Snapshots of an Island: The New Barrakka Lift

WELCOME

This blog is dedicated to Malta - my island home. My aim is not to bore you with history but to share my thoughts and a few facts together with a photo or two. For a more in -depth background of the island please go here. The purpose of this blog is not to point out the short-comings of the island. There are plenty that do that already. My wish is to show you the beauty of an island at the cross roads of the Mediterranean, a melting pot of history; a place where fact and fiction are sometimes fused to create unique myths and legends; a country that has been conquered so many times that our culture is a mish mesh of the lands that surround us and of lands far away. I confess that my greatest desire is to make you fall in love with this tiny enchanting island.

Monday, 20 May 2013

The New Barrakka Lift

What’s so special about a lift, I might hear you ask. And, in truth, it is just a lift. But in my mind, it has taken on the aura of a legend. The first Barrakka lift opened its doors to the public in December 1905.

The lift connected the harbour with the city and was a quick and efficient way of getting to Valletta from Lascaris Wharf. In the 1970s the lift was closed down and eventually dismantled. I have a very vague recollection of my father taking me for a ride on the old lift a few months before it was closed. The structure was dismantled in 1983 and all of us that remembered it, however tenuously, talked nostalgically of the lift and its vertiginous trip up and down the fortified walls underneath Upper Barracca Gardens.

With the ever-increasing number of cruise ships berthing at Lascaris Wharf, a decision was taken to re-build a lift in the same place. In December 2012, the new Barrakka lift was inaugurated. The lift is 58 metres high and is connected to the fortifications of Valletta by a bridge. Positioned at the highest point of Valletta, the lift offers a fantastic view of Grand Harbour and the old cities of Bormla, Birgu and Isla.