Check-in: Stamp collecting and running in Malta (January 2020)

2010 "Malta and Gozo" stamp | בול איי מלטה

January is a tricky month of the year to travel. While there are astonishingly cheap flights out of Israel, the real bargains are to high-latitude European countries where the days are short and the weather is bone-chillingly cold -- which largely defeats the purpose of the vacation. My original plan for January 2020 was to shell out a little extra on airfare and spend eleven days in relatively warm Morocco, including a few days in Fes to run the international marathon there. However, various circumstances conspired against that idea. When a $100 round-trip ticket to Malta appeared on the radar, serendipitously overlapping a 10K race in the town of Ħ'Attard, the matter was settled: Malta would be the first travel destination of 2020.

Ben Gurion Airport, 10 January 2020

The sudden change of plans, which coincided with a period of mounting pressure at work, meant there wasn't time to properly research the country I was about to visit. Normally I like to understand the history and geography of a place, to know what events will be going on and where, to learn about the wine and craft beer scenes, and to reach out to local runners via Strava. This time I basically knew nothing about where I was going beyond what sort of weather to expect and what type of adapter to pack for my electronic devices. Fortunately, Malta is a tiny and exceedingly travel-friendly country and this ended up not being a problem.

Descent over Ħal Għaxaq fields, 10 January 2020

The flight was short -- less than three hours -- and the Air Malta pilot set us down nice and soft shortly after eight o'clock in the morning. As a demonstration of how ill-informed I was about the country I'd just arrived in, it wasn't until landing that I learned Malta is an hour behind Israel and it wasn't until getting on a bus from the airport that I learned the Maltese drive on the left side of the road. The view out the windows as the bus waded through rush-hour traffic made for a less-than-ideal first impression: palm trees and prickly pair cactuses gave way to clumps of nondescript cubic residential buildings, followed by a sooty industrial zone and a succession of characterless modern commercial buildings.

1992 "Malta International Airport" stamp

Once off the bus in the town of St. Julian's, my home base for the next three days, the view improved dramatically -- especially around Spinola Bay and Balluta Bay. The buildings got older, which is to say more historic, and the streets had a charming ambience that started to make the bus ride from the airport feel like a distant memory. Peter Santenello has talked about "the first twenty-four hours in a radically different culture"¹ being a unique part of the travel experience because so much of the sensory input that the mind has to process is unfamiliar. Malta wasn't a radically different culture, but the spirit of Santenello's insight still applied. My mental CPU was straining, in a completely good and exhilarating way, to make inferences, draw comparisons, put things into categories, decide what it liked and what it didn't -- and I was relishing every moment.

1991 "San Ġiljan: Palazz Spinola" stamp

Day 1, Friday:

• Sliema Stamp Shop (Sliema/Tas-Sliema)
• Said (Remy) Malta (Sliema/Tas-Sliema)
• Malta Postal Museum (Valletta/Il-Belt)

Shortly after checking into my St. Julian's accommodations, I set out to explore the town of Sliema. My first target was the Sliema Stamp Shop on Triq Manwel Dimech. Ostensibly a ten-minute walk from where I was staying, it took me twice that time to get there because I kept stopping to admire the architectural features of the buildings along the way. Triq Manwel Dimech isn't a touristy street by any means; it boasts no coffee shops or attractions, and its sidewalks are too narrow to navigate comfortably. What it has in copious amounts is authenticity. Whether it's thanks to conservation-minded municipal building codes or a will on the part of neighborhood property owners to preserve the status quo, Triq Manwel Dimech and the side streets leading out from it mesmerized me with their distinctive architectural style.

Niche and corbels on Triq Manwel Dimech, Sliema
10 January 2020

What do I mean by "distinctive"? Aside from the handsome closed balconies common to all the building facades in this area of Sliema, there were two architectural features that left a lasting impression on me: niches and corbels. Neither of these design concepts was familiar to me prior to the visit, and they would go on to figure prominently at various times throughout the trip. As for the Sliema stamp shop, it turned out to be permanently closed and the property up for sale -- a disappointing discovery, but I was grateful for the stroll through Sliema that it occasioned.

