Six Days in Malta

Upper left: View of La Valletta from the Grand Harbor. Upper right: Saint Paul's Shipwreck church. Lower left: View across the Grand Harbor of the Three Cities from La Valletta. Lower Right: St. Lucia's Street in La Valletta.

Overview

If you had asked me what came to mind when I heard the word Malta, I would have responded the 1941 film The Maltese Falcon. Lame, but true. But after a recent visit there for six days, I know a lot more about this fascinating young (it gained independence in 1964), yet old (megalithic structures older than the Great Pyramid) country that sits in the Mediterranean ocean. More precisely, the three principal islands of Malta (Gozo, Comino, and Malta) are 80 km south of Sicily.

Malta has seen a lot: it was ruled successively by the Phoenicians, Greeks, Carthaginians, Romans, Byzantines, Arabs and the Knights of Malta. So as you can imagine, there is a lot of rich history there. And yes, there is a story about the falcon and the island. More on that below in the Nature section.

To clarify, here we talk about our six winter days in Malta, which means there is no information about beaches or other summer activities. We focused on cities, archaeological sites, and museums.

At 1,318 people/km², Malta is the 8^th most dense country in the world. You might think that civility and cleanliness would suffer at such a density, but we did not find that to be the case. (The world average density is 55 people/km².) That Malta is dense is particularly noticeable when, from the vantage point of the old capital, Mdina, you look across the island and see green, but never without buildings and settlements. Yet with all the density, we found that areas we visited (admittedly, tourist areas) to be very clean. The folks we encountered working at archaeological sites and museums were knowledgeable and helpful. In particular, I remember a woman working in the bookstore of the UNESCO site Ġgantija Temples (it-Tempji tal-Ġgantija). In 20 minutes, she taught us more about prehistoric cultures in Malta than any guide could, and we didn’t even buy a souvenir.

With its red public telephone booths, driving on the left side of the road, and English as one of its official languages, Malta is unmistakably British. Yet, in our opinion, it’s much less British than Gibraltar. Malta is part of the European Union, and uses the Euro, and not the British Pound. And keeping on the subject of the European Union, our trip was made possible by a low-cost Irish-based RyanAir with its direct flight from Bergamo to Malta.

Lodging

We stayed at Lloyd House in La Valletta, which proved to be perfect for us. Lloyd House is a couple of apartments near the Upper Barrakka Gardens, which turns out is a very convenient location. We were started with some basic provisions for breakfast for a few days.

Architecturally, La Valletta is easy on the eyes with its soft limestone tones and colored wooden balconies. As far as cities go it’s young: it took shape in the late 1500s, built by the Knights Hospitaller (Knights of Malta). The foundation stone was laid in 1566 by the city’s namesake Grand Master de Valette. (I have not found any answer as to why the city has two L’s rather than just one.) In fact, if you are planning a visit to Malta, it would be good idea to read up on the Knights of Malta because their history is intimately intertwined with that of the island.

La Valletta, the capital city of Malta, is a laid-back place. It’s set on a grid and rather easy to get around, but it’s also hilly in some parts. On hilly streets, instead of sidewalks, you’ll often find long runs of stairs composed of steps of maddeningly short-height. We learned in a tour (at the Malta Experience) that the short step height was due to the Knights of Malta. When a knight was fully dressed in armor, short-height steps were a godsend. Or, so the story goes.

We ventured out a few days by bus from La Valletta and one of those days we took the Number 41 bus between La Valletta and the Cirkewwa Ferry Terminal (where you can catch a ferry to Gozo). Along the way saw a good part of the northern coast, including Buġibba, a popular tourist resort. From that look, we were absolutely glad we did not stay there. La Valletta has a well-worn charm about it that is a relief to come back to after a day of exploring, not to mention a good choice of restaurants.


Left: St. Paul's Church Mdina. Center left: Ricotta filled pastry at Caffe Cordina, La Valletta. Middle: Pastizzi at Crystal Palace in Mdina. Center right: Lloyd House La Valletta. Right: Statue in Domus Romana in Mdina.

