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Second try at Mosta. This time we intend to go and have a better look at the rotunda as well as seeing the church's famous painting. However, when we arrive the church isn't open. Later look it up and see that it's only open 9-11 and 3-5. Surprising we hit it last time. Though we have been here before, in 2003. It's an interesting church in a couple of ways. For one thing, the rotunda is supposed to be the fourth largest in the world (depending on who you ask), the third largest unsupported dome in Europe, after St Peter's in Rome and St Paul's in London. Built in the 19th century around the existing parish church, which remained in use during the construction. The walls are nine metres thick and the internal diameter about thirty-seven metres. It was modelled on the Pantheon. In WW II a German bomb fell on it during an afternoon raid (April 9/1942) but did not explode and left the congregation of 300 uninjured. A replica remains in the church, the original having been disposed of at the time. A tough war the Maltese had. They were nearly starved to death, going eleven months with no delivery of food supplies, as all convoys were bombarded. And this on a small island country that is almost entirely rock, and that heavily built upon. When the first Allied ship finally made it through in August 1942, it was on the Feast of the Assumption, still celebrated as a national holiday. Six days after the bomb landed on Mosta church King George VI awarded the George Cross for heroism to the entire population of Malta.
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