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This morning we went into Gozo’s main city of Rabat and paid our first visit to the citadel, which has been a fortress of one kind or another since 1500 BC. The current incarnation dates from the early 17th century, and was built by the Knights of St. John to defend the locals from raiding by French and Turkish privateers.

There’s an excellent baroque (and I mean baroque) cathedral just inside the citadel’s gates. We had a chat with a very cordial padre (you can seem him here busting out some more decorations), who pointed out the trompe-l’œil painting on the ceiling above the main dais. Apparently they ran out of money and couldn’t afford to build the cathedral’s dome, so they just painted it (with amazing effectiveness) on a round sheet of canvas above the altar. I don’t like taking photos inside churches, and it kind of has to be seen to be believed, anyway.

You’re able to walk all the way around the battlements of the citadel, and it affords an awesome view of the entire island. I took this photo looking down into the rooftops of the city below. After messing around with it in Photoshop, I’m pretty happy with the result. Maybe the treatment is a bit brash–you can decide (click for larger version):

This entry was posted on Saturday, May 12th, 2007 at 8:54 am and is filed under History, Malta, Photography, Travel. Tag Testing Project: cathedral, citadel, laundry, saturated, travel. Photo by . You can skip to the end and leave a response, or trackback from your own site. If you don't see your comment within a day or so, drop me an email. Sometimes my comment spam filter gets overly zealous.