Carnival and Churches

Carnival float, Nadur, Gozo, February 2017.

 

A few tourists but mostly Maltese pour into Gozo for Carnival. The usual population is elderly but Carnival is for the young and thirsty. Robert and I must be the only people who didn’t have a drink – but we didn’t stay long. The parade hadn’t started which made it easy to take these pictures demonstrating America’s influence in this small corner of Europe. I mean there wasn’t anything about China, Russia or India.

Carnival float, Nadur, Gozo, February 2017.

C is for carnival and churches and the latter are much more interesting on Gozo. There are about fifty churches on this small (14 by 7 km) island; lonely planet claim forty-six and a local source fifty-five. Maybe the latter includes Anglican churches, chapels and the temples built around 3600 BC which I have not yet visited. From a bit of cursory reading the temples have carved decoration reminiscent of Newgrange in Ireland. Let’s leave them for another day or another visit.

Even the smallest village has a magnificent church. They were mostly built after the Great Siege of Malta ended in defeat for the Turks and victory for the Knights of Malta in 1565. The Knights celebrated by occupying themselves “less with militarism and monasticism , and more with piracy, commerce, drinking and duelling” (lonely planet). But this brought in the ducats to build at first in the style of the Italian Renaissance which evolved into Maltese baroque. Here is a typical interior from the rather tiny village of Ghasri.

No single work stands out but the collective impact is impressive. There are plenty of churches to go round but more were built in the 20th century in neo-Gothic and at least one in this century. An excellent example of neo-Gothic is Our Lady of Lourdes in Mgarr which you can see in the background behind the Belisha beacon in a recent post.

Cemetery chapel near Ghasri, February 2017.
Church in Ghajnsielem, Gozo, February 2017.
Church in Nadur, Gozo, February 2017.
St Joseph’s, Qala, Gozo, February 2017.

All these pictures are of parish churches. In the capital of Gozo, Victoria (aka Rabat), there are more magnificent examples. The bells ring out every quarter of an hour but, mercifully, desist at night.

The Grand Hotel (recommended) has a Schindler elevator – I call it Schindler’s lift and Robert groans.

Church in Ghajnsielem, Gozo, February 2017.
Malta Public Transport, February 2017.

2 comments

  1. Christopher

    I had temporarily forgotten your blog but had lunch with Carolines H and C yesterday and have been quickly dipping in this morning before i go riding in wind and rain and gale. You do write well and crisply too, thank goodness. Much enjoyed it not to mention 60s songs at end. Love The Drifters.

    Will carry on reading when I get back. Hope all is well with you. Lovely to see C yesterday. Exciting about Emily.

    Love Flip

    1. I’m so glad that you like the crispness. At breakfast at Barmeath the Corn Flakes were “crisped up”, as my grandmother put it, in the plate oven and decanted into a silver entree dish to sit alongside the rest of brekker on the side board. Rather surprisingly there was a pot of freshly ground coffee – this was Ireland circa 1960.

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