Tourists broke ranks from their tour leader and, even if only for a few moments, jostled for space at St George’s Square in Valetta as an army band played band marches and some popular tunes too. The square presented a most colourful scene, bringing back to Maltese of a certain age the time when peopled thronged Kingsway, as it was then called, and the square to watch and listen to the occasional band marches by Services’ bands.

After a long period of what can well be described as post-colonial hibernation, when Valletta was left to its own devices to decay and crumble under the weight of sheer disinterest, the city is now once again beginning to stir and take the feel of a lively European city, at least during the day. An extensive programme of renovation and regeneration has already produced significant results and if the drive is kept up it will not be very long before Valletta can once again hold its head high among the list of most interesting small European cities.

To reach that stage, more funds will be required to finance restoration work that is badly needed. But, at least, the start has been good, even if, in some respects, it has been highly controversial, as is the case with the work now in hand in the building of the new Parliament House and the roofless theatre nearby. It is a very good idea to take Parliament out of The Palace, but, as it is generally agreed, it was not wise to spend so much money on the building of a completely new house when the government had other venues that it could have very well have utilised for the purpose.

Had this been done, the space would have been left unencumbered, giving another much-needed open area parallel to St George’s Square, which, as renovated, has now been turned into a most delightful place.

Indeed, St George’s Square, with the Melitensium Amor inscription – once scandalously boarded by a Libyan cultural institute – looking down on it, has now been given back its former splendour, bringing it, as it were, into modern Independent times, with water jets dancing to folkloristic tunes. What a change from the utterly drab car park that it had been so shamelessly reduced to for so many years!

But there have been other significant developments, such as, for instance, the renovation of the waterfront, which is giving a most welcoming image of Malta to the thousands of tourists arriving on cruise liners. Few other ports equal the beauty of the island’s Grand Harbour. And there is much as yet that can be done to exploit its potential.

What was once part of a war machine and, later, a Naafi shop and, later still, a government printing press, St James Cavalier, has been turned into an arts and entertainment centre.

The buildings of the Knights are gradually being restored and the work already done, as, for example, the façade of the Palace, the library and part of Auberge d’Aragon, shows the difference this has made to the buildings.

What needs to be taken in hand most urgently now is rigorous action to put to an end the absolutely chaotic and shambolic situation at the city’s entrance, and, above all, a thorough clean-up and, where required, restoration, of façades in Republic Street and other streets of the capital. Has anyone noticed, for instance, that there are weeds growing on the cornices of the church of Sta Barbara in Republic Street?

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