… At least in our house.

I have been asked why we do not have an on-going travel blog. Well… we like to have the blogs (diaries to us) reflect the mood we are in when we created them. That means a new name and a new format for new trip with name the subject of much debate in our house as much as where our trip will take us.

We try to have the blog name reflect something of the area we are visiting, could be food related (Tapas to Tajine, Spaetzle To Spaten, Jamón & Jambon) or a geography and local language/history combination (Norman Veroveren or Norman Conquest in Dutch and Adriatic Avventura or Adriatic Adventure in Italian with the tag line in Croat). All these names came with Kim and I (and now Sydney) suggesting names with a reason with the others shooting the name down for reason.

With all that in mind this trip threw us for a little while. The two main destinations, Malta and Sicily had little in common despite being geographically located next to each other. Names flew, were chewed on and left behind. I will spare you.

Kim finally landed on the fact that Sicily and Malta were for a while ruled under the Crown of Aragon, a kingdom that existed from 12th to the 18th century A.D. centered in Zaragoza, Spain and stretched across the Mediterranean to include (eventually) parts of Spain, Italy, France and (of course) Sicily and Malta. In 1530 The Knights of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem or Knights Hospitaller, a religious order that originally was tasked with taking care of sick and poor pilgrims visiting the Holy Land and later becoming a military order with orders to defend the Holy Land, were given control of Malta by King Charles V for the rent of one Peregrine Falcon a year (the King like falconry) to be paid to his Viceroy in Sicily on All Saints Day. So yes, there really was a Maltese Falcon but in reality it was a live bird given as a tribute.

With this information mind the name Falcon rose to the top of the blog name list however it seemed a bit plain. In looking over the past blogs with language/history combinations it donned on us that a language shift was what was missing and what we are thinking of calling ‘The Falcon’ was translated into Maltese as ‘I-Falkun’.

We also thought of naming the blog ‘On Vacation’ in Maltese however ‘on’ is translated to ‘fuq’ so that one died a quick death.