Sliema Stamp Shop, 10 January 2020

Item number two on my agenda was SAID (Remy) Malta, a collectibles store specializing in philately and numismatics. The ten-minute walk to Triq tal-Katidral passed by Sliema's bustling harbor with its view toward Manoel Island and ferry station to Valletta. My only other visit to a stamp shop being the one in downtown Jerusalem, I expected a similar experience at SAID-Remy, i.e. warm, inviting, social. Instead, the experience was cold and formal. No Where are you from? or What prompted your interest in stamps? -- only, "Yes, I have that stamp; its price is X euros." The stamps were kept in a back room to which only the store owner had access, so there was not even the option of flipping through a stockbook. I was in and out of SAID-Remy in under ten minutes.

SAID (Remy) Malta, 10 January 2020

Returning to Sliema Harbor, it was time to visit the Maltese capital of Valletta and item number 3 on the day's agenda -- the Malta Postal Museum. Most visitors to Valletta enter the city in one of two ways -- either via ferry from Sliema, as I did that day, or on foot through the Valletta City Gate, as I would on Day 3. Arriving via ferry is clearly the superior way. In the first place, entering Valletta from the sea, with the city growing larger as the ferry approaches, is more dramatic and memorable than walking across a moat through a gate that only exists in name. Second, the climb up to Republic Street (Triq ir-Repubblika) from the ferry station passes through streets that have preserved their historical authenticity and appeal, whereas Republic Street itself is exceedingly touristy and commercialized and encountering it straight away spoils Valletta's charm.

2018 Malta-Kyrgyzstan joint issue:
"City of Valletta" stamp

The visit to the Malta Postal Museum was reported on here in January. What I didn't include in that report was the extent to which the neighboring Pub made itself a part of my museum experience. It began with my walking past the museum three or four times without noticing the entrance because a crowd, two dozen strong, of what sounded like British expats had spilled out of the pub onto the street and was distracting my attention. Then the crowd started singing drunken sailor songs with interspersed outbursts of raucous laughter, which lasted literally the entire time I was in the museum, their billowing voices penetrating the walls like they were in the museum with me. To be sure, it didn't detract from the visit; my only regret was I didn't have the foresight to capture the scene on video.

Malta Postal Museum, 10 January 2020

Randomly walking around Valletta after the visit to the postal museum, a stately neoclassical building in one of the squares I passed compelled me to pause for a closer look. The square was Republic Square (Misraħ ir-Repubblika) and the building the National Library of Malta, or Bibliotheca. In addition to housing books, most national libraries also have art exhibitions and public restrooms, and the combination of the three makes them worth popping into. Malta's national library didn't disappoint, with an exquisite reading room and an exhibition of ancient manuscripts and maps.

National Library of Malta
(Left: 2007 stamp; Right: 10 January 2020)

One of the major stories impacting Maltese society in the last few years has been the assassination of journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia in 2017. Since the start of the investigation into Galizia's murder, speculations have run rampant of a conspiracy involving high-ranking government officials and public figures. Two months before my visit a local casino and real estate mogul was indicted on charges suggesting he ordered Galizia's assassination, and the Prime Minister of Malta would go on to resign on day 4 of my trip. A couple blocks from the Malta Postal Museum, the Great Siege Monument, a memorial to the Knights Hospitaller's successful defense of Malta against Ottoman invaders, was turned into a memorial for Galizia, with messages of condolences and demands to bring the perpetrators of her assassination to justice placed around the monument.

Great Siege Monument, Valletta
(Left to right: 1956 stamp, 1962 stamp, 10 January 2020)

Day 1 ended with a walk to the Chabad of Malta, just a couple blocks from where I was staying, to attend Kabbalat Shabbat services there.

