Description: On our return from the National War Museum Rebecca and I passed the new (1992)
Siege Bell Memorial. This columned rotunda sits high on the walls overlooking the entrance waters of the Grand Harbour and honours those who died on the Malta Convoys of 1940-1943. Over 7,000 service personnel and civilians died in this theatre and the Memorial to the Dead, depicting a shrouded body as if prepared for a burial at sea makes clear the cost paid by naval forces. Every noon its bell is tolled in their memory.
Across the road we found the
Lower Barrakka Gardens. This – like the Upper Barrakka Gardens up towards Valletta landward walls – was a patch of garden created atop the city’s mighty bastions in the years of the Knights’ rule. Today it offers a fine panorama of the Harbour and its breakwater as well as of the Memorial. Paths are lined with palms and centred around a weathered Grecian-style temple – actually a monument honouring Alexander Ball, the British naval officer who played a pivotal role in the defeat of Napoleon’s occupying forces and later served as London’s first governor of Malta. Beyond that is a colonnaded walkway with benches. We were lucky enough to see a modern cargo ship (Italian ironically) cast off and, under escort, negotiate its way out of the harbour, past the memorial and out through the breakwater. We were then able to sit and watch night fall over the Three Cities opposite. For a working dockyard the view was extremely scenic. Lights reflected off the pale limestone of Ricasoli Fort and Fort St Angelo and shimmered over the ink-black water. I found the moment peaceful and very romantic.
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