What worked

Touring in winter. There was no swimming on this trip, nor did we see anybody in the water. However, we had great weather, up to 20 C some days, short-sleeve shirt weather for us northerners. At night, it could get chilly, but never below zero. And, we had one day of rain. The best part of touring in winter: low season and less tourists but still fairly good weather.

Home base. As mentioned above, we stayed in La Valletta, which proved to be a great choice for us. I can’t imagine staying elsewhere. We had a great choice of restaurants and attractions nearby. Plus, you can take a quick boat ride to the reach the three cities to the south or Sliema to the north. Pretty much all major bus routes start/end in La Valletta.

Funky Cold Mdina. Mdina (without the “e”) is really worth a visit. It’s easy to get there by bus or taxi and easy to spend a full day or more there. Mdina was the original capital city of Malta and has many important and beautiful buildings inside the old city, as well as things to do and see. But don’t forget the surrounding city, Ir-Rabat, outside the walled city where you will find the Domus Romana and St. Paul’s Catacombs.

As picturesque as Mdina is, I’m glad we did not choose it as our base of operations from the point of view that we had better bus and dining options in La Valletta. If you are of the means to do everything by car (rented or taxi), then maybe Mdina or the surrounding Ir-Rabat would make a better base of operation just from the point of view of being somewhat centered in the middle of the island.

We had the best pastizzi – savory, delicious and surprisingly cheap traditional Maltese pastries – at the Crystal Palace (nearby the Domus Romana) just outside the Mdina. We ate two lunches there, or rather, grabbed the pastries and retreated to the nearby Gnien Howard park overlooking the walled city.

Bus and taxi. Getting around by bus and taxi is the way to go. We were glad we didn’t rent a car after we got first-hand experience on the roads while riding on the bus and in taxis. The bus system is pretty easy to figure out and they thankfully allow you to pay on the bus, though is best to have change available. We could have bought a multiple day pass, but we didn’t. Instead, we just paid as we went and we don’t think we ended up paying that much more in the end.

About the only negative in our bus experience was a Sunday night ride from the Cirkewwa Ferry Terminal (where ferries run between Malta and Gozo islands) back to La Valletta. It was long ride due to intense traffic and we stood for almost two hours because the bus was packed. (That would have been a good time to have just hired a taxi.)

We took a taxi between the airport and our hotel, and also took a taxi around Gozo. When we got off the ferry in Gozo, we were already running a little late in our day, so we just got a taxi from the ferry to the Ġgantija temples, the taxi waited an hour and a half for us, and then took us to Victoria all for € 20. He proposed even waiting some more and taking us to see more of the island for an additional € 10, but we declined. We took another taxi back to the ferry because the bus was jam packed. So, we did not take any buses on Gozo.

Calling all UNESCO buffs. The whole city of La Valletta was inscribed in the UNESCO World Heritage site in 1980. Added to that, there are six sites on Malta inscribed together in the World Heritage List as ‘The Megalithic Temples of Malta’: Ġgantija, Tarxien, Ħaġar Qim, Mnajdra, Ta' Ħaġrat, and Skorba. They are the oldest, or among the oldest depending who you ask, free-standing structures on earth. Older than the Great Pyramid of Giza, the Great Wall of China and the Great Zimbabwe of Zimbabawe (what the …? look it up). We saw the first four temples by bus. It would have been easy to see all six sites within a few days by bus, and less time by taxi. The Heritage Malta site does a good job of giving an overview of each temple as well at the Wikipedia page Megalithic Temples of Malta. It’s worth studying where the temples are located if you plan to do them on your own. Some of the temples are included as well as stops on the hop on/off buses that ply the island. (Yes, they exist there too.)

The UNESCO site Ħal Saflieni Hypogeum was unfortunately closed for repairs.