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Day 2, Saturday:

• MaltaPost (Il-Marsa)

Day 2 picked up where Day 1 left off, with a walk to a synagogue, except this time it was to a native Maltese synagogue -- organically grown, as it were, and not a Chabad implant -- 1.5 kilometers south in the town of Ta' Xbiex.

2019 "Ta' Xbiex - 50 Sena Parroċċa" postmark

Malta's main post office, which houses the philatelic bureau and is located in the town of Marsa, was a three-kilometer walk from the synagogue, so after the morning service I continued the walk south to Marsa, arriving just as the post office was getting ready to close. The philatelic bureau, it turned out, was closed for Saturday, but the gentleman behind the mail counter was patient enough to let me browse the stamps he had available without rushing me. Among these were two stamps from a 2017 three-stamp Balcony Corbels set, which twenty-four hours earlier I would have scoffed at but after the preceding day's experience was grateful to have found. Today they are among the most meaningful stamps in my collection.

2017 Balcony Corbels stamps

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Day 3, Sunday

I finally went out for my first run in Malta on Day 3, starting in St. Julian's, proceeding along the promenade through Sliema, circling around Gzira's Manoel Island, then Msida, Pieta, Floriana, Valletta, back through Floriana to Marsa, Paola (Raħal Ġdid), Fgura, and the Three Cities of Cospicua (Bormla), Senglea and Il-Birgu (Vittoriosa). The run concluded on Birgu's Triq tal-Lhud -- "Jews Street."

St Elmo Bridge, Valletta (Left: 2018 stamp; Right: 12 January 2020)

What insights did I gain from the run? Women pushing baby strollers are a common sight in Israel, particularly in parts of the country with high concentrations of religious Jews. In general, one sees a lot of children out in parks, teenagers clustered around corner stores and fast-food restaurants, and adults in their twenties and thirties at coffee shops and bars. I observed very few Maltese from either of these three demographics over the course of the run. On the other hand, where there was a gathering of kids, they were without exception civil and behaved, whereas in Israel they can often be vulgar and aggressive. All that being said, it was a Sunday in the dead of winter and my perception may have been skewed by the small sample size.

2016 SEASONS: "Winter -- Ghar id-Dud" stamp

One surprising feature of Malta's human landscape was its absence of an African migrant population. It was surprising for two reasons: first, because the flight of African migrants to Europe has been a theme of the last two decades and even the landscape of Tel Aviv has been drastically altered by the phenomenon; and second, because of Malta's proximity to the African continent and the fact that migrant boats bound for Italian territorial waters sail right by the Maltese islands. It turned out Malta had an African migrant population, but it was confined to a visibly neglected out-of-sight-out-of-mind area around two mosques identified on Google Maps as the Roof Top Mosque (Marsa) and the Malta Islamic Center (Paola/Raħal Ġdid).

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Day 4, Monday:

• MaltaPost (Il-Marsa)
• Malta Currency Museum (Valletta/Il-Belt)

On Day 4 I took the bus down to Marsa to visit the post office there again. This time the philatelic bureau was open and I met with the bureau's supervisor, Bradley Borg. He completed the missing third stamp from my 2017 Balcony Corbels set and hooked me up with a three-stamp 2016 set of the same name, a 2×3 sheet of Malta's 2014 joint issue stamp with Israel, a 2016 Olympic runner stamp, and a single-stamp 2016 "450th Anniversary: Foundation of Valletta" souvenir minisheet -- all at face value prices and in an atmosphere of goodwill.

