Rhino Car Hire offers low cost car hire in Malta. Just select your city in Malta, the dates and times you want to pick up and drop off your hire car, your preferred car type and the age of the driver then compare car hire prices and book online with the best fully inclusive car hire rates from the world's top 400 car rental companies.
AN ISLAND FORTRESS FACED A NEW CHALLENGE WHEN THE BRITISH SAILED A WA Y - NOW THE BRITONS ARE FL YING BACK, SEEKING SUN AND TAX RELIEF
In the time of Classical Greece, nearly 3000 year ago, Malta was known as the Navel of the Inland Seas. It position, standing sentinel across the narrows between Sicily and Tunisia which divide the Mediterranean, has always governed its destiny.
British naval and strategic interests largely moulded the island's character, developing the Grand Harbour area beside the capital, VALLETTA, far beyond the capacity of the island's meagre resources. The Valletta conurbation, crowded onto finger-like peninsulas and spreading inland, has over 200 000 people - two-third of the total population. There are 1342 people per km2 (3475 per sq mile) in Malta - one of the world's highest population densities. A second island, GOZO, has only 355 people per km2 (920 per q mile).
Overcrowding has not obliterated fascinating vestiges of Malta's far-distant past. The oldest - such as the cave dwellings at Ghar Dalam in the south - are 5800 years old.
Inevitably, as a small, strategically placed island, Malta has a history of foreign domination, successively under the Phoenicians, Carthaginians, Romans, Arabs, Normans and Spaniard. Then followed a period of more formal colonial history, first under the Knights of St John (1530-1798), then fleetingly under the French (1798-1800), and finally under the British (1800-1964).
Throughout these four centuries Malta was used as an island fortress, first as the southern bastion of Christian Europe, later as a guardian over the short sea route to India after the SUEZ CANAL was opened in 1869. During the Second World War it was an Allied base controlling the central Mediterranean and threatening enemy supply routes to North Africa. The island's two great moments in history were in 1565, when it resisted the Turks during the Great Siege and in the Second World War when it suffered many months of fierce German and Italian bombardment. The islander’s bravery in withstanding this latter onslaught earned the whole island the George Cross.
Until the late 1950s the British military base was the mainstay of the Maltese economy, accounting for over half of Malta's foreign exchange earnings and a quarter of its civil employment. Then Britain began running down the base, and by 1979 had withdrawn altogether. Those 20 years saw great changes in Malta's economy. The naval dockyard was converted for commercial shipbuilding and repairs, light industries were encouraged to develop and tourism boomed - from 20 000 visitors in 1960 to 730 000 in 1980; the island also became a haven for retired Britons seeking sunshine and low taxes. Nevertheless, nearly half of the working population is still engaged in agriculture.
At the same time there were political changes. After Britain rebuffed a suggestion that Malta should be made an integral part of the United Kingdom, full independence came in 1964; it became a republic in 1974. Under the mercurial Dom Mintoff, prime min¬ister from 1971 until his retirement in 1984, Malta adopted a fiercely independent stance,
which ineluded economic and trade agree¬ments with China and Libya. Mintoff's Labour Party and the politically powerful Catholic Church (aligned with the Nationalist Party) are the two main protagonists in the islands' post-war political scene.
The Maltese are passionate Catholics, and see their religion as a fundamental link with European culture. But their way oflife is highly individualistic, linked to the special character that comes from being islanders. They have their own language, Maltese, universally spoken but not written until the present century.
The landscape is flattish, rocky, bare save for a sprinkling of evergreen carob and olive trees, and rather untidy. Shortage of water and porous lime tone bedrock account for the sparseness of the vegetation, and pose problems for farming, industry and the hotel trade. Gozo is greener and more fertile.
Book your low cost car rental for Malta securely online and instantly receive an online quote. Rhino Car Hire Malta provides a wide choice of vehicles from budget economy options through to luxury autos. Rhino Car Hire will compare all the top car hire providers to find you the very best deal on your car hire in Malta.
Car Rental in Malta
Our car hire web site is designed to provide you with an easy to use interface that will take you through the car rental procedure. If, at any point of this process, you have a problem or a question on your country car hire, then contact our Customer Care Car Team who will be happy to help with any Malta Car Hire enquiry. Our intelligent software saves you the hassle of visiting lots of different websites to compare car rental prices yourself. Now you can do all that by the click of just one button. Within a few seconds you will have a list of all the available cars in Malta and by the lowest price.
Cheap car hire at Malta and other top destinations throughout the world. Our car rental website will compare the prices of the best car hire companies and quote you the most economical vehicle available.
YOU DON'T HAVE TO TRAWL THROUGH WEBSITES TO COMPARE CAR HIRE COUNTRY PRICES IN MALTA - WE DO IT FOR YOU!
Car rental lets you plan your own round of sightseeing, or business meetings, according to your own agenda.
When visiting Malta don't forget to see and experience the museums, galleries, Bars, Lounges, Restaurant and vibrant cafe society of this area!
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