort; where it wasn’t harbour, the coast was interestingly eroded rock...
...plus some odd structures:
Valetta. The really interesting-looking stuff was across the harbour. This is the city of Valetta, built in the C16th to control access to the harbour, and thus in turn to control traffic between the easterna and western halves of the Mediterranean - a very live issue in an era when the Ottoman Empire was its height.
We had a tour which included a visit to the co-cathedral of St John’s; the cathedral proper is in Mdina, which we also visited. IIRC the Baroque interior here is a C17th addition, the decor of the original Templar design was apparently rather more restrained (it could hardly be less so).
The trompe l’oeil effect, with people’s legs apparently hanging down from the ceiling, doesn’t come across as well in a small picture as it did in real life, so you’ll have to take my word for it, although this detail might hint at one example of it:
Marsaxlokk (“Marsa-shlock”). A fishing village, the boat shown here is pretty typical:
Less typical was the collection of protest signs:
On the same afternoon we had a boat tour round some rather nice coastal caves. Photography in a moving boat in a cave with only a cellphone was challenging but this exterior shot gives some idea of why it's called the blue grotto. There were numerous jellyfish visible, maybe 5-10cm across?
Parts of the place reminded me of Sicily (the ubiquitous prickly pears depicted below) and other bits of England (BS1363, some of the Sliema shops, much of the spoken/written language), although the Arabic place-names contrasted sharply with this.
The last site we visited was the megalithic temple at Ħaġar Qim (approximately “Hajar Eem”). At well over 5K years old, I think this is the oldest building I’ve ever visited.
The full set of pictures are on Flickr; some highlights appear below.
Sliema. The conference was held in Sliema, which particularly on the edges was mostly modern buildings (of which many more are going up); the interior had obviously been around a bit longer. Still, there’s some visually interesting things to capture if you look for them:
I’m uncertain whether the misquotation is deliberate.
It’s not exactly a beach resort; where it wasn’t harbour, the coast was interestingly eroded rock...
...plus some odd structures:
Valetta. The really interesting-looking stuff was across the harbour. This is the city of Valetta, built in the C16th to control access to the harbour, and thus in turn to control traffic between the easterna and western halves of the Mediterranean - a very live issue in an era when the Ottoman Empire was its height.
We had a tour which included a visit to the co-cathedral of St John’s; the cathedral proper is in Mdina, which we also visited. IIRC the Baroque interior here is a C17th addition, the decor of the original Templar design was apparently rather more restrained (it could hardly be less so).
The trompe l’oeil effect, with people’s legs apparently hanging down from the ceiling, doesn’t come across as well in a small picture as it did in real life, so you’ll have to take my word for it, although this detail might hint at one example of it:
Marsaxlokk (“Marsa-shlock”). A fishing village, the boat shown here is pretty typical:
Less typical was the collection of protest signs:
On the same afternoon we had a boat tour round some rather nice coastal caves. Photography in a moving boat in a cave with only a cellphone was challenging but this exterior shot gives some idea of why it's called the blue grotto. There were numerous jellyfish visible, maybe 5-10cm across?
Parts of the place reminded me of Sicily (the ubiquitous prickly pears depicted below) and other bits of England (BS1363, some of the Sliema shops, much of the spoken/written language), although the Arabic place-names contrasted sharply with this.
The last site we visited was the megalithic temple at Ħaġar Qim (approximately “Hajar Eem”). At well over 5K years old, I think this is the oldest building I’ve ever visited.
(no subject)
Date: 2017-05-01 07:47 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2017-05-01 07:52 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2017-05-01 08:56 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2017-05-01 10:35 pm (UTC)I think the "odd structures" are (or used to be) little swimming pools cut out of the rock - if they're where I think they are, then some of them would have had little steps going down the side (also cut straight out of the rock), and there was a larger sort of pool a little bit round the shore. I used to go there as a child, when my grandparents lived in Sliema.
(no subject)
Date: 2017-05-01 10:56 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2017-05-02 07:03 pm (UTC)