MaltaPost philatelic bureau, Marsa, 13 January 2020

From Marsa it was another bus ride for my third visit to Valletta, this time to tour the Currency Museum at Malta's Central Bank. Although the currency museum is a fraction of the size of the Malta Postal Museum, its coins have a much older -- as in 2,500 years old -- and more complicated story to tell. Coins are believed to have been introduced to Malta in the fifth century BC by the Carthaginians, who were the second major ethnic group to settle Malta after the Phoenicians in 800 BC. Thereafter, Malta's coins changed based on which regional power ruled over the islands. Under the Romans, who arrived in 218 BC, Malta minted its own coins in bronze, and some of these featured Greek inscriptions alongside Punic religious symbols. Between 533 and 535 AD Malta's territorial status and coinage shifted from ex-Western Roman (Vandals, Visigoths) to Eastern Roman, i.e. Byzantine. In 827 and 870 Malta suffered attacks from Islamic Africa, ultimately falling to the Arabs, and coins used in Malta began bearing Arabic inscriptions. When the Norman Count Roger invaded Malta in 1091, the provenance of Malta's coins shifted to Sicily, yet Arabic continued to be used on them. Malta changed hands multiple times until 1530, when the islands were entrusted to the Order of St. John, who operated a local mint until 1800. In 1800 Malta became a possession of the British Crown after the British helped repel a Napoleonic French invasion, and British coins subsequently coexisted alongside various other currencies. The British Royal Mint began minting exclusively Maltese coins in 1827, and British coins continued to serve as legal tender beyond Malta's 1964 independence until 1972, when Malta introduced the Maltese lira. Finally, in 2004 Malta joined the European Union and in 2008 adopted the euro.

1999 "25 Sena Repubblika: Bank Centrali Ta' Malta" stamp

Jerusalem has at least half a dozen Armenian khachkars, and I endeavor when possible to seek out khachkars wherever I travel. Each khachkar is unique, and it is interesting to compare them to each other. In 2009 an Armenian khachkar was installed in Valletta's Hastings Gardens as a "token of friendship between the Maltese and Armenian people" and in tribute to Malta "for its support to Armenians who found refuge on this island in the tragic years of 1375 and 1915." I had tried to find the Valletta khachkar the day before, but I was looking for it in the wrong park, and no one I asked -- not even the woman at the tourist information booth by Triton Fountain -- had any idea what I was talking about. After the currency museum, having meanwhile determined the exact location of Valletta's khachkar, I walked to Hastings Gardens and found the khachkar there, among numerous other monuments.


That afternoon I relocated to Xemxija in St. Paul's Bay to begin the trip's second leg.

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Day 5, Tuesday

On Day 5 I went out for my second run in Malta, starting from the Simar Nature Reserve -- where I did not spot any birds -- passing through the village of Il-Manikata, looping around the Gaia Peace Grove, destroying my shoes at the Majjistral Nature Park, stopping for a view of Popeye Village, and catching a glimpse of Il-Bajja tal-Mellieħa (Mellieħa Bay) before ending the run with a climb up to Il-Mellieħa.

1999 "Riserva Naturali Simar:
Għasfur ta' San Martin Alcedo aathis" stamp

Truth be told, this was the least enjoyable of the four runs I undertook on the trip. Early on I had trouble figuring out which trail I was supposed to be on, then there was gunfire from hunters frighteningly close to my position, and just as I was finally starting to enjoy myself I got stuck in a massive beach resort at Golden Sands and couldn't for the life of me find how to get out. Majjistral is a pretty nature park, mysteriously desolate with nice views of the sea to the west, but the outsoles of my shoes got butchered by the jagged rocks and boulders. By the time I left Popeye Village and got to Mellieħa Bay, I was cold and dreading the climb up to Il-Mellieħa. Mellieħa itself was pleasant to walk through, with an impressive church and a site preserving some of the air-raid shelters from World War II, but the clash between old and new buildings was like watching someone with multiple personality disorder keep switching between identities.

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Day 6, Wednesday

On Day 6 I took the ferry to Gozo Island (Għawdex) to begin the third leg of the trip. The half-hour ride passed by Comino, Malta's third-largest island, and ended at Gozo's Mġarr Harbor. Malta's public transportation system made the journey effortless: buses are fully integrated into Google Maps, they and the Gozo ferry had free WiFi, and the bus ticket I bought in St. Paul's Bay was still valid upon reaching Gozo. My accommodations were in Victoria/Ir-Rabat, Gozo's largest city, a couple blocks from Victoria's old town and the city's historic St. Francis Square.