Upper left: Hagar Qim temples, Malta. Upper center and right: Mnjadra temples, Malta. Lower left and right: Tarxien temples, Malta.

Sites. Here's a quick rundown of thing we did, which should give you an idea of what you can do in six days. The Lascaris War Rooms was a big standout. We had absolutely had no idea about Malta's role in WWII and how the island suffered. The story came to life in this museum.

• La Valletta
  • Natural Museum of Archaeology – Good presentation.
  • Upper and Lower Barrakka Gardens - Both gardens offer great views and a nice break with a bit of nature.
  • Hastings Garden – Out of the way garden for good quiet and green down time with great views north.
  • Siege Bell War Memorial – Great views.
  • Malta Experience – We has reservations about doing this, but finally gave in. The movie was so/so. Dim projection, not that interesting. The stand out however was the tour of the Knights Hospitallers Hospital that is part of the ticket.
  • St. John's Co-Cathedral – It is worth the entry price to see the inside of this church. Read this article about co-cathedral if you are interested in why it has that “co-“ in the name. Basically, it means St John’s shares bishop-related functions with St. Paul’s Cathedral in Mdina.
  • Collegiate Parish Church of St Paul's Shipwreck – An interesting, theatrical church. Our impression was influenced by that fact that everything was in chaos as they prepared for the big feast of St. Paul which happened after we left.
  • Casa Rocca Piccola – The most interesting part was going into bomb shelter.
  • Lascaris War Rooms – A great presentation of the WWII story of Malta.
• Mdina/Ir-Rabat (Malta Island)
  • St. Paul’s Cathedral, Mdina – The other St Paul’s Cathedral. Was interesting, but could have skipped it.
  • Palazzo Falson – Interesting look at a house that dates back to the 13^th century and the collections of the last owner Olof Gollcher.
  • Domvs Romana – Small museum dealing with Roman times in Malta. The museum is built around a Roman house from 1 BC.
  • St. Paul’s Catacombs – Interesting for the first 10 or so tombs, but then it gets a little tiring. Still, worth a visit.
  • National Museum of Natural History Museum – Good displays of geology and paleontology of Malta, as well as birds.
• Out and about
  • Dingli Cliffs – See the nature section above.
  • Blue Grotto – We tried, but boats weren’t running the day we visited, due to high winds. Lesson: always call before heading out there. We were fine as we just walked up the road a bit and visited Hagar Qim and Mnjadra temples.
  • The Megalithic Temples of Malta: Tarxien, Hagar Qim, Mnjadra, and Ggiantia. Ggiantia is particularly well-presented.
• Victoria (Gozo Island)
  • The Cittadella – Walk the ramparts and bastions.

What would we do differently?

Gozo or no Gozo? We made the trek to Gozo to see the Ġgantija Temples and the Cittadella. If you are staying on the main island of Malta, it’s at least a whole day investment. If you are on the main island and have already seen Tarxien, Ħaġar Qim, and Mnajdra temples like we had, it might not be worth it to you to see Ġgantija. And, the Cittadella on Gozo is like Mdina on the big island, but smaller.

To get to Gozo from La Valletta can be a bit of a chore. I had seen somewhere that we could take a boat directly from La Valletta to Gozo from Sa Maison, and I though ah-ha, we’ll do that. Unfortunately, when we arrived at the Sa Maison terminal, it was boarded up for repairs and we ended up taking the 41 bus, which stops every 200 feet it seems. Great way to see the island, but not so great in terms of time. If you can afford it, take a taxi from La Valletta. There is an express bus from the airport to Cirkewwa, but you first have to get to the airport.

One variation of the trip might have been to shave off a night or two in La Valletta and spend them in Gozo. From that location, we could have also visited Comino Island, which we totally ignored this trip.

