Malta, land of knights, sailors and rainbow flags

I had a nightcap at the Palmy, Art Deco Phoenicia Hotel in Valletta, Malta, when a former British naval officer chatted and was quick to confide in me that he thought Prince Philip, Queen Elizabeth II’s husband, was the most handsome man he’d ever seen. The Prince and the Future Monarch spent the early years of their marriage in Malta, the former base of the British Mediterranean Fleet, where Philip had been placed on a ship.

Malta, the expat explained, had always been “very pleasant” for gay men. “So many sailors and soldiers,” he said, sipping his drink. “However, this lovely little island is even better today because now everything is out in the open and not only does nobody bat an eye, it’s just not a problem here anymore.”

Perhaps this attitude explains why Valletta, the tiny capital of the European Union’s smallest country – five islands in the Mediterranean Sea between Sicily and Tunisia, with a population of about 538,000 – will play host to EuroPride this September. This annual LGBTQ event, which began in 1992, is awarded to a different European city each year. Valletta, with only about 6,000 inhabitants, will be the smallest host city to date.

“This celebration is an important opportunity for us to show why Malta is number 1 in the Rainbow Europe index,” said Toni Attard, the art director for Valletta’s EuroPride program. The index is a ranking by ILGA Europea non-profit organization that monitors the legal and social environment for LGBTQ people in 27 EU countries.

A tradition of tolerance

I had come to Malta from my home in France for a long weekend to explore what exactly makes it so welcoming to visitors – both gay and straight.

“Our identity is an amalgam,” says Liam Gauci, the curator of the Maritime Museum of Malta and one from the island most respected historians, told me. “We are Roman Catholic, but the word for God in Maltese, a Semitic language, is Allah, reflecting the two centuries the Arabs ruled Malta after its invasion in 870 AD. ” he said.

“The church may have been frowned upon, but homosexuality was common among ship crews,” added Mr. Gauci. “The Grand Court of Malta even ruled in favour Rosa Mifsuda transgender Maltese, who in 1744 petitioned to be officially recognized as a man.”

When I arrived in Valletta, the apricot sun was about to sink into the Mediterranean. Within the city’s stone ramparts, the steep streets were lined with pretty honey-colored stone houses whose balconies were reminiscent of the mashrabiya, or screened wooden verandas, in the old quarters of Cairo and Tunis.

I stopped at the B&B Casa Rocca Piccola – in a baroque 16th century mansion also open to visitors – just long enough to leave my bags. A dinner reservation was waiting.

Just a few blocks away, in the Michelin star restaurant NoniRitienne Brincat, who manages the dining room for her brother, the chef Jonathan Brincat, pointed me to a table in a vaulted stone cellar.

Knowing nothing about Maltese food, I assumed it would be some variation of fare from nearby Sicily. Instead, dishes like a ruddy fish stock flavored with tangerine oil, risotto with local red prawns and red porgy with stuffed zucchini flowers, sea urchin and a sumptuous herringbone-and-citrus sauce revealed an intriguingly sophisticated and umami-rich cuisine.

After dinner Mr Brincat offered an introduction to Maltese gastronomy. “Our food is a reflection of all the peoples that ruled over us,” he said, explaining that Malta has one of the most cosmopolitan cuisines in the world. “We eat broad beans like the Egyptians and dolmas like you find in Libya. We have been cooking with spices like nutmeg and cardamom for centuries, as we were a supply stop for ships carrying spices from India and further east to Northern Europe.”

British rule from 1814 to 1964 has also left its mark, he said, recalling a favorite childhood dish: a variant of a Bolognese sauce with tomatoes and chopped corned beef, a staple of the British Navy.

Baroque masterpieces and neon-lit nightlife

Malta is only 200 square kilometers in size, so 72 hours seemed like plenty of time to explore. But I soon realized that I would need at least a week if I wanted to take a ferry to explore the turquoise waters and grilled rock lobster of Gozo, the wild northernmost island of the archipelago. That would have to wait until the next trip.

I decided to see the main island first and then Valletta itself. The delightful Anna Grech Sant, a local guide, provided an abridged but fascinating lesson in Maltese history, richly spiced with memorable tidbits.

In news: “Spiteri” was the name given to the illegitimate children of the Order of the Knights of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem – better known as the Knights of Malta – the Catholic military order that ruled Malta for centuries after the Saint Roman Emperor Charles V granted them the island in 1530. “Spiteri is also a common surname in Malta today,” Ms. Grech Sant told me with a chuckle.

A 30 minute drive or bus ride from Valletta is Mdina, the ancient capital of Malta, built by the Arabs on the site of a former Roman city. Behind its thick stone walls, it’s an elegant baroque town best visited at night after the crowds of tourists have departed.

After crossing a bridge over the bastion of the old fortress, now landscaped as gardens, we visited the cool, wax-scented 17th-century Cathedral of St. Paulthen stopped at the Palazzo Falson, a mansion which is one of the oldest buildings in Malta. The palazzo – formerly the home of a wealthy collector – displays an impressive array of paintings, furniture, silver, armour, jewelery and coins.

Back in Valletta, the capital since 1571, the nearly 450-year-old St. John’s Cathedral is “worth a trip to Malta in its own right,” explains Ms. Grech Sant. From the polychrome marble tombs in the floor of the cathedral’s main apse to winding gilded cherubs and huge paintings of handsome knights and brawny saints, St. John’s reveals the pulsating intersection between faith and sensuality that is the triumph of Baroque art.

After visiting the National Archaeological Museumwhich is housed in a beautiful 16th century former lodge of the Knights of Malta, I cooled off next to the fountain in the Upper Barakka Gardensone of the favorite green spaces of densely populated Valletta, with a beautiful view of the Grand Harbour.

After a busy day, I wanted to save enough energy to get a taste of the nightlife, so I opted for an early dinner of squid ink lasagna with the tender, spicy Calabrian sausage ‘nduja, and local rabbit cooked in mustard and tarragon at Grain streetthe casual and more affordable little brother of the Michelin star Under grain.

The vibrant entertainment district of Paceville (pronounced Pah-chuh-ville) is located in St. Julian’s, a 15-minute ferry ride and a short taxi ride from Valletta. It could have been Hvar, Croatia or Mykonos: Think bustling terraces with an international crowd of gays and straights sipping giant cocktails with Day-Glo straws, and this summer’s earworm, Kylie Minogue’s “Padam Padam,” permeating the sidewalk . Paceville looked like it was going to be a lot of fun around 1am, but it had already been a long day and a serious cocktail seemed in order.

That was why I ended up in the Club Bar of the Phenicia Hotel, where my new friend, the former British naval officer, and I joined our conversation and drinks. “The Maltese are worldly and open-minded people,” he said, echoing my all-too-brief experience on the island. “That’s why I think the EuroPride in September will be great for everyone.”