2011 "Gozo Channel Line" stamp

After checking into my Airbnb, I headed to Pjazza L-Indipendenza, Victoria's main square. On the east side of the square were the Saint Jacob Church (Knisja ta' San Ġakbu) and the Visit Gozo tourist information center. Directly in front of the two was a statue of Saverio Cassar, whom the Times of Malta explains "was a Gozitan patriot who led the uprising against the French in Gozo in 1798 and who acted as head of the provisional government in Gozo for two years."²

Saverio Cassar
(Left: 2002 stamp; Right: 15 January 2020)

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Day 7, Thursday:

• MaltaPost (Victoria/Ir-Rabat)

The last time I'd mailed someone a postcard was too far in the past to recall with any clarity. It's possible it was as a kid at summer camp, where I vaguely remember there being an hour each week set aside for letter writing. Once when I was in fourth grade I found a bag with hundreds of postcards thrown onto a garbage heap that I walked past every day to get to and from school. Almost all of the postcards were used, and it was eerily fascinating having access to so many strangers' personal lives. One postcard I still vividly remember had a 3D lenticular picture of fish on the front -- the kind that gave the illusion of moving when the postcard was tilted. Eventually the postcards all got thrown out, which it's taken me thirty years to recognize was a grave mistake.

The side streets around Pjazza L-Indipendenza had numerous souvenir shops selling knight figurines, keychains and refrigerator magnets, as well as postcards and packets of assorted Maltese stamps. Day 7 started with my purchasing three generic postcards at one of the shops for €1 and mailing them at the nearby post office on Triq Sir Adrian Dingli. The postcards arrived at their destinations but with the stamps uncanceled.

Post office in Victoria Gozo, 16 January 2020

Med in Bike's EU-funded SIBIT project devised a 42K bicycle route around Gozo, and after mailing the postcards I set out to explore some of the route on foot. It took me in a loop from Victoria west through Ta' Kerċem and Santa Luċija, north to San Lawrenz, L-Għarb and the Wied il-Mielaħ Window, east around Iż-Żebbuġ and onto Marsalforn, south to Ix-Xagħra, and finally west back to Victoria. This was the most enjoyable run on the trip, primarily because the route was easy to navigate, had close to zero vehicular traffic, and showcased the rich diversity of Gozo Island in terms of natural scenery, architecture and historical landmarks.

Wied il-Mielaħ Window, 16 January 2020

Santa Luċija was memorable for its quaint village square and its Għajn Għabdun spring anecdotally named after a leader of Berber marauders who was held captive at the site and whose desperation for water led him to dig into the ground, thus discovering the spring. San Lawrenz was memorable for its Kempinski Hotel and the traditional architecture of its buildings. L-Għarb was memorable for its statues of Ġużeppe Cauchi and Kalanġ Mizzi, Nikol Ġużeppi Cauchi, and Frenċ tal-Għarb. The Wied il-Mielaħ Window was a unique geological feature the likes of which I'd only ever seen in pictures. And when I first got to the Qbajjar salt pans, I couldn't understand why the ground had been carved up into shallow pools of different sizes and shapes -- until a sign explained that this was a traditional method of harvesting salt with roots going back to the Romans.

Qbajjar salt pans
(Left: 2009 stamp; Right: 16 January 2020)

Marsalforn was a return to civilization, though mostly in a negative vein: cars, crude storefront signage, a developed but crumbling promenade, and apartment buildings that clearly prioritized expediency over esthetics. It wasn't the kind of place I'd have chosen for a snack break, but with Marsalforn at sea level and Ix-Xagħra at 140 meters above sea level, I had no choice but to pause for a protein bar at Marsalforn's Three Hills Garden (Ġnien it-Tlett Għoljiet) before starting the climb up to Ix-Xagħra. Thankfully, Ix-Xagħra preserved its classic Gozitan village ambience, rewarding my climb with a picturesque central square and elegantly traditional building facades.

