Cats of Malta, Malta

A cute card that arrived from Silvan the other day (and I also have a copy sent by dear Marta last year). Well, one can never get enough of cats :)

Colonies of stray cats can be found all over the island. In Malta you will be struck by the lack of starving cats on the streets that you unfortunately see in many other countries. Most of these cats are looked after by the whole community whose efforts ensure that the stray cats in Malta are happy, healthy and well fed.

this is the Christmas stamp from 2018 from a set of 3 showing Baby Jesus.

the stamp from Marta's card, which is from the set of 2 Think Green EUROPA stamps issued in 2016.

Thank you both!! <3

Victoria, Malta

Silvan sent me this card from a philatelic exhibition in Malta.

I have previously shown a card from the citadel in Victoria - here you can also see it in the background, but also have  wider glimpse of the town.
Victoria is actually the capital of Gozo, the second island of Malta.....but it is funny how if you mention just Gozo, many people are simply lost...

Here you can see the special cancellation from the exhibition. The stamp is from a set of 3 issued in 2015, showing National feasts. This particular one is also a SEPAC issue.

Fort St. Angelo, Malta

A surprise card from dear Silvan.

I don;t know who is the actual photographer, but this whole series of cards has been taken from the same angle and I must admit that sometimes I get the feeling that it is the one same place on all of them...coz the fortifications just simply resemble one another...I mean, they are forificarions after all =)

This one here shows us the Fort of St. Angelo, which is right in the centre of the Grand Harbour.
And the back of the card says....The most impressive fortified position in the Grand Harbour, Fort St. Elmo, was the centre of the fighting that took place in the Great Siege of 1565. The fort is nowadays in the hands of the Knights of St. John whose flag proudly flies from the ramparts.
For a moment I got confused, how come now the back of the card is talking about a different fort, but I guess they just wanted to give us this history example...cos Wiki tells us about this point in history when Fort Saint Elmo was the scene of some of the most intense fighting of the 1565 siege, and during the bombardment of the fort, a cannon shot from Fort St Angelo across the Grand Harbour struck the ground close to the Turkish battery. Debris from the impact mortally injured the corsair and Ottoman admiral Dragut Reis, one of the most competent of the Ottoman commanders. The fort withstood the siege for over a month, falling to the Turks on 23 June 1565. None of the defending knights survived, and only nine of the Maltese defenders survived by swimming across to Fort St. Angelo on the other side of the Grand Harbour after Fort St Elmo fell.

So now it is all clear :)

wow! a SEPAC stamp!! It was issued this year in a set of two animals' stamps. It shows a wild rabbit, which is considered as a protected mammal in Malta.

Thanks a lot Silvan!!!

Victoria, Malta

this great citadel card came as a lovely surprise from dear Agi, from one of her 'conquering the world' trips. This time, the target was beautiful Malta.

on the card you have a close-up view of the Citadel situated in the heart of Victoria, the capital of Gozo, an island of the Maltese archipelago.
It is known to be first fortified during the Bronze Age approximately around 1500 BC. and was later developed by the Phoenicians and continued into becoming a complex Acropolis by Roman times.
It is a really beautiful peace of architecture.
The massive defensive stone walls of the fortifications rise above the town and were built by the Knights to protect the village communities from foraging corsairs attempting to take slaves and threatened invasion of Moslem forces fighting Christendom

and here is how you can recognize a tourist has found a philately..or at least was on the hunt for good stamps. I really love this pair...these buses are just soo cool! I could remember seeing them on the streets of Skopje too. When I was in kindergarden, there was this van/bus which resembles the ones on the stamps (that one was yellow though) and it was in charge of transporting the lunch each day.
You can still see one of these every now and then, but it is very rare, and they are in poor condition...esp compared to all those modern-class vehicles along the streets next to them
But it is nice when some memories are revived :)

hvala ti drugarice Agi!! <3

Dellimara Lighthouse, Malta

well, one more card for today....after a train, follows a lighthouse...this time one from Malta

this is the Delimara lighthouse, situated on the Delimara fort. This fort was built between 1876 and 1888 by the British. It is mostly underground, with the fort's main armament mounted in casemates set in the cliffs on the shoreward face of Delimara Point. At the surface it is a polygonal fort, rectangular in outline, with rock cut ditches on three sides, and the gently curving vertical cliff forming the convex fourth side. Ventilation apertures and access passageways are spread out across the face of the cliff, and even out onto the seaward face of Point Delimara.

well, there are plenty of cards in my stocks, waiting to be posted...but I think this will be enough for today...im off into the fresh air a bit..I quite much need it! Stay well!  

Ħaġar Qim, Malta

A great UNESCO card from Malta, showing the Ħaġar Qim temples. That first word is a troublesome one to read :)

Some days ago I was thinking that I should update my list of received UNESCO's, but unfortunately, I havent been keeping track of those, and I would have to go through all my received cards, one by one, to make sure i dont miss something...and that would be really time consuming, so as usual, I put it off again....if only I had a magic wand to solve this for me :)

Ħaġar Qim, which in English means 'standing/worshiping stones', is a megalithic temple complex in Malta, dating from the Ġgantija phase (3600-3200 BC). These Temples are amongst the most ancient religious sites on Earth,described by the World Heritage Sites committee as "unique architectural masterpieces. They were inscribed on the UNESCO whs list in 1992.

