Valletta Run

I´m falling behind on this blog business, but slow and steady wins the race (as I remind myself as I trot along, spandex-clad running aficionados whizzing by me on both sides.)

I promised to tell you about last week´s sunrise run to Valletta, the capital of Malta. What was I doing in Malta in the first place, you may ask? I find myself somewhat frequently in this fascinating island country, where I assist in organizing formational activities for women, that help each person to deepen in her friendship with Christ, to know the faith better, in order to live the faith better. Did you know that Malta actually appears in the Acts of the Apostles? St. Paul got shipwrecked here on his way to Rome. (Luckily, I take a plane, not a boat.) St. Luke, the author of Acts and one of St. Paul´s travelling companions, describes the hospitality of the natives, the inhospitality of the local fauna (watch out for the snakes), some miraculous cures, and other events that you can read about in Chapter 28, should your curiosity be peaked.

While we´re on the topic, St. Paul also uses a lot of sports imagery to talk about the Christian experience: “Do you not know that the runners in the stadium all run in the race, but only one wins the prize? Run so as to win”; I do not run aimlessly; “ I drive my body and train it”; “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith”. So it´s kind of fun to run a marathon on the very island where St. Paul would have done his own calesthenics, as it were. But I digress.

I think that early morning is the best time to run. You leave the house when it´s still dark, the dew-washed pavement reflects the orange glow of the streetlamps and the fingernail morn grins down at you. Your footsteps echo along the boardwalk, beating a march in time with the churning Mediterranean waves that rumble as they grind away at the rocky shore to your left. The sea is immense, black, fused with the sky at the unseen horizon. The air, damp and tasting of salt, is invigorating.

The sailboats, rowboats, fishingboat, yachts in the marina rise and fall on the swell and their masts and rigging sway as hints of orange and pale gray begin to creep into the sky. As you’re running, the world is waking up. You round a curve and, across the harbor, you see Valletta, a fortified stone citadel, and the thick sloping walls that have kept her enemies at bay for centuries. Valletta is strategically positioned on the heights, so you abandon the pierside path to begin the ascent on a spiraling avenue, lined with trees with overarching branches. The tunnel of foliage leads you past the gate of the city, the battlements of Fort St. Elmo and monuments to Maltese heroes of the Second World War until you reach… the capital´s centralized bus station and the romanticism ends as you realize you have to book it back to Sliema to make it home on time.

And now, some visual aids, in case my stunning prose didn´t leave you 100% satisfied:

The harbor

The gates of the city!