Three Cities. We could see the three cities (Birgu, Senglea, Cospicua) across the way and to the south of La Valletta, but we didn’t spend much time there other than a quick walk through a part of Cospicua on our way to the Tarxien Temples. The three cities looked charming and have interesting points of interest and warrant more investigation then we gave them. As well, we did not venture at all into Sliema area, north of La Valletta either, though to be honest, it looked less interesting from a distance.

More taxi, less bus. Sure, you can save money on the bus, but the next time I’d hire the taxi more to cut time off of a few bus rides we took, in particular, the bus we took to Cirkewwa to catch the ferry to Gozo.

Ferry to Sicily. We took a plane from Malta to Catania to continue our trip in Sicily. We learned later that there is a ferry between Malta and Pozzallo that takes under 2 hours. Our destination in Sicily was Ragusa and Pozzallo would have been close enough. The ferry should be considered if you are going between the islands.


Left: Mdina City Gate. Left center: Parliament building La Valletta. Right center: The Saluting Battery La Valletta. Right: Pjazza Jean de Vallette, La Valletta, Malta.

Nature, but… I had this idea that we’d take some nice long walks on country roads and work our way to this or that archaeological site. In anticipation, I bought the “Walking in Malta: 33 Routes on Malta, Gozo and Comino” [Cicerone], and while it’s a fine book, it really didn’t prepare me for the fact that I wasn’t going to get the type of walking/hiking like I’m used to around our temporary home in Bergamo, Italy. For example, we tried to follow WALK 5 Żurrieq to Siġġiewi because it went by Hagar Qim and Mnjadra temples, which we wanted to see. However, parts of the hike require a lot of road walking, which wasn't so enchanting.

Malta, as noted above, is a dense island so wild spaces are not as you might expect, and add to that a trail system that is not as developed, let’s say, as in Italy. So, if you are looking for nature-all-to-yourself, it’s worth studying up some more or adjust your expectations. To be fair, Comino is billed as the place to walk and we didn’t make it there. As well, during our day on Gozo, it seemed like a greener and less dense place so maybe we should have targeted that for walking.

One other minor nature ding would be on the Dingli cliffs. They are billed as a major attraction, but they are hard to see, let alone appreciate on foot. I’m guessing they would best be appreciated by boat. We walked around on top of the cliffs like other folks we saw but that’s about it. There were no trail indications or interpretation.

Speaking of nature and cliffs, we visited the National Museum of Natural History in the Mdina, which excels in its explanations of Malta geology and paleontology. Although the wildlife collection is a little tired, it’s bird collection seemed pretty good. It is there that we learned the falcon story. The Knights Hospitaller (today called the Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of Saint John of Jerusalem of Rhodes and Malta) were required to pay one falcon a year for having been granted Malta in 1530. That would be one peregrine falcon.

The Maltese Falcon is a 1929 detective novel by Dashiell Hammett. Why Hammett chose the falcon as the MacGuffin I don’t know for sure, but it might have been for the symbolic nature of the bird as a rental agreement for Malta. Ironically, the last falcon pair were reportedly shot in 1980, by a hunter named Sam Spade…just kidding on the last part.


Left: Lower Barrakka Gardens La Valletta. Left center: Main street in La Valletta. Right center: View from Hastings Garden La Valletta toward Manoel Island. Right: View from Mdina north.

Missed attractions. These go in the next time bucket.

• Limestone Heritage Parks and Garden. Why? Limestone is Malta’s main natural resource and it plays an important role in the history of the island. For thousands of years, Maltese have cut blocks of it to build temples and carved into it to create tombs. Therefore, it would be good to find out more about this stone.
• Clapham Junction cart ruts. In the Natural Museum of Archaeology in La Valletta we learned about the cart ruts, but it was toward the end of our stay. It would be interesting to see some of the ruts in person.
• Fort Saint Elmo. It looks cool as hell, is in a great location, and has a great history. It was unfortunately closed while we were in La Valletta. 
• In the three cities (Birgu, Senglea, Cospicua) across the Grand Harbor from La Valletta, there are many sites to see that we would definitely warrant a look, including: Fort Saint Angelo, Malta Maritime Museum, Malta at War Museum, Forti Rikażoli, and Fort Rinella.

