Continued from yesterday”¦ Once we finished at the archeological museum, we went to St. John’s Co-Cathedral, the official house of worship for the Knights, and adjoining Cathedral Museum. The cathedral was completed in 1577, and as you can see, the exterior “has the character of a fortress reflecting the sober mood of the Order”¦”

When the cathedral was first built, the inside was just as plain as the outside. The layout is simple — the center is the main church area and altar, devoted to St. John the Baptist, and on each side are four little nooks, called chapels. Each chapel was devoted to a specific language group and their patron saint. But, later the baroque era began, and ornately decorated churches were the rage. The inside was updated to reflect the style of the times.

We walked in and were immediately overwhelmed. True baroque churches are covered with elaborate décor, and this is a true baroque church. The floors are made of marble, and are loaded with colorful tombs with pictures of crests and angels made from assorted colors of marble. Here is one of the many, and every tomb is different.

Some sections of the walls have paintings, scenes from the life of John the Baptist using fairly bright colors. Every single inch of space not devoted to paintings is covered in elaborately carved designs painted in gold. There were paintings and statues everywhere, most by big name artists, like Caravaggio. There were lots of marble pillars accenting the art, usually a colored marble. The first shot is of one of the little nooks, called chapels, off the main sanctuary. You can really see the intricacy of the wall designs. The second shot is of the main altar, where you can see some of the wall painting behind the sculpture.

The ceilings in the main sanctuary are dome shaped, and also fully painted and flanked by the gold carvings. This picture gives you a sense of just how darn big this church is and how much gold trim is around. You can also get an idea of how intricate the ceiling paint is, although a close up would probably have your jaw drop.

We find the baroque style to be overload on the senses. Each and every work of art is amazing, down to the smallest details, and when literally every inch of space is covered, it is just too much to look at.

The Cathedral Museum is in a large building off to the side of the main cathedral. Inside are ancient manuscripts, holy garments of embroidered silks used in ceremonies, and works of art from famous artists that were commissioned by the knights or presented as gifts to the knights. The art work includes paintings, sculptures and tapestries, all from the 1600’s and 1700’s. The art and artifacts, both in the church and the museum, is probably worth the GDP of a decent size country. But the crowning piece of glory in the collection is St. John the Baptist’s forearm, which is prominently displayed.

When we finished at the museum, we decided to leave Valletta and went for a drive around the Vittoriosa. We followed the water for a while to see where it would take us. When we found outskirts of town, we turned back around.

That night we had dinner at a wine bar in Vittoriosa. Like pretty much every building we have been inside in Malta, the wine bar is made of limestone and has very high ceilings (so high that you could easily add a second floor and still have what Americans consider high ceilings on both floors) and arched doorways. Some buildings have flat ceilings with thick wooden support beams, some with vaulted or arched ceilings. The waiter told us that the building we were in was once a palace and the level we were on was the servants quarters. The upper level was destroyed in WWII, but the lower level was left intact.

Something that surprised us was that it was cool and almost damp in there, despite being a million degrees outside. It is exactly what you would expect a castle to feel like. Another local told us the limestone rock absorbs moisture, plus high ceilings keep the heat high off you, hence the cool and damp feeling that the buildings tend to have. And on the subject of the heat”¦ ever since we got back from the US, everywhere we have been we have been told it is an uncharacteristically hot summer. We keep expecting it to cool off soon, given that summer is almost over, but it just keeps getting hotter and more humid. Here in Malta, we were told this is normally the hottest week of the year, but that it is a good 10 degrees Celsius hotter than normal, and significantly more humid.

Anyway, on to the food. We ordered a “Tal Bahrija” which turned out to be a platter of Maltese foods. It came with Maltese pepper cheeselets, which were pieces of cheese made with peppers, so they had a little kick to them; Maltese sausages, which had a good flavor but were a bit fatty; butter beans; tomatoes; artichoke hearts; and bigilla. The bigilla was some sort of dip, similar in texture to hummus. We are not sure what it was made of, but we didn’t like it much. We also tried Bil-Gunglien, a round loaf of hot out of the oven white bread stuffed with pork and ricotta cheese. That was really good.