Adventure Travel : The Streets of Valletta, Malta

The walled city of Valletta, the capital of Malta, designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1980, has many buildings dating from the 16th century. Come on a walk with us though the streets of Valletta.
We arrived in Valletta on the ferry from Sliema, a ten minute crossing which cost 1.5 Euro per person for a single ticket. This is probably the most scenic way to approach Valletta.

View of Valletta from the Sliema ferry
It’s a quite a steep climb from the ferry up to the main street in Valletta, which was adorned with suspended stars during our visit.

Stars in the streets of Valletta
I liked the water fountain decorated with a horse standing on his back legs. It was a bit gusty to sit in the café there though.

One of the water fountains in Cathedral Square
St John’s Co-Cathedral was constructed in the 16th century by the Knights of Malta.

St John’s Co-Cathedral in Valletta

There are three dials on one of the towers, one for the time of day, one for the day of the week and one for the date.

Three dials on Valletta Cathedral
We continued down the slope to the southern side of Valletta where there were many examples of traditional style architecture.

One of the streets was decorated with red garlands.

Red garlands on the streets of Valletta
There are religious sculptures on many street corners.

Religious sculpture in Valletta
There is a pavement fountain in front of the Grand Master’s Palace, the Maltese seat of government.

Grand Master’s Palace in Vallletta
The Armoury is just behind the palace.

Peaceful courtyard at the entrance to the Armoury in Valletta

View toward Grand Harbour in Valletta

Adventure Travel : Deals Benefit Japan

Great news from Vacationist! Starting today, 21 new Preferred Hotels will launch 48-hour Check-In For Japan sales on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday through June 30th at Vacationist.com—and 100 percent of the proceeds will be donated to American Red Cross disaster relief for those affected by the earthquake in Japan.

Room rates are as low as $50 a night at properties both close to home (Laguna Beach, California and Vail, Colorado) as well as more exotic destinations, from Maui to Madagascar. Act fast, do good, and stay for less through 2011! See offers below.

A few of the highlights, on sale now:

Surf & Sand Resort
Laguna Beach, California

The Lodge & Spa at Cordillera
Vail Valley, Colorado

Makena Beach & Golf Resort
Makena, Maui

Santé Hotel, Resort & Spa
Cape Town, South Africa

Excelsior Palace Hotel
Portofino Coast, Italy

Hotel Carlton
Antananarivo, Madagascar


Vacationist.com is brought to you by Travel + Leisure and LuxuryLink.com. For more on Check-In for Japan, click here.

Photos courtesy of Preferred Hotels; Makena Beach & Golf Resort, Maui (top); The Lodge & Spa at Cordillera, Vail (bottom)

Adventure Travel : In Syria Palmyra

Palmyra (city of palms).

For thousands of years the location of Palmyra has been an important site in Syria. It is the shortest route from the Arab gulf to the Mediterranean and was also a major stopping point on the ancient silk route. The Roman Emperor Hadrian visited the city in 129 A.D. and recognised Palmyra as a ‘free city.’ For over four hundred years the city enjoyed uninterrupted prosperity as a centre of trade and the crossroad between east and west.

Today much evidence remains of the splendour of this ancient city in the centre of the Syrian desert. As you walk down the great colonnade of a thousand columns, stretching more than a thousand metres, you get a taste of the past grandeur of this great city. Columns are crowned by wide Corinthian capitals and the moulded alcoves half way up the shafts supported statues of public figures. At the end of the colonnade is a large theatre still used today for outdoor concerts. The temple of Bel with its immense courtyard was a place of sacrifice and evidence clearly remains of a large sacrificial altar.

On the slopes of the hills east of the city there are ancient tombs. The fascinating hypogeum tower tomb links a network of underground chambers inside the tomb tower. These tower tombs were built to receive the bodies of families over a period of two centuries and today you can ascend into these tall structures and see the evidence of hundreds of alcoves in the walls on each level that were used to house the bodies.

We had reached Palmyra by road from Damascus, a journey of 245 km on a modern highway. A welcome pit stop in the desert is the Bagdad cafe a quirky roadside refreshment station well worth visiting

Adventure Travel : elegance, relaxation and gastronomy in Elche

Hotel Huerto del Cura: elegance, relaxation and gastronomy in Elche

Huerto del Cura Group is a landmark in this town of Elche tourism due to its wide range of proposals from hotels, restaurants and nature, and the quality of service and facilities to ensure full customer satisfaction.

