After three months we put out to sea in a ship that had wintered in the island—it was an Alexandrian ship with the figurehead of the twin gods Castor and Pollux.
Acts 28:11
Paul and his companions set sail from Malta, continuing their journey to Rome. After two days on Malta, we set sail on a ferry to Sicily, the largest island in the Mediterranean.
The harbor has been a harbor for thousands of years. This is likely from where Paul sailed, too. Who else has sailed in and out of this harbor over the millennia? The Romans aren’t the only ones to control the island. The Arabs came through. The Normans conquered it during the Crusades. There were the Spanish. Napoleon “liberated” the island on his way to Egypt in 1798. The locals quickly grew tired of the French presence, inviting the British in 1800, who controlled it for a century and a half until they became independent in 1964. British influence is still visible today, like how they drive on the left side of the road. Malta was an important launching point for the Allied invasion of Italy during World War II.
This little island nation has quite a history!