Ggantija - Gozo - Malta

Ggantija [juh GAN tee ah is how I heard it pronounced most of the time] is the temple Églantine and I went to visit on the island of Gozo. Gozo, you will remember, is the second island of the Malta group and just a 20 minute ferry ride from the main island. Ggantija is thought to be the oldest free standing structure in the world. Construction started about 6000 years ago. As we walked from the nearby road down a path, this was the first sight we had of the temple. The largest rocks used for construction were about the height of a normal one story house. (I don't know how thick they were.)



From the hill site of the temple, this is the view across the valley.



In the next photo, one can see Églantine near the back of the temple structure. Yes the roof caved in long ago but then it is over 5600 years old. How will your roof be in 5600 years?



This last photo shows the interior of one of the sections of the temple.



If you are interested in more details or more photos, do a Google search for "Ggantija" and you will get about 76,500 hits. On the other hand you can go to the Ggantija site for more information or to MaltaVista - Pictures - Ggantija for more photos including some neat air photos that were unavailable to those of us who visited on the ground.

Gozo

There are three islands in the Malta group that have people. Gozo is the second smallest and only a short distance from Malta. We took a ferry there to visit an ancient temple but also visited other parts of the island. Photos today are from some of the other parts.



A place, called Calypso's cave, had this view of a beach. It's my kind of beach; beautiful and empty. It was also too far away to walk to on this trip.



From the top of the wall of the Citadel in Victoria, Gozo, we saw this distant city across the green fields. I do not know what the city is called.



These sea cliffs are next to the city of Xlendi (pronounced SHLEN dee).

At the Post #2 (Malta)

I'm still at the post. I did spend about 2 1/2 hours by the post working through the exercises and even then I did not get finished.

I discovered, with a bit of help from Églantine, that my digital camera can take double exposures. Here is one of my first attempts.



So, it could be a post with a beard and long hair or maybe a person whose face has been out in the rain and sun too long.

I set the camera for a macro shot.



Finally, I took another macro shot and then played again with Photoshop using a coloured pencil filter.



(I do have some more tourist shots of Malta but it was an art trip so you will have to put up with a few of my artistic attempts.)

Digital Art Process

Following is a bit of the process in making a digital piece of art. OK, I'm just learning so it's not great art but I am pleased with my beginnings.

Step one: I found a post that had been used to tie up a large boat. The post was old, rusty and beautiful on its own in my opinion.



Step two: One of my art exercises was to move something in the environment to make a change in my original photo. I noticed, behind me in the city, a steeple on a church. It occured to me that it might be interesting to move the steeple onto the post. The problem was the steeple was far away, heavy, and much bigger than the post. Digital camera to the rescue! I took a telephoto shot of the steeple.



Step three: Back at the hotel room with my computer and using Photoshop, I moved the steeple onto the post after shrinking it a bit.



Step four: Again using Photoshop, I took some of the rust colours from the post and put them around the steeple so that it was not so obvious that I had done a cut and paste.



Step five: I added words of various colours and shapes; however, I did not like the result, so I took them off again. I am not sure that the digital photo is finished yet, but I have stopped for now.

If anyone has suggestions....

Boats and Flowers

Here is an attempt to keep Ontario observations and Malta memories both on the go. I don't know how long this will last.

Starting with boats, below are two photos of boats on the Grand Harbour of Valetta.



These boats were tied to the dock just below our hotel room for several days.



This was a large ferry that came into port several times during our stay in Valetta. Large transport trucks that drove onto and off this boat looked almost like toys in comparison to the boat itself. This photo was taken just as the sun came up in the morning while I was out for an early morning walk. The sunlight on the boat gave it a very interesting light.

And now for something completely different....



This flower is the pistillate (i.e. female) flower of a Beaked Hazel (Corylus cornuta). It is very small and not often observed due to its small size. I held it between two fingers to steady it and to give my camera something to focus upon.