Grand Hotel Mercure San Antonio St. Paul's Bay

... from Europe and will never see the island away from the resort areas or Valletta. It's a shame because this place is pretty amazing as are the people. Help is never more than a question away and people go out of their way to make sure you get where you need to go. On my way back to the hostel I got off the bus where I thought I had boarded it and ended up wandering around for 30 minutes. Let's just say I was exploring new streets rather than ...

... was an article about those crosswalks like I was poking fun at a few days ago in Wales. Yes, right on page 9 of the September 23 Daily Telegraph there it was...an entire article about how a town called Brighton is blasting the scheme as an insult to their intelligence.

Each intersection has four signs costing about $400 US each. The signs advise pedestrians to

(1) Push the button and stand where you can clearly see it. The box will be in ...

An erster Stelle ganz klar das faszinierende Meer (siehe Bilder). Die Anschaffung von einem guten Schnorchel und Taucherbrille lohnt sich wirklich. Es ist einfach ein wunderschönes Bild, wenn die Sonnenstrahlen sich wie Fäden durch das Wasser in die Tiefe ziehen. Ist schlecht zu beschreiben, muss man einfach selbst erleben und sehen.

Leider auch der viele Müll in den Straßen und am Strand. Wahrscheinlich ist er auch die Ursachen für den zum Teil echt unangenehmen Geruch ...

... local "How do we get to Popeye Village" and they said "oh, it's just about a 15 minute walk that way". What they failed to mention was that it was all up-hill and down roads that didn't have foot-paths. About 45 minutes later and parched from the hot sun, dad and I arrived at Popeye Village. It was pretty interesting, although I had never seen the movie. Dad loved it and we took heaps of photos. We were sure to be there in time for the bus back down to the town.

... Sunday. We watched The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood and ate junk food then headed back to the residences. Sunday we went to the San Anton Gardens, which is right across the street from the hotel and took lots of pictures. Then, we helped Jenna and some other girls get moved in to the Residences. There was much room confusion for poor Jenna. So we waited for what the Maltese consider "soon" which is known to Americans as about three hours. Then ...

... soon found out the answer lied on the island of Gozo. 3. GOZO: The trip to the island of Gozo proved that we should have spent our entire trip out on the smaller, 'secondary' island to Malta. The crowds were never big, but they were nearly non-existing on Gozo. We spent the morning at the Inland Sea - an underwater cave that collapsed, causing a natural phenomenon. Our biggest mistake of the trip - taking the six hour boat ride around the islands of Gozo and ...

... told me he knew the president personally however when he said he would arrange a photo for me with him I was pretty excited! I mean I was blown away! Here were all these dignitaries and I was going to get a photo with the president of Malta wearing jeans and a t-shirt. Man what a blast this was. I have shown the photo to as many locals as I can find this afternoon and they have all been blown away by it. So there you have it, Andrew from Greystanes shook hands and had a photo with the ...

... s Shipwreck church in Valletta but the Mosta Dome certainly made up for it. As could be expected it totally dominates the town of Mosta and indeed the entire region of Central Malta. Perhaps the clincher for the Mosta Dome and the incident that makes it so special to the Maltese people is when 3 bombs hit the dome in a 1942 German bombing raid. Two ricocheted off the dome and landed in the surrounding town square, the third crashed through the dome and rattled across ...

... good shopping and although people not as friendly as Libyans still very nice and obviously used to tolerating tourists. Best thing was they knew I am a princess because the hotel upgraded me to the Palace (a real old palace next to the hotel - so in addition to a very large balcony and lovely suite I also had staff say to me when charging drinks at the bar- "the palace? yes?" and I could say " yes I'm in the palace" :)

... were a bit unsure about going ahead with it without knowing exactly how much it would be, but didn't really have an option, as there was a 'no washing in the rooms' policy at the hotel. We nearly fell over when we got the bill came back at $40 AUD! We know that you simply can not compare the two, but we were very spoilt when many of the places we stayed at in Asia actually did our washing for FREE - looks like we're paying for it now! We think Malta is a special place. It's pre-history ...