The Catacombs, the Crypt, the Grave, the Gradual, and the Famous Neapolitan Nativity Crib

We started the day with death. Wait, no, we started the day with a lovely breakfast included with our room.

After that we headed out of town against the significant tide into town. Mdina, daylight hours, has a Cinque Terre vibe: Since there are so few hotels in the walled city, tourist hordes descend early morning in packs, crowding the squares and passages, then the town empties out late afternoon. Locals conduct tours holding flags to herd their tourist cats into line, no common language amongst them, selfie sticks and posing in front of elaborate door handles, disagreements over which gelato to get and which canvas bag not to get. So we walked out of Mdina and into adjacent Rabat.

First stop: The catacombs at St. Paul’s. Lots and lots of catacombs.

The catacombs have individual entries, like air raid bunkers, and are spread out over an acre or two.

Here a burial site, there a burial site, everywhere a burial site

You could get lost in here. Except, of course, you’d be dead already

The Jewish catacombs, discretely separated, although as noted on the placard “architecturally notable” and of course, see above, the hieroglyphics are of a surgeon

Some catacombs were for the whole family

Of course when it comes to Catholics, they can never have enough death, so after that we went down to St. Agatha’s, where we skipped the catacombs but took a tour of the crypt.

The crypt at St. Agatha from the cave where, originally, in 250 or so, she lived

Not to get too ageist, but some Frescoes age better than others…

After that we meandered the busy and secluded streets up and down hilly Rabat. We ran across a Catholic charity selling the most novel creche, or crib figurines. One for every country, more than one for Catholic countries. PBS, what you got? A tote bag? Take a tip from Rome.

Early afternoon we headed over to the Roman Villa (Domus Romana), excavated by accident when the British, late 1800s, were digging up sod to create a park.

One of these days these boots are going to…

Late afternoon we headed back to Mdina, where the crowds had thinned considerably. We took a tour of the Metropolitan Cathedral of Malta which is also known as St. Paul’s Cathedral, aka St. Paul’s, aka Mdina Cathedral, and where, apparently Publius met St. Paul (when he was shipwrecked and ended up stranded on and then preaching to and converting the Maltese to Christianity).

Across the courtyard from the cathedral was a rather large museum, mostly a brazen display of the wealth accumulated, over the centuries, invested in vestments, items used in the liturgy and art depicting patrons and notables. But there was an interesting hand drawn volume, from about 1570, a “gradual” used for Eastertide. Quite beautiful in its simplicity and detail.

At the end of the museum route was a huge display, 6m x 6m x 5m, called the Neapolitan Nativity Crib, a rather monumental display of creche figurines celebrating, in one way or another, the birth of Christ in Bethlehem, although sort of in a medieval era several centuries later. Or not. Sacred, yes, but somehow more on a Team America: World Police slash Thunderbirds trajectory. Regardless, super fascinating.

For dinner we went 20 meters or so down a laneway to a lovely Michelin recommended place called Medina, where we shared some Italian style salads and dips and Stephen ordered a pretty sensational root vegetable tart on a base of pastry and brie (!) followed by a ricotta cassata. I stuck with pasta and salad.