There’s a cemetery in Msida, Malta that looks out across the water where the locals serve strawberries and cream in the summer. It has topped my list of best views for the dead for years.
Until Molunat.
Here, beside the tiny Church of St John, the graves look out on the fishing boats in the Adriatic.
The church, built in 1889, was originally dedicated to St Nicholas, patron saint of sailors. When it was being renovated and extended in 1998, it was rededicated to St John the Baptist. Why, I don’t know.
The surrounding cemetery, which descends in terraces towards the water, contains mostly modern graves as well as older, more weathered ones.
I was particularly taken with this one, but the only date on the headstone is 1978, so I can’t tell if it was a truck driver or a kid who liked trucks. I wondered, not for the first time, at the lack of details on graves in this part of the world.
It’s a gorgeous little resting place. Even without the strawberries.
