On the drive out to M'dina today I noticed many homes, as I saw in Jordan last summer, with solar water heaters on their roofs.
There were also a significant number with solar panels as well. Today it was 10 degrees with brilliant sunshine, perfect conditions for solar energy collectors. It is also a great climate and conditions for passive solar heating. On our way through the outskirts of Valletta we drove past a stone aquaduct that stretched for a considerable distance, with most of it in a fairly good state of repair. It really makes me realise that uou ancestors were much smarter than we are as they survived and prospered well with much less knowledge and technology than we have.
To find our future we must look to our past.
Once again once we were out of the city there are many small farms, with the same very stone filled fields, certainly going by the number of low loose stone walls dividing them. And, as I noticed in Sicily, not particularly healthy looking soil.
So much of the architecture reminds me of old Bermuda, buildings built from quarried stone blocks, narrow streets very reminiscent of St. Georges. And the fortifications, as I mentioned previously, I can only imagine the British used similar designs in all their important colonies. This one got a head start having had a head start dating back to the crusaders. And certainly around Valletta there are fortifications everywhere you look. Of course it is one of, if not the best harbour in the Mediterranean.
Sundays here are a day of church services with many businesses closed, and the nights, certainly in the part of Valletta where I am staying are amazingly quiet at night.
I have emailed a contact at the university here trying to find someone to meet with to discuss water security. I am told that the only way they provide enough fresh water is through the use of reverse osmosis plants. Historically they used to practice water harvesting but that died away with the introduction of city water. From the time Crusaders water harvesting was
practiced.
Tomorrow I am going out to the
Tarxien Temples (Maltese pronunciation: [ˈtarʃi.ɛn]) are an archaeological complex in Tarxien, Malta. And when one look at their methods of construction and the size and weight of the stones they were working with one can only be impressed.
