Mosta Things to Do

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In front of the Rotunda you will see a cannon and many roads from all directions will lead you directely to the roundabout in front of the Rotunda-church. The hop-on, hop-off-bus and a lot of other regular buslines will take you there as well.
When going to Mosta, remember that the church is closed between noon and 03.00pm !
The church has place inside for a total of 12.000 people, this is what I read in Wikipedia, its hard to believe for me and I am sure it will never happen anyway,so it is impossible to proove it !

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There are 2 clocks at the Rotunda,right under the small towers and while the one on the right is an ordinary clock showing the time, the other one on the left is showing the date. On other churches in Malta you will see 2 clocks and both of them are showing the time, once the correct time and once a completely wrong one,and that is in order to"confuse the devil", so he never knows, at what time the churchservice will start. That is one of the stories that you will hear on the hop-on&off-bus, BUT I think that the devils of today are much more clever than these architects thought !

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Dont miss the aviation-museum in Ta'Qali
it is just about 2km from Mosta ! and the former airport of Ta'Quali was also the reason to throw bombs in Mosta in WW II.
The hop-on bus goes there before they take you to Mosta and Rabat,but there will be a public bus there as well from Mosta.
The entrancefee to the museum was 5 euros and I saw some really interesting exhibits there ! At the moment (Nov.2010) they are building a new hall that should be finished in 2011 maybe.

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It is always great for me to see these great balconies in Malta, and in Mosta you will also see a lot of them, and when you are lucky the sun will shine on them like in my photos here.
Mosta is about 9km from Valetta and it has more than 19.000 inhabitants nowadays. When it comes to cartrafic, Mosta is a lot more peaceful than Valetta, and not a bad place to live.

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This church in quite a small town of Malta is ranking on place No.4 in the list of largest cuppolas in the world after the Hagia Sofia, St.Peters in Rome and a church in Brasil. The church is also quite big compared to the average buildings of Mosta and so you will see it from almost any place in town and when youlook at Mosta from Rabat or Mdina, the church stands out, beeing at least 2 times as high as any other building of Mosta (see my last photo!).
When you would like to see its great interior, you should know, that they have a lunch-break between noon and 03.00pm !!!

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The interior of the Rotunda is worth seeing as well, I especially loved the angels that you will find under the large paintings on the walls, like shown here in my main photograph ! The pulpit is also worth seeing because it is standing on the floor instead of beeing fixed somewhere on the walls like in other churches (you will see it in my last photo !).

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The Bomb Miracle of April 9, 1942 happened in Mosta when 3 bombs were thrown down from german airplanes, and the first 2 bombs could not destroy the cuppola, but simply bounced off and the 3rd bomb pierced the dome, it fell on the floor of the Rotunda, BUT did not explode. About 300 people were trying to find shelter in the Rotunda at that time, but nobody was hurt.
You can still see a replica of that bomb in the sacristy, it was a 200kg bomb.

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The cuppola of the Rotunda is the world's forth largest unsupported dome with an internal diameter of 37.2 metres. You will be able to enter the church freely and without restrictions, except in the time between noon and 03.00pm, when the church will be closed.
Walk to the very end of the church and into the saceristy and you will hear about a bomb that hit the cuppola of the Rotunda during WW II. - you will see the bomb in my next tip!