It was during the Christmas holidays that I asked Max if he would like to come with me to Birgu (Vittoriosa) and visit the Maritime Museum. We had been there before but I wanted to take some shots of a 3 metre model galleon as I was planning to build a small one with scrap wood from fruit crates. The museum was closed for restoration but we sneaked inside for a look and it looked like it had been hit by a bomb. In February I read that the museum was again open to visitors, so I asked Max if he would care to go again and he said o.k. In the meantime I was telling myself “how could they have finished the job when the museum was so so far from ready when we last went”. Any way, we went on one of his mid-term holidays and had the greatest disappointment in my life. The museum was open but only a small part of it could be visited with few historical pieces to see. We had a short look around and left after taking just two or three shots but not of the galleon which wasn’t there.
So this is one picture that I took – I added the frame later. It is a 16th century ex-voto painting depicting the battle of Lepanto when the expansion of the Ottoman Empire into Europe was stopped. A squadron of war ships of the Order of St John were an important part of the victory. About 30 years earlier the Ottoman forces had tried to take Malta but the knights and the Maltese resisted for 6 months the far bigger Ottoman forces until Autumn when the weather could be nasty for them and a quick get away might not be possible.
Sorry for the long narrative.
Thanks for your views, comments and fav;s on yesterdat's picture.
Always frustrating when a museum is closed or only partly open. We have the same in York with much of the railway museum closed. Hopefully the changes to both your maritime museum and our railway museum will be an improvement!
Ian