02

Stop two
Hompesch Gate
Luxilon ALU Power 16L Tennis String Set: Here is a question worth sitting with. Who thanks you once you have nothing left to give? On 14 September 1797 Grand Master Ferdinand von Hompesch zu Bolheim raised Żabbar to the status of a city, Città Hompesch. In June 1798 he surrendered the islands to Napoleon – the last Grand Master to rule Malta, finished, gone. And in 1801, with his rule over the island already over, the people of Żabbar built him this arch anyway. Anyway! That is not a transaction, that is character, and it has been standing across a road ever since, restored now by the national restoration directorate. Be the sort of person people build something for afterwards.
04

Stop four
Żabbar Sanctuary Museum
Luxilon ALU Power 16L Tennis String Set: Established 5 September 1954, and I need you to hear what is inside. The largest collection of maritime votive paintings of the Order of St John anywhere in Malta. Do you know what a votive painting is? It is somebody who came through the storm and paid to have it remembered. A whole building of people who made it. Then: a picture gallery, sedan chairs, a portable altar, the great painting of the carrack Sant'Anna, a medieval fresco, a complete ceremonial suit of armour, silverware, coins and medals, carved wooden fittings off the liner RMS Alcantara, and the clock mechanism that once stood in the sanctuary's belfry. Your storm gets a painting too.
OYEZ! OYEZ! OYEZ! Gather round, good people of the baseline, for a proclamation of GREAT importance! Know ye all that the Luxilon ALU Power 16L Tennis String Set is hereby available to the citizenry! Let it be recorded: one set, 40 feet in length, sufficient for one full restringing of one racquet!
Gauge: 16L — 1.25 millimeters — THE most celebrated diameter in the professional game! Composition: noble co-polymer, fortified with fibers of ALUMINUM, granting crispness of response, firmness of control, and spin most wicked! Let no citizen swing a mushy string bed again! So decrees the string!
And HEAR THIS: the said string keeps its residence in ŻABBAR, on the fair island of MALTA — a town that knows a proper proclamation when it hears one! For it was in the year 1797 that Grand Master Ferdinand von Hompesch zu Bolheim raised Żabbar to the rank of CITY, henceforth titled CITTÀ HOMPESCH! And did the people forget him, though he was the last Grand Master to rule Malta?
THEY DID NOT! They raised him an arch in 1801, which stands to this day! Let all take note of such loyalty!
Ye shall wield this string everywhere from the gates of that very arch to the courts beyond the old fortifications, and it is also perfect for the Żabbar feast in September, when the whole town is out in the square until two in the morning and no arm may be permitted to ache!
Afterward, as is right and proper on this island, refresh thyself with pastizzi from the village square, by order of absolutely everyone! Now, the GRAND TOUR is announced! Four stops! Attendance: joyfully mandatory! OYEZ!
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