Left: View toward Blue Grotto. Right: Ceiling detail of St. John's Co-Catherdral in La Valletta.

Left: View inward of Cittadella, Victoria, Malta. Right: Mosaic floor in Domus Romana, Mdina, Matla.

Left: Garden of Casa Rocca Piccola, La Valletta. Center: Lower Barrakka Gardens La Valletta. Right: View from the Cittadella, Victoria.


Ġgantija Temples. Left: The complex from the outside. Right: View from inside looking out.

Il Grande Sogno (The Big Dream)

Our last SIFF outing was to the Italian film Il Grande Sogno (2009) – The Big Dream. The story is set in the late 1960s in Italy and based on the director Michele Placido’s memories of emigrating from Puglia to the north, being a policeman, and aspiring to be an actor. The backdrop of this story of betrayal, love, and change takes place in the milieu of events leading up to and after the Battle of Valle Giula in Rome. Valle Giula was part of the worldwide unrest collectively called the Protests of 1968. (You will catch a little bit of Barry McGuire’s version of the protest song Eve of Destruction in the film.)

The title “the big dream” can be taken in one way to refer to the dream of a revolution. The film’s story is partially about the anti-war movement across the globe, from an Italian perspective. But it is more about the far left-leaning political and social movements that wanted to shake up the ideas of the mainstream Italian bourgeoise (“borghesia”) which had its allegiance to the Italian Communist Party. The turmoil of the late 1960s was the start of The Years of Lead (“Anni di piombo”) which is was period marked by social conflict and acts of terrorism in Italy.

Io Sono L’Amore – I Am Love

Io Sono l’Amore (2009) is an Italian film from the director Luca Guadagnino that we saw recently as part of the SIFF festival. The film evokes a Visconti (1906 – 1976) –esque drama of a rich family, dynastic ambitions within the family, and the power that outside influences have on the survival of the family. It reminded me a bit of Il Gattopardo. In fact Visconti adapted Il Gattopardo (1963) for the screen. In that story the prince’s nephew is named Tancredi which is the name of the father in Io Sono l’Amore.

Of the film, one review said “minute attention to detail in this lavish production” and another “The camera hugs the actors, telling the story through the smallest details and gestures…”. This is exactly what I found puzzling or at least unfamiliar territory: the attention to visual details that seemed to be too much and not relevant. And, of the main character Tilda Swinton while I thought she was interesting in the role, I never got pulled into caring about her character. Overall, Io Sono L’Amore wasn’t as warm and inviting at Mine Vaganti, which we saw the night before, but then again, it probably wasn’t meant to be.

Mine Vaganti – Loose Cannons

Mine Vaganti (2010) is an Italian film from the Turkish-born, Italian director Ferzan Özpetek that we saw recently as part of the SIFF festival. The title translates to “loose cannons” and refers to a nickname for the grandmother in the film. The film is an enjoyable comedy with a couple of twists and a satisfying end. 

Here's the official trailer for it.  

Here's an IMDB trailer with subtitles. And the music, very nice. The soundtrack (colonna sonora) has as its theme the very catchy and new version of the song 50mila by Nina Zilli. Other songs that stand out in the soundtrack include Pink Martini’s Una Notta a Napoli, the 70s disco song Sorry, I’m a Lady from Baccara, and Kutalama from the Turkish singer/songwriter Sezen Aksu.

Giulia non esce la sera

We caught a showing of the Italian film Giulia non esce la sera (2009) at Kane Hall Wednesday night. The movie was sponsored by the Division of French and Italian Studies at the University of Washington, Seattle. The title translates to “Giulia doesn’t go out at night.” Trailers here. You’ll have to watch the movie to see why Giulia doesn’t go out at night. 

