We liked our last cruise so much we're going on another! To Italy, Malta, and Greece with some time at the end in Paris.
I'll be sharing postcards in this thread. They will also be on a nicely formatted web page.
Made it to Italy! Our first night was at La Posta Vecchia, a lovely seaside hotel in a villa restored by J. Paul Getty in the 1960s. It's decorated with some beautiful pieces including this fine Piranesi map, the Ichnographia Campi Martii. There's a small museum for the 2nd c. BC Roman villa in the basement.
Pompeii
Today we are in Amalfi. It is beautiful but we are having a hard time with the heat and the tourist crowds. We usually do not travel in summer!
Sicily today! Our cruise ship is parked by Taormina, a hilltop town. My main activity was enjoying wines at Gambino, a winery up on Mt. Etna. Also a stop in the oddly named village of Linguaglossa.
Now we are in Malta for two days. It's a really weird and interesting country, particularly the period the Order of St John ran things 16th-18th century as a sort of religious / corporatist fiefdom. It's also beautiful with honey-colored limestone and everything so Baroque and tidy.
Malta has this unique history of a megalithic culture from around 3000 BC that built enormous temples, some of the oldest freestanding buildings in Europe and without precedent on the mainland.
The Grandmaster's Palace is a bit of a mixed bag. But it's interesting for the extraordinary wealth the Hospitallers commanded for much of their rule.
But the Grandmaster's Palace also has these extraordinary 1710 Gobelins tapestries depicting exotic scenes from Africa, India, and the Americas. Just opened and newly restored and they are astonishingly beautiful.
The racism and colonialism inherent in this artistic project is important to understand. But the artistry is also beautiful, I'm glad to have seen them.
![These are all hung together in one dense room, it is astonishing. [not my photo].](data/media/116828064685419063_3.jpg)
I appreciate the ubiquitous European cafe where you can sit outside and have a drink and snack and it is no fuss, just practical and comfortable. I wish we had this in the US.
One neat thing in Malta is that the Maltese language is everywhere: signs, ATM screens, casual local conversation. Europe's only indigenous Semitic language, a vernacular Arabic from when Sicily was Muslim.
Malta is rapidly globalizing now thanks to being the center of "innovative" businesses in Europe (gambling, cryptocurrencies, etc). I wonder if it will maintain its language in another two generations. Everyone already speaks English too.
Leaving Malta
The highlight of yesterday in Malta was a visit to St. John's Co-Cathedral, the main church of the Knights of Malta. It is remarkable for being almost entirely a consistent Baroque design from one man. It is sumptuous.
One neat thing is the floor of the cathedral is almost entirely intricate marble tombstones for knights buried underneath. With fascinating graphic design, also inscriptions telling poignant stories. You can browse them in this map view.
St. John's also has two Caravaggio paintings. I was really struck by this St. Jerome. Caravaggio is known as the bad-boy homosexual Baroque painter and has lots of erotic images of young men. Here St. Jerome is quite pious and elderly but also is painted with a sensuality that is the gay male gaze.
Malta is also striking for being built almost entirely out of yellow limestone, one of the country's only natural resources.
