Valleta, Malta - April 3, 2019

The walled city of Valletta was established in the 1500s by the Knights of St. John, an order of the Roman Catholic Church.  We chose to travel across the island of Malta and then take a little boat to the island of Gozo.  The trip was supposed to be a jeep tour, but it really was riding in an open truck throughout Gozo and seeing all the historic sites.  I thought it was fun and very interesting.

Along the way, we saw the same color of rock on all the buildings.  There is a rock quarry on the island and all the homes and commercial buildings are built from the stone in this quarry.  The embellishments that were placed on some buildings made them unique, but all in all, the town looked pretty cookie cutter.

The main plant is this cactus on all roads and rocks.  They make a cactus wine from it and it is the national drink.

 These rocky ledges are the western most shore of Gozo.  They lead to the blue lagoon.

Perhaps the greatest part was taking a small boat through a narrow slot channel and ending up in the blue lagoon of the island.  The colors of the rocks, water and size of the cliffs was amazing.

 During the Roman days, they made these salt fields.  The ocean comes in and fills the indentations with water and then the water evaporates leaving salt.  They harvest the salt and ship it to various places in the world.