The director Giuseppe Piccioni was on hand to present his film and answer questions. A humble and funny guy that we got to (for some luck on our part) have dinner with the next night at Ray’s Boat House. It sure woke up our rusty Italian synapses. Piccioni was gracious even with our bumbling Italian. He is one of the partners of the Libreria del Cinema in Rome. I hope we get a chance to stop by the next time in Rome. 

We both enjoyed the movie and recommend it. We were recommended to check out more of Piccioni's movies, in particular, Luce dei miei occhi (2001). One aspect of Giulia that caught our attention was the music by Baustelle.

Percy Jackson & The Olympians

 

What possessed us to see this movie? We are still scratching our heads on that question. I’m sure there are those who will like the movie Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightening Thief, which is based on the book of the same name by Rick Riordan. The usual suspects in movie plotline were present: the road trip / quest, unfairly framed-person-as-a-fugitive-on-the-nightly-news, dysfunctional family dynamics, Las Vegas, the end of the world, and a diabolical plan that doesn’t make sense. 

Apparently the plot for the movie was quite different from the book; maybe they should have stuck to the book. The one, minor plotline we will call out is the one where Percy’s protector, a satyr named Grover, gets his horns – that is, sort of graduates from junior protector. In the movie, he spent a sumptuous night in hell with Persephone and then came back with horns. What did we tell you about the over-used plotlines?

Valentine’s Day – The Movie

 

We were prepared to sit back (in our plushy seats at Gold Class Cinemas) and hate this movie last night, but, we ended up liking it. It helped that we went with friends (a birthday celebration of sorts) and food and drink were involved – as is always the case. The movie in a nutshell follows the intertwined stories of old, new, and spurned lovers in Los Angeles with a happy ending for all. Afterwards, we headed west, back over the bridge, to Sambar for pommes frites and cocktails. Now, that is an even happier ending.

Avatar

The movie to see this season for blockbuster-loving, technology wonks is James Cameron’s Avatar. We caught a late showing of the movie and really enjoyed it. The movie highlights the distinction between a film and the experience around a film. In this case the experience starts with the pre-release build up of the film: over 15 years in the making by a hugely successful and idiosyncratic screenwriter, film director and producer using groundbreaking technology to realize the film. When you arrive at the movie, sit back, relax and put on a pair of 3-D glasses so continues the experience. It’s an interesting mix of live-action performances and computer-generated effects. The motion-capture system used to create the film allows the facial expressions of actors to be captured as a virtual camera system enables them to see what their computer-generated counterparts will be seeing. It works well.

The weakest aspect of the movie is the plot, being a little on the hokey side. In a nutshell, humans in the year 2154 arrive to a planet called Pandora to strip mine a mineral known as unobtanium which is very valuable. The problem is that the native population, the Nav'vi, has homelands right over the richest deposit of the mineral. Can you see where this is going? Begin huge conflict starring a tug of war between a ruthless corporation, ex-marines and scientists hired by the corporation, and the Na'vi. The Na'vi are 10 foot tall, blue-skinned sapient humanoids. The titular “avatar” refers to the remotely controlled, genetically-engineered native bodies that humans “slip into” to befriend the natives.

Talking about experience, it’s completely appropriate that we saw the movie at Gold Class Cinemas in Redmond. Wow, what a great movie experience. It's a bit pricey but if you see only a few movies a year, do movies this way. Plush seats that recline, drinks (full bar) and snacks (e.g. lobster rolls) brought to your seat to name a few of the niceties of the experience. Need something during the movie, there is a little call button you can use to summon a waiter. The best part was there are only 40 seats or so and every seat is a good one. There was no head to look around. Ahh, that's an experience.

Julie and Julia

 

Last night we went and saw the movie Julie & Julia (2009), a comedy-drama about the parallel lives of Julia Child (1912 – 2004) in the early years of her career in the 1950s and young New York woman, Julie Powell (1974 - ), in the early 2000s. Both women are trying to figure out what they’ll do in life, how they will make a difference. The connection between the women is underscored by Powell’s 2002 documented effort to cook all 524 recipes from Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking (1961) in one year (she does). 

