The mystery of the bones in St Gregory's Chapel, Malta On 12th March, 1969, fifty four years ago, work was being carried out on the transept side of the Chapel of San Girgor (St Gregory) at Zejtun. Ruben Abela was a 16-year-old youth at the time and was helping his uncle in carrying out screed roof shuttering when he came across what seemed to be a...

The Great Wall of China, the Berlin Wall, Hadrian's Wall, the US-Mexico Border Wall and the Aurelian Walls around Rome as well as fortifications and walls around the world's major cities – all have recognition. Malta and Gozo, being humble and small, its forts, bastions and walls are largely internationally unknown, yet on a per kilometre scale, th...

"I have been visiting the prehistoric ruins all round the Mediterranean, from Mesopotamia to Egypt, Greece and Switzerland, but I have nowhere seen places as old as these." So wrote V. Gordon Childe, the former Professor of Prehistoric European Archaeology from London University's Institute of Archaeology, after visiting Malta's Ħaġar Qim and other...

Living on small islands renders one to being a very minor citizen on the international scale of things. However, there is always the enormous sensual and mental satisfaction of being involved and being a part of all that happens around you. If you are in the British Isles and there is an international yacht race starting from Aberdeen while you are...

Middlethorpe Hall is a 'William and Mary' country house that was built, two miles from the centre of the historic city of York, between 1699 and 1701. In recent times, the house has been carefully restored to reflect its grand status back in the 1700s and is furnished throughout with antiques and fine paintings. Middlethorpe sits in 20 acres of wal...

Škofja Loka is one of the oldest towns in Slovenia, with a history that goes back to the 10th century. It was then enclosed by stone walls and could only be entered through one of its five gated towers, but little can be seen of these today. We stopped off at this interesting and raffishly attractive town while travelling from Ljubljana to Lake Ble...