Wednesday, May 23, 2012

Watch out Hampton Court, here we come!

Braving the elements in her adorable rain coat and umbrella, Mel gets ready to enter Hampton Court Palace.
Pretending to be the Queen, It think we could get used to this!

Love the mushroom trees!!!
Sundials don't need much sun to work, as you can see in this picture. It looks like it's 1 pm.
The flowers were all out and put on a stunning show despite the torrents of rain,  "April showers brings may flowers."

  Melody and I had a fantastic tour around Hampton Court Palace on this rainy day! We managed to see all sorts of things, the medieval kitchens, an impromptu performance of the "royal painter" and his subject, Henry VIII roaming the halls, plus the stunning gardens in full bloom. We even managed to get stuck outside in a downpour, and then have the fire alarm go off on us during lunch, and we made it to the center of a maze. It really was a totally brilliant day!


Friday, May 11, 2012

M'dina the city on a hill













































M'dina is a stunning place, known as The City on a hill, it's a small gem of a walled city.  Walking through it's streets you can easily picture yourself back in bible days. St Paul was a famous visitor of M'dina a few thousand years ago, although he wasn't so much a guest as a prisoner of the Romans -  when the ship that was transporting him was shipwrecked off the coast. The large cathedral is named St Paul in honor of his memorable time there! I hear it's quite prestigious to own a house with in it's walls, and I can imagine why. It's a quiet and well kept place,  sadly kind of unusual for Malta.


One of our favorite things to do in Malta, especially on a Sunday, (since the place practically shuts down) was to go to M'dina. We found out about this little gem thanks to our lovely estate agent Betta. Fontanella Tea Garden, Is a Maltese institution for Sunday cake and coffee! We became regulars during our stay there. We even brought all of our guests here, in this post I mostly concentrated on the visit of Jon's parents. They graced us with their presence for a few days last November. It was a short but sweet stay and was really lovely to host them!

On a side note - Beaulieu the house with the blue shutters was my absolute favorite house there. I took so many pictures of it, practically every time I walked past it. I can only dream about what it looks like inside.