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Day 8, Friday (Victoria/Ir-Rabat):

• Gozo Philatelic Society
• Astra Theatre
• Gozo College Secondary School

The Visit Gozo tourist information center in Pjazza L-Indipendenza had a free self-guided walking tour brochure encompassing 42 sights in and around Victoria's Cittadella and old town. My goal for Day 8 was to hit them all, which I did, and still have time to sample some local craft beer before attending a couple of events in the evening. The tour, authored by Joseph Bezzina, began at the Banca Giuratale, or Civic Council, a building on the west side of the Pjazza with a conspicuously rounded facade. Since there was a sign outside the entrance inviting guests to visit an art exhibition inside, I entered and discovered that the rounded facade was in fact an annex added on to an older building and that the older building's original entrance and outer wall were still intact and visible within.

Gozo Civic Council
(Left: 1965 stamp; Right: 17 January 2020)

Stops 2 through 12 of the tour were clustered within the fortified Iċ-Ċittadella, and it was there that I began to appreciate the year 1551's centrality to Maltese history and in particular to the Gozitan identity. 1551 was the year Ottoman Muslims seized Christian Gozo and enslaved its inhabitants. In 1565 the same Ottomans would lay siege to Malta Island but fail to breach its defenses. Stop 9 was a museum on a street named after one Bernardo de Opuo, whom Bezzina explained was "a knight from Villa Mirados, Sicily. In 1551, when the City fell to the Turks, Bernardo, preferring a noble death to slavery, killed his wife and two daughters and then fought the enemy until he himself was cut down under their scimitars."

Iċ-Ċittadella - Għawdex
(Left: 2016 stamp; Right: 17 January 2020)

The building that commands the most attention in the Cittadella is the Cathedral. Its timeline, as recounted in Bezzina's brochure, had by Day 8 already become familiar to me from my time in Malta, especially from the visit to the currency museum in Valletta on Day 4. "The area now occupied by The Cathedral has been the site of a building for public worship for around 3000 years. A Carthaginian structure was replaced by a Roman temple and eventually by a Byzantine church. From around 870 to 1127, there was probably a mosque. It was replaced by a church in the early twelfth century. The present Cathedral is at least the third church to occupy the site. The baroque Church, that dominates the skyline of Gozo with its bell tower, was raised between 1697 and 1711."

Katidral ta' Ghawdex
(Left to right: 1997 stamp, 2014 postmark, 17 January 2020)

The Cittadella was not without its Jewish connection. Although not a stop on Bezzina's tour, one area of the Cittadella was identified by a sign as the Jewish Quarter (Il-Kwartier Lhudi): "There are indications that TRIQ IL-FOSO, the street along the north side of the Cathedral was the Jewish Quarter in medieval times. The Jews paid a special tax to the City Universita, but in return held a monopoly as apothecaries and dyers."

The Jewish Quarter, 17 January 2020

Stop 16, in Victoria's old town, was the Basilica Museum, also known as Il-Ħagar or Heart of Gozo. This museum was closed for repairs the whole time I was in Gozo, which was unfortunate since the Gozo Philatelic Society was exhibiting a collection of stamps issued by the Sovereign Military Order of Malta there. Still, it was encouraging to learn that on an island of 30,000 people there was an active philatelic society.