The good points of the movie (getting on a soapbox here): no violence except for the boiling of lobsters and the boning of a duck. Also, the movie is a food lover’s paradise of kitchen, dinner, and food scenes. Okay we’ll grant you that some scenes like Julia arriving in France and coming into her new apartment with her husband Paul might be a bit over-romanticized but it worked for us. 

Mastering the Art of French cooking was first published in 1961 and was authored by Julia Child, Simone Beck and Louisette Bertholle. The cookbook was aimed at making French cooking accessible to the American cook. The foreword to the book sets out the goal: “This is a book for the servantless American cook who can be unconcerned on occasion with budgets, waistlines, time schedules, children’s meals, the parent-chauffeur-den-mother syndrome, or anything else which might interfere with the enjoyment of producing something wonderful to eat.” In 1962 Julia Child began her first cooking show on WGBH in Boston and the rest is history. 

One aspect of Julia Child’s life that I left the movie with more of an appreciation of was her marriage with Paul Child (1902 - 1994). It seems they successfully combined friendship, partnership, and love seamlessly in their relationship. In the movie, there is a scene showing Julia and Paul posing for one of their infamous Valentine’s Card they sent to friends and family in 1956 of them in a bathtub.

The Magicians

I wanted to like The Magicians more than I did, really. This new Harry-Potter-for-adults book by Lev Grossman has its interesting points for sure, and I eagerly read it cover to cover. However, I just didn’t like the main character, Quentin, that much. Worse, I didn’t find his actions at certain points of the story believable – even for a teenager/young adult.

The idea that Grossman returns to often is that “real” magic is hard and very tedious to master. Furthermore, there is usually no all-powerful evil villain (aka Voldemort) that is the center of everyone’s attention and has everyone on red alert. So, without giving too much away, Quentin discovers he is more than just a magician in the vein of fancy card tricks; he goes on to formal training to become a real magician and discovers just how tedious it can be. This is all fine and good, but Quentin just wallows way too much to be believable. At one point, Quentin and magician friends stumble into a parallel world (you’ll have to read it) and instead of being awestruck Quentin mopes around pouting about his girlfriend. It strains credibility.

On a related note, I thought the recent Harry Potter movie (Half Blood Prince was it?) was a bit of a snooze. The only thing that really caught me attention was when Dumbledore used the word maudlin or mawkish (very similar anyways) during one of the scenes. As a word choice it seemed so out of place with all the other dialog.

Il Divo (the film)

We caught the Italian film, Il Divo, about Giulio Andreotti at the Seattle International Film Festival (SIFF) last night. Andreotti is an Italian politician of the centrist Christian Democratic party who served as Prime Minister to Italy a number of times between 1972 and 1989. In 1991 he was name Senator for life. Andreotti is a controversial figure and if his nicknames are any clue (Beelzebub, Hunchback, the Black Pope, the Fox) he inspired and still inspires a lot of emotion. His party was ultimately brought down by corruption and Andreotti himself investigated, accused, convicted, and acquitted of ties to the Mafia.

The movie takes place from 1992 until the start of his trial for collusion. The film (in Italian) with English subtitles is a biopic (with fictionalized episodes) is very stylized and surreal at times; don’t expect a dry biographical sketch here. A trailer for the film is here.

Movie Weekend: Star Trek, Up, and Angels & Demons

It was a movie weekend definitely as we dipped into popular culture and sampled a few movies. The first was Star Trek: The Future Begins. It was better than I hoped for and better than past Star Trek movies that I can recall. The relationship between Spock and Uhuru seemed a bit unnecessary but that’s quibbling. The next movie we saw was Disney / Pixar’s Up. This was definitely the best for the three and probably the one we’ll be talking about years from now. It’s cute but not cloying. The last movie we saw was the Angels & Demons. It seemed fairly true to the book if that’s what you were looking for. I read the book years ago and as I was watching the movie I was struck by the ‘orderliness’ of the plot as it unfolds a little too neatly. The shots of Rome were fun and the snippets of Italian were a relief to hear. However, if you have to see one of these three movies, go for Up.

