Snapshots of an Island: The Azure Window: the end of an icon

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.

Wednesday, 8 March 2017

The Azure Window: the end of an icon

The Azure Window was a natural limestone arch that rose majestically out of the blue Mediterranean sea to a height of 28 metres (92 feet). It was located in Dwejra, Gozo.

The arch was created when two limestone caves collapsed on some unrecorded day in history. It was a natural attraction much-loved both by the Maltese and by thousands of tourists who visited it on a daily basis and captured its unique beauty in countless images.

After a night of storms and gale-force winds, the arch succumbed to the elements and it collapsed into the sea this morning. Nothing is left where the arch once stood, not even the stacks. This iconic feature is gone forever and the Azure Window will not only live on in our memories and our photographs.

Thankfully, in this age of social media, images and videos of the Azure Window are plentiful but it is still sad to think that there will be generations of children who will grow up without seeing it for themselves.

During its lifetime, the Azure Window was the backdrop for some scenes in movies like Clash of the Titans (1981), The Count of Monte Cristo (2002) and in the TV series Game of Thrones. In 2016, clothing designer Hugo Boss shot an ad campaign featuring cliff diver David Colturi jumping off of the Azure Window.