My home at St Julian's, Malta

My hometown of St Julian's, Malta (click once to enlarge)

Today I'm going to take you by air over my home in Malta, over the area known as Ta' Giorni in St Julian's. It's an aerial photograph that shows also the towns of Balluta, Sliema, Gzira and Valletta in the background and the rocky shoreline, many apartments, hotels and restaurants, which make up for a very crowded section of Malta. Being only 18 miles by 8, with 400,000 people living on this small island makes for a very densely populated island, the third mostly densely populated country after Monaco and Singapore. You can see a very limited green section, which is actually a small valley protected by law. Well, this is where I grew up - this is where I lived until 1981, and this is where my sister Josephine still lives, as well as many neighbors and friends, childhood friends who are now probably grandparents themselves.

Zooming in the same photo of St Julian's

In the second photo you can zoom closer to my home and the third photo you can see our residence at 100 Birkirkara Hill right in the center of the photo, in a corner of the street. Of course you can see how parking is a major problem, with 320,00 registered cars. Houses used to be one to two floors at the most, but now, wherever you look, you see 6 to 10 floor apartments coming up. The parish church is outside the photo, but we'll talk about that some other time. 

Zooming even deeper with our house right in the center!

Make sure you click on each photo and enlarge as much as you want to see a close-up view of my hometown, St Julian's. By the way, they did not name the town after me! I was named for our patron, Saint Julian.