Happy Birthday Mr Darwin

It’s the 200th year of the birth of Charles Darwin (Feb 12, 1809 – 1882) and the 150th year of the publication of On the Origin of Species (1859). There’s been lots published on Darwin and his work but we’ll point you to one that doesn’t get that much attention but is really interesting. It’s a 1978 BBC series called The Voyage of Charles Darwin. This series is hard to find but thankfully there’s YouTube to the rescue. You can watch the series here and there are 7 episodes broken roughly into several 10 minute segments.

Episode 1: I was considered a very ordinary boy.
Episode 2: My mind was a chaos of delight.
Episode 3: How wide was the distance between savage and civilized man.
Episode 4: Can any mountains, any continent, withstand such waste?
Episode 5: I felt myself brought within reach of that great fact, that mystery of mysteries.
Episode 6: Suppose that all animals and all plants are represented by the branches of a tree – the tree of life.
Episode 7: In the distant future, light will be thrown on the origin of man and his history.

Episode 1 sets up Darwin's life before going on the voyage. It's a bit like a Jane Austen story with a dash of science thrown in. After Episode 1, the series starts to pick up science-wise.

Watching the series you can’t help marvel at many things including the ship, the HMS Beagle, that Darwin travelled on as naturalist. The ship used in the series was this one. Also interesting is the cast of characters on the voyage especially the captain of the Beagle, Vice-Admiral Robert FitzRoy (1805 – 1865). He seemed to enable and encourage so much of what Darwin did and yet was like the foil to Darwin’s theories. Every time Darwin brought some interesting specimen or fact (like seashells high in the Andes) back to the ship, FitzRoy was sure to deny or ignore it saying that all the answers were in Genesis. Needless to say, he was greatly pained over the publication of The Origin of Species.

Howard Goodwall’s How Music Works

 

We finished watching the four part series How Music Works with Howard Goodall and wanted to recommend it to those interested in music. The series analyzes the fundamental components of music breaking the components into melody, rhythm, harmony, and bass. Each component is treated in a 50 minute segment. The series was first broadcast on Channel 4 in 2006. 

How Music Works largely focuses on western music. Within western music though, it touches on a little of everything from early church music to classical to jazz to pop to rap. You’ll even catch a couple of snippets of modern music videos. And, you can’t help but come away with the fact that Goodall is just a little smitten with Stevie Wonder who is featured at several points in the series. In particular, two of Wonder’s “classic-period” albums Innervisions (1973) and Fullfillingness’ First Finale (1974) are given high praise.

A Room With a Smell

 

Okay, there have been way too many Room with a View references popping us these last few days. Here they are: 

Reference 1: Our apartment on Via del Canneto may not have a room with a view, but boy does it have beautiful smell. There is a garden (here, approximately) full of roses and jasmine and the smell cascades down the wall to our windows. It seems to go all day long. We are literally below the garden. It truly has been a pleasure to smell for the past two weeks. (Okay, tangentially related, but the references get getter.) 

Reference 2: The other day I was touring the Bardi and Peruzzi chapels in Santa Croce and the teacher says, you guessed it, “these chapels were in Room with a View.” 

Reference 3: At the bike shop, a person working there was telling us about the Fattoria de Maiano and said, you guessed it, “part of Room with a View was filmed there.” (Not sure about this.) 

Reference 4: Today on our bike ride, we were riding through the Tuscan countryside on a small dirt path through waist high grass full of red poppies and just for a second I was Lucy Honeychurch, but then thinking about how slow and cautious I was going I thought Charlotte Bartlett (the rain-on-your-parade chaperone) was more appropriate – darn. 

Wow, was this movie really from 1985? Yes.