The Ħaġar Qim complex consists of a main temple and three additional megalithic structures beside it. The main temple was built between 3600 and 3200 BC; however, the northern ruins are considerably older. The outside entrance serves as an interior passage and connects six large chambers. The right apse is constructed as an arch to prevent the upright slabs falling inward. The outside wall, built of huge upright blocks, projects inwards, thus creating an extremely solid building. This entrance passage and first court follow the Maltese megalithic pattern but as building progressed, this design was considerably modified. The northwesterly apse was replaced by four independent enclosures.

Malta

dear Silvan surprised me again with something thats more than a fantastic card! A map card of Malta! <3

the card shows the Maltese islands and is simply lovely...shows you the warmth and the sunshine and simply calls you to come and visit and enjoy yourself.
Recently I sort of started exploring the Maltese language a bit and it seemed rather odd to me, esp. since when I was looking at the alphabet I came across letters I didnt expect I would find...some which you will actually find in the Serbian/Croatian...and the coinage of words just wasnt something I expected....but thats what makes it interesting for me...it is a Semitic language descended from Siculo-Arabic, with influences by Sicilian and Italian, to a lesser extent French, and more recently English.

the stamp is from a set of 3 Christmas stamps issued in 2009

Grazzi hafna Silvan!

Vittoriosa, Malta

A card with such beautiful colours...I like that contrast of the buildings against the sky

Here is a view of Birgu, also known as Vittorioa, an old maritime city situated in Malta's Grand Harbour. The building with the Clock Tower is the Maritime Museum and behind it is St. Lawrence's Church.

The colourful Maltese boat or "Dghajsa" ferries tourists across the historical waters of the marina where the mighty fleet of the knights of St. John once berthed.

the stamp is great too....from a set of 5 issued in 2009 regarding the XIIIth Games of the Small States of Europe, with this one representing Shooting and Archery.

thanks a lot to Silvan for adding this one to my collection

Malta

Here I am, to fulfill one of my weekend tasks...i dont know if the following two weeks will be the same, or i may squeeze in during the week as well....but for now, i cant promise anything...

And ill start today with  a really nice view card from Malta, since its been a longish time since i had posted a card from there. In case you wonder what you are looking at, this is what the back of the card says:

Two of the look out towers built by Grandmaster Martin De Redin overlooking the beaches of Gnejna and Ghajn Tuffieha.
The Ghajn Tuffieha beach some hundreds of meters east of Golden Bay. It is much more quiet and is especially visited by the Maltese themselves. In order to reach this beach one needs to descend a hill using 200 natural stairs. On top of the cliffs west of Għajn Tuffieħa Bay there is an old defense tower built in 1637.
Some hundreds of meters to the east we find Gnejna Bay. This beach can only be reached by first going through Għajn Tuffieħa Bay, then climbing up a hill and finally making a descend along some rather steep paths between the rocks. The beach of Gnejna Bay is used as a nude beach.

the stamp is a really nice one but unfortunately, it hasnt been cancelled. It was issued in 2008 in a set of 3 stamps regarding Christmas holidays.

Vittoriosa Creek, Malta

Here is a card from my aunt's friend....I sometimes wonder if there is a place on Earth where she hasnt been to

hmmm, ok, not much about the actual place can be found, but ill tell you something about the origin of the name "Malta"

The origin of the term "Malta" is uncertain, though the modern-day variation is from the Maltese langauge. The more common etymology is that it comes from the Greek word μέλι (meli) ('honey'). The Greeks called the island Μελίτη (Melite) meaning "honey" or "honey-sweet", possibly due to Malta's unique production of honey; Malta has had an endemic species of bee which lives on the island, giving it the common nickname the "land of honey". Not only was there Greek influence on the island as early as 700 BCE, but the island is presumed to have been later dominated by the Greek-speaking Byzantine Empire from 395 to 870.
Another etymology given is the Phoenician word Maleth meaning "a haven," in reference to Malta's many bays and coves.

Malta

I received this card as a total surprise from 'whocares' from the Netherlands who went to Malta for the holidays...I applied for receiving a card, but I had no idea i was actually chosen to get one until it arrived today...i was more than pleasantly surprised...esp. since this is my first card from Malta addressed to me... I already have another one, but it was given to me, it aint mine...



The card shows Malta's heritage, i.e some important historic sites and places.

The first picture (the one at the top) shows the Mdina Gate, the one on the left shows the site of Portes des Bombes...the one on the right shows Auberge de Casille and the one at the bottom, Fort Ricasoli Gate.

Wont go into details about each and every one of them...that will take to much and i know you will get bored as well :)
But when/if i get a card of each of these sites respectively, then we can go in an in-depth description :)