Rabat

Today was spent in Rabat and Mdina. I visited St Agatha's Catacombs which were quite unlike anything I've ever visited before. A guided tour showed us round about a tenth of the complex, through burial chambers, alters and little rooms. It was quite eerie and not somewhere that I'd like to spend any time on my own! The fact that it is 'hewn from the living rock' adds to its impressiveness - basically there ain't a lot between you and the building above. Some of it, predictably, is unstable, whilst other areas are going through a very slow process of renovation. That people spent any time down there at all is interesting. It's damp, smells and is full of dead people. Here they would eat a final repast in celebration of the dead. They would also come down to pray and worship. It has been a part of Rabat for over 1500 years and, thankfully, hasn't been superseded by the 21^st century. The museum is a higgledy-piggledy mishmash of pottery, statues, icons, bones and carvings. The labels are typewritten, curled and brown from the sun that is allowed to pour into the 3 rooms that the exhibits are shown in. St Paul's catacombs are just a stones throw away. I plan to visit them next week but clearly all the money has been thrown their way – the audioguides for visitors and the planning permission to renovate the walls and gates show that St Paul just has the edge on St Agatha. Whether it's for the better or not remains to be seen.