Gozo Philatelic Society at Il-Ħagar Heart of Gozo Museum
(Left: Online flyer; Right: 17 January 2020)

Sight number 40 of the tour was "La Stella Band Club and Astra Theatre," on Triq ir-Repubblika, and when I walked inside the theater I saw this philatelic cover in a display case:

2018 "Teatru Astra 50th Anniversary" cover
17 January 2020

As a teacher, one of the things I endeavor to do when traveling is visit schools and meet local teachers and students. I find it gives me a fresh perspective on my job, freshness being a vital asset to effective teaching. The Gozo College Senior Secondary School was hosting a student debate in English, and that sounded like an excellent opportunity to catch a glimpse of what the local education system was like. One of the students competing in the debate, Nicole Micallef (17), pulled an Oprah Winfrey look-under-your-seat when she revealed to the audience we each had a postcard she had received via Postcrossing glued under our chairs.

Nicole Micallef, 17, Gozo College Secondary School
17 January 2020

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Day 9, Saturday

On Day 9 I bade a reluctant farewell to Gozo and returned to Malta Island with the ferry to begin the fourth and final leg of the trip. With half of Gozo still uncharted territory and the half I did chart pleading with me not to leave, Gozo felt like the kind of place I could have carved out a niche in and continued exploring for months. It was there that I understood the difference between Malta's native culture and its expat scene; why old signs and inscriptions were only in Maltese, then only in English, and most recently in Maltese and English side by side; and why the Maltese spoken in the countryside sounded more like Arabic while the same language spoken in the city sounded closer to Italian.

1991 "Fliegu ta' Għawdex" stamp

My accommodations for the next two nights were in the tiny town of Mtarfa (L-Imtarfa). Its only source of food being a neighborhood corner store, and needing a proper meal in preparation for a race in nearby Ħ'Attard the next day, I made a stop in neighboring Ir-Rabat to eat at a restaurant. Later that evening, at my Airbnb hostess' insistence, she drove me to the race venue in Ħ'Attard so I'd know the way there in the morning. On the drive back we stopped to walk around the walled city of Mdina, where she showed me the main sights and where I must go for iconic local chocolate cake and pastizzis after the race.

2007 "Mdina Skyline Seen from Mtarfa" stamp

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Day 10, Sunday

The Ħ'Attard 10K was an event I came to as a C-race with minimal expectations. Training, eating, sleeping -- all the essential components of a successful race had been lacking from my weekly routine for months. Not knowing if there'd be a bag drop station, I intended to run the race with my 1.5-liter hydration pack over my shoulders, making small talk in the rear and taking photos. Even when it turned out there was a bag drop, I still planned on taking it slow. Instead, the run ended up being my fourth-fastest 10K and my fastest since May 2018. I couldn't say at what point in the race it happened exactly, but much like the Kilcock 10-mile in Ireland, early on I started successively overtaking the runners ahead of me, which grew more and more addictive, and next thing I knew I was racing in earnest.

After retrieving my hydration pack and mingling with some other runners, I picked up the run again en-route to Mdina to explore the medieval walled old city -- this time during daylight. Entering from Mdina Gate, I managed to cover pretty much every street of the city and to follow up on my hostess' culinary recommendations, starting with a slice of sumptuous chocolate cake at Fontanella.

Mdina Gate (Left: 1956 stamp; Right: 19 January 2020)

Godfrey Wettinger (Oxford; University of Malta) determined from an analysis of medieval documents that, prior to their expulsion in 1492, Jews constituted one third of Mdina's population. Anthony Luttrell later estimated the Mdina Jewish community's number at five hundred souls. Today all that is left of Mdina's Jewish past is a ceramic sign beside a door on Triq il-Karmnu (Carmel Street) with the inscription "The Old Jewish Silk Market" in Hebrew and English.

"The Old Jewish Silk Market," L-Imdina, 19 January 2020

Without knowing what it was I was eating at the time, I'd already had my first pastizzis in the town of Cospicua on Day 3. It was toward the end of that day's run, and in my impatience to absorb the pastizzis' calories into my system I burned my tongue on their steaming hot filling -- first the pea pastizzi and then the cheese. Is-Serkin, or Crystal Palace, is Malta's pastizzi mecca, and after exiting Mdina I joined the line there that stretched from inside the bakery out to the street. It was well worth the wait, but they were out of cheese, which as a pescatarian meant I had to make do exclusively with pea. From Is-Serkin it was a short run to St. Paul's Catacombs, a complex of hundreds of rock-hewn tombs that is one of Malta's top attractions. Some of the tombs bore Jewish inscriptions, and above-ground signs indicated in which chambers the tombs were located, but it wasn't always as easy to discern the features as the signs suggested.