The company combines tradition and modernity in all its business lines, particularly in its two hotel establishments (Huerto del Cura Hotel ****, the flagship of the Group and the Millennium Garden Hotel as well as ****), two restaurants (Els Capellans and The Millennium Taula), a National Artistic Garden known as the Garden of Healing and an excellent catering service. All located in the famous palm grove of Elche, a natural environment that is without doubt one of the great attractions of the area.

Staying at the Huerto del Cura is to find a perfect place for meetings and to enjoy a few relaxing days surrounded by beautiful surroundings. Facilities, exquisite cuisine and superb location come together to the best and most complete service. Its 80 rooms (single, double and Junior Suites) form a horizontal arrangement of hotel bungalows surrounded by tropical vegetation which fills all of pleasant scents and sounds of birds.

The main features of the rooms are its size and functionality, modern design and best quality materials and finishes, in which the aesthetic has always prevailed in the service of comfort.

The rooms have air conditioning and heating, satellite TV with remote, interactive consultations, reception of messages, telephone, minibar, safe, 24 hour room service and Wi-Fi. In this sense, the junior suites offer a comfortable bedroom and a spacious lounge equipped with a desk with private fax and sofa to seamlessly combine leisure and work.

In addition to being enabled for relaxation and wellness, Hotel Huerto del Cura is an ideal location for any meeting or family celebration, thanks to its eight rooms, with capacity for 900 people, equipped with the latest technology and provided natural light and garden views.

The rooms are equipped with secretarial and translation service, video, slides, projectors, fax, free internet access, laptops and video conferencing system, which coupled with the ongoing personal attention and advice from qualified personnel of the hotel, ensure the resounding success of any event.

These spaces are perfect for holding any type of meeting and banquet facilities that are supported by an underground car park, very useful in holding large events.

Sports, relaxation and fine dining

Sports enthusiasts are offered the Sport Hotel with 3,000 m2 garden, where you can practice outdoor activities like basketball, tennis, swimming, gymnastics equipment, rings, table tennis, among others … This wide range of sports is complemented by other facilities such as swimming pool for adults and children, solarium and sauna.

The result of this commitment to sport and health, the Hotel offers a wide selection of travel packages that combine, among other options, golf accommodation, relaxation or culture and cuisine, just for everyone. In this regard, the gastronomy her most notable is the exclusive Restaurant Els Capellans, where customers can sample a select menu that fuses

Finally, health and beauty are its other major specialties, with a full range of programs and effective treatments and surprising, as the facial mask based pearls, a powerful skin regenerator, or bamboo massage, therapy as ancient as the palm trees surrounding this charming establishment.

AdventureTravel : South Africa and Namibia

This year we have already decided where we’ll go on vacation and the destination was South Africa and Namibia. We are currently planning our route, lodges and campsites where we go to bed, having bought the flights and book a jeep 4 × 4 with a tent top.

The dunes of Sossusvlei desert in Namibia

As will be my first time in Africa (apart from my trip to Morocco), also doing camping, I would like opinions and advice from travelers who have been in Namibia by road with a 4 × 4 to tell us their experiences. Some of the questions that occur to me right now:

How many times had to change the wheel?
Is it safe?
Any elephant they dismantled the tent at night?
Are there many mosquitoes?
“The lions are dangerous?
How many pictures will be able to do in 3 weeks?

Roads in Namibia

At the moment our route passes through South Africa visiting Johannesburg a couple of days, then spend five days in Cape Town to visit the coast, the Cape of Good Hope and try to see whales, sea lions, etc..

Fly to Windhoek and from there we will drive 4 × 4 to the Waterberg Plateau Park and Etosha, where we would sleep 3 nights in the park. Then continue north to sleep in Opuwo and Epupa Falls a total of 3 nights.

Hence the idea is to arrive in two days at Swakopmund and Walvis Bay to enjoy the “beach” and dunes. Although we leave the dunes by the end of the journey where we will finish in the Namib Desert and the dune 45 we hope to go to see the sunrise.