LA VALLETTA

Mooring in Valletta, Malta, is and how to get into a fantasy tale like those of Tolkien; once in port, it seems that modern civilization has disappeared. You might see a car or two on the winding roads between the ramparts, the castles, but they seem terribly out of place and unexpected.

It doesn't matter that Malta, which has 7,000 years of intriguing history, is completely modernized and contemporary. What you see when you enter the port of Valletta are the wonderful stone defensive holes of forts punctuated by the war that protects the strategic waterway. Cream-colored buildings and ancient bell towers develop from the winding roads and hills. 

Malta has been inhabited since 5000 BC. and was colonized by the Phoenicians in 1000 BC. Then the islands went in turn to the Greeks, Carthaginians, Romans, Byzantines, Arabs, Normans, and Spaniards, who handed them over to the Knights of the Order of St. John in a "perpetual lease" in 1533; this lasted until Napoleon imposed control in 1798. The Maltese did not like it, the French rebelled and sought help from Britain; Malta became a British protectorate in 1800 and part of the British Empire in 1814. Later, it shook the British and gained independence in 1964. Since 1974 Malta has been a republic under the British Commonwealth.