Menorah at St. Paul's Catacombs, Ir-Rabat
19 January 2020

Where I had originally planned to go next was Dingli Cliffs, just four kilometers from St. Paul's Catacombs. But evening was approaching, I did not feel like running back from the cliffs in the dark, and photos of the cliffs failed to persuade me they were a must-see attraction.

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Day 11, Monday:

• Malta Postal Museum (Valletta/Il-Belt)

On the morning of Day 11, my last full day in Malta, I hitched a ride with my hostess into Sliema to meet with an Armenian woman who had moved to Malta and was undertaking to revitalize Malta's Armenian community after years of organizational stagnation. It was an important meeting in the context of where I work and for hearing firsthand the hopes and concerns of a young woman just starting a family in the country. It turned out we had more ground to cover than what a cup of hot chocolate allotted us, and we agreed to meet a second time later in the day. In the meantime, I had one last item of unfinished business to attend to in Valletta. Actually two: buy a philatelic cover from the Malta Postal Museum as a souvenir for my collection and drink a Maltese beer at The Pub next door. As I had done on my first day in Malta, I rode the ferry to Valletta from Sliema Harbor. This time, as the vessel made its way across Marsamxett Harbor, I reflected not on the experiences I was about to have but on all those I'd accumulated since the first ferry ride. After acquiring my philatelic cover from the postal museum and drinking my beer at The Pub, Karina Ayrapetyan and I resumed our meeting in Sliema, and I began making my way to the airport.

Malta Postal Museum philatelic cover (left)
and Farsons IPA at The Pub (right)

With my flight scheduled to depart at 03:40, boarding scheduled to begin at 3:10, and the current time being 3:00, there was just enough of a window for one last visit to the men's room. Returning to the gate some ten minutes later, I was puzzled to find it completely deserted. Had they changed the gate at the last minute? Airports still occasionally pull stunts like that with flights to Israel, for understandable reasons. I approached the counter to inquire but was rudely cut off before I had the chance to open my mouth. "You. Where have you been? We were calling you!" "I was in the men's room. Where is everyone?" "Where is everyone? They're on the plane. You weren't here for boarding. The plane was boarded without you." "What do you mean boarded without me? It's 3:14. It says right there on the display that boarding starts at 3:10. You could not have boarded everyone in four minutes." "Sir, look again. The time is now 3:40." I looked at my watch in horror. It said 3:14. My phone -- 3:14. How could they both have been thirty minutes slow? Feeling myself starting to panic, I looked back at the 03:40 on the screen. "But that's not the time now. That's the departure time. The time now is 3:14!" Long story short, they called a bus back to fetch me and transported me to the plane, and I boarded without further incident.

2000 "Airbus A320" stamp

Conclusion:

If I had to describe Malta in a single word, it would be "cozy." Cities like Paris and Brussels can be intimidating in their grandeur; their buildings have a distant, look-don't-touch quality like rare coins in a museum. In contrast, the buildings in Sliema and Valletta, Victoria's old town, and the fortified Cittadella and Mdina sites felt close and approachable. Where Paris and Brussels are stoic, Malta is emotional. Where Paris and Brussels are elitist and condescending, Malta is sympathetic and relatable. The same goes for the Maltese people. Malta is the first country I've traveled in where not a single person tried to scam me into overpaying for a service or pressure me into buying something I didn't need. After Monaco, Malta is the smallest country I've traveled in, yet my desire to return to it far exceeds my desire to revisit countries many times its size.

Malta souvenirs