Mdina, the Silent City of Malta

To drive a car inside the walls of this “city” you need special permission granted only to a limited number of the 250 residents. The city is immaculate because it is less than one square kilometre and the man we saw collecting garbage in a hand push card was also vacuuming up leaves and small bits of dirt with a vacuum that was also designed to be much quieter than the normal leaf-blower. You will notice from the pictures that it is not entirely free of cars.

Mdina, previously called Maleth, was built and fortified by the Phoenicians as far back as seven hundred BC. When the Romans ruled this island, the governor built his palace here. Christian tradition says Paul the apostle was shipwrecked on Malta and welcomed by the chief of the island who later became Bishop of Malta and later of Athens. After the bishop’s death he was declared Saint Publius. (see link at end of this post.)

The entrance gate is very impressive from the outside; from the inside, not so much.

The narrow lanes are charming but without a guide you may feel like you could get lost in the maze of this walled city of less than one square kilometre.

Every tourist that visits Mdina may have taken a picture like this of Palazzo Santa Sofia. In fact, when I was researching on Wikipedia today, I found one that was taken in 2006, and only a couple of things have changed. The doorway and balcony on the left have been painted red, and the planter boxes for the trees have been replaced by larger ones. I was standing a couple of paces farther back than the one on Wikipedia. (see a link at the end for comparison.) The wire strung across the street between the two buildings is still there. Maybe it is used to hang banners or lights to decorate the street for festivals. I cannot imagine laundry drying from it.

The tower above is from a second church in the city, the Carmelite Church and Priory where the friars invite visitors. There are other spiritual retreats here like the Nunnery of St. Benedict and St. Peter’s Monastery. There is a white statue of the Madonna of Mount Carmel just peaking out from the left side of the bushes. I did not know she was there so I did not attempt to get a picture of her. The guide had a timeline to follow and we were probably walking too slow and I was always slowing down or stopping to take another picture.

The largest attraction is the Cathedral of St. Paul. Tradition says it is built on the spot where Roman Governor Publius met Saint Paul. (Paul was not a saint at that time and Publius was not a saint or a bishop yet either.) Most buildings were severely damaged by the Sicily earthquake of 1693. I believe all the buildings are all in much better condition now that they are privately owned as homes or businesses. An excellent example is Casa Gourgion, the house of a nobelman, shown below and adjacent to the cathedral.

There are many other things to see in this walled in museum city. You can explore the catacombs where the Romans put the dead, or visit the dungeons where prisoners were tortured. There are many museums, shops and restaurants that are employing more than the 250 people that live here. That is why the city of Rabal (pop. 12,000) has grown to support Mdina which was once the capital of Malta.

Here is a picture of the large map posted on a board by the entrance. Notice all of the advertisers and pointers to where their shops are. The next two videos will help you feel the antiquity and cleanliness of the city that the community is so proud of.

Our guide chose to use our time to visit the Rotunda in the previous post rather than spent the time in the more conventional church here. We all agreed that she made a good decision.

– Where do you want to go today? –

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Publius

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mdina#/media/File:Malta_Mdina.jpg