In 1941 Hollywood released the film The Maltese Falcon starring Humphrey Bogart as private investigator Sam Spade. It was an instant hit winning the Oscar for Best Picture…today heralded as one of the best films ever made in the Film Noir genre — the film is on every critics’ best picture list. The plot centers around a priceless bejeweled bird statue relic called The Maltese Falcon that had been stolen by pirates 400 years ago on route to Sicily. The relic falcon lands in Spade’s office in the possession of a beautiful woman looking for protection. The plot thickens as more and more characters appear only to be murdered off one after another. Embarrassingly, that film remains the only reason I had even heard of Malta, the very tiny island nation located in the southern Mediterranean Sea between Sicily and the northern coast of Africa. None the less a very intriguing early spring travel destination so to the internet I turned… and it turns out there really was a Maltese Falcon, but it was not exactly like Hollywood’s version. Malta’s history is quite extraordinary, documented in both the Old and New Testaments its location between Europe and Africa being strategically important to conquerors and defenders from everywhere. As so, its native people are a blend of many ancient civilizations from Phoenician to most recently the British. There is much to digest but most pertinent to our story from Malta’s history: in the 1st century AD the Apostle St. Paul washes ashore on Malta, ship wrecked during a storm. He would spend a couple of years on Malta awaiting rescue and while there he manages to convert the entire local community from paganism into Christianity. Today, the people of Malta are still amongst the most pious Roman Catholics on earth and people travel from abroad to witness the lavish repenting of the Lenten and Easter festivals put on weekly by each of the hundreds of parishes of Malta, notably processions of men dragging huge links of chain up cobblestone hilly streets. The noise is amazing. People also come to Malta to see huge Stonehenge like monoliths that the Pagans had developed 3500 years ago. The 2nd pertinent event occurs in 1522: Malta, ruled at the time by the king of Sicily, is given to a group of very prestigious Knights — a group like the Knights Templar — who were very brave defenders of the Christian faith. After an extraordinarily arduous but failed defense of the island of Rhodes, the king of Sicily gives the surviving Knights control of his pious little island nation of Malta in exchange for a well-trained Maltese Peregrine Falcon delivered yearly on All Saints day. It turns out to be a great bargain for the King of Sicily who gains a defensive buffer from those pesky African invaders of the south. The Knights of Malta would spend a few hundred years patrolling the southern seas defending the area mostly from the infamous Barbary Coast pirates but occasionally from caliphate raiders from Africa. The movie’s relic, it seems, never really existed but was a great adaptation of history into fiction. Even so, there are those that still believe the story of the bejeweled falcon is real and relic hunters still search for it today. Somewhat ironically the real serious relic hunt is in America these days as the search is on for the relics from the Hollywood film where the movie was shot. Memorabilia from the classic film sells for huge money. In 2016 an authentic prop of the Maltese Falcon used in the film was sold at auction for more than $4 million to a group of film buffs led by Leonardo DiCaprio. There were 4 falcon props made for the movie but only 3 have been located. The location of the 4th remains a mystery to this day, setting up the opportunity for a new world real version of the movie to play out just like it did in Sam Spade’s office. To borrow cheaply from Humphrey Bogart in a different movie…. “Play it again, Sam.” Malta’s well preserved ancient cities and religious customs makes it a photographer’s dream. Coupled with typically mild winter weather make it a destination not to miss.