A Visit to the Knights of St. John - Malta

-

We spent 2 nights in Malta, an island in the Mediterranean that although little has played a tremendous role in history. It's strategic location made it desirable to all - from the Romans, Moors, Knights of Saint John, the French and the British.



Malta in sight!


Tijl relaxing upon landing in Malta


All smiles from Jim and Deb


Our track so far - quite impressive if I say so myself!

Our home for the next two nights is the Hotel Phoenicia - located in Valletta offering the perfect location for walking to all the sites. The hotel underwent an extensive renovation and just recently re-opened.

While in Malta our group grew - Howard was joined by his kids Suzie and Michael and their significant others!





Our tour began with a visit of Valletta, the old town of Malta and an UNESCO World Heritage site. The Baroque architecture, built by the Knights of Saint John nearly five centuries ago, is on full display.


Touring Malta






The Upper Barakka gardens provided a stunning view of Malta's Grand Harbour, a natural harbour, set against historic bastions. The harbour is considered by many as the most beautiful natural harbour of the Mediterranean.


The stunning interior of St. John's Co-Cathedral - built by the Knights of Saint John. It is sublime.


The floors are burials for famous Knights of the past covered with colorful "tomb stones"






sweet delicacies from Malta

Our tour continued to Casa Rocca Picolla, a 16th century nobleman's home featuring a beautiful collection of furniture, silver and paintings collected over 400 years - it offered an interesting insight into Malta's nobility.

Oh, and the home had a blue and gold Macau for everyone to flirt with.







Mr. Rocca himself.








Rule number 1 on an Air Journey - don't get on the scale! It was clearly broken....








Our final night in Malta we were joined by Juan, a fellow Air Journeyer, who resides on the island.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Channeling Our Inner Indiana Jones - Petra, Jordan.

-
Image
Our inaugural uniformed flight has us flying to our first stop in the Middle East - we are Aqaba, Jordan, bound. We will all channel our inner Indiana Jones as we set out to visit the lost city of Petra; the backdrop in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade Wheels up from Athens, Greece. Crossing over Egypt Aqaba, Jordan, below and Eilat, Israel to the left. You are not allowed to enter Israeli air space when flying to Jordan - we were well briefed on this. On the approach into Aqaba Landing in the Middle East gets 2 thumbs up! JP Jets FBO took great care of us with a nice modern facility. In no time we were off to our hotel. The Kempinski Aqaba Red Sea will be our home for the next 2 nights. Located right on the Red Sea, it took only minutes after our arrival to find members of our group down at the beach for a Red Sea swim! The 104' degree temperatures helped as well! Surprisingly, the water was much chillier than expected. Our visit to...
Read more

"Kalimera Greece" - Porto Heli, Greece

-
Image
We are wheels up for our next destination - "Kalimera, Greece!"which means "good day" or "good morning" in Greek. A phrase we heard throughout our time here. We landed in Athens but transferred to Porto Heli, Greece, on the mainland, for our stay at the stunning Amanzoe - our home for the next 3 nights. On arrival into Athens. Jim is still on prist duty Tijl and Lizzie and Danielle being whisked away for their helicopter transfer to Amanzoe. Tijl is ready! The group is scheduled to transfer by road to the Amanzoe, a 2hr45min scenic drive, but with a helicopter transfer as an option - cutting travel time to just 25min - some jumped on the possibility. The whole group will transfer out of Amanzoe by helicopter for our departure out of Greece. Having always wanted to visit Santorini, Howard and his crew took a commercial flight from Athens to the picturesque island. Santorini has strick parking restrictions during the summer months that fo...
Read more