Malta

View from one of my hotel room's balconies

Having been to a number of maths conferences over the years I would have to say this one tops the list for location.  It was a 2 hour flight south of Munich from the very cold to sunny Malta.  The hotel we I stayed in was overlooking the beach and my room was a suite!  It had 3 balconies and it was great to hear the waves, smell the sea and wake up with this view especially after living in land-locked Munich for the last year and a half.  The great thing was that when I arrived I met another maths teacher (Lisa) at the airport who was from the other international school here in Munich, so it was great to meet and talk to her. 

The hotel was on the opposite side of the island to any of the main towns but they put on a bus to St Julian's so we went there for a great Mediterranean dinner.  On the Saturday night Scott (another maths teacher), Lisa and myself shared a cab to Mdina, a medieval walled town which many years ago was the capital.  It was beautiful in the dark and I want to take Malcolm there and see it in daylight. 

On the Sunday a group of 8 of us hired a mini van and went to the capital Valletta.  As our day finished early we had a chance to walk around in the light.

 

 Malta is a beautiful place and I look forward to going back, hiring a car and exploring more than just a the end of each conference day.  It was very hard to get on the plane back to the cold...

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Wonderful Wonderful Copenhagen

After a very long term we finally reached the one week off.  A few months ago Ingrid booked flights to Copenhagen so off we went.  A few weeks after we had booked we caught up with our good friend BD and she was telling us about the World Trade Fair she was off to see in Shanghai and was excited to tell us that "even Denmark are sending The Little Mermaid there".  Needless to say I was not impressed.  She has been in the same place for 97 years and for the first time is absent and back a couple of weeks after our trip!  That's ok - plenty more to see!!  Well Tivoli Garden was closed and even the Tourist office was closed.  This was getting a bit much so we decided to rename it Close-enhagen.  As it was further north it also got dark earlier (around 4pm).  We did get to see the spot where the Little Mermaid usually is (they had a video link to her in Shanghai) and to walk around the ramparts of the Kastellet (fortress).

On the second day, not to be deterred we got up and being a weekday the city had much more of a buzz to it.  We went on a fantastic harbour cruise and got to learn a lot more about the city.  We went to Crown Princess Mary's city palace in the full knowledge that as a fellow Aussie she would make us welcome but she was not home.

   

We wandered through the city, stopping in beautiful furniture shops to see the renowned Danish design, as well as having traditional Danish smørrebrød (open sandwiches with great toppings).  We also went to Christianhavn and had a quick visit to Christiana which was a hippy/squatter's enclave set up in the 1970s.  We did not spend much time there as the smells and ambiance were not really our thing!  But we did get to visit "The Black Diamond" which is a modern extension to the old library which was a fantastic design inside and out.

The next day we visited Jen Olsen's astronomical clock, the town hall, the beautiful Danish Design Centre (much better than the Danish Design museum, which we also saw), Rosenborg Castle and the Round tower.

We did see lots of statues and references to Hans Christian Andersen as he lived most of his adult life here.
On the last day we took a bus out to Frederiksberg Castle and grounds.  This was beautiful and it was a shame we only had a short time to see this before our flight as it was a beautiful area to walk around.  The colours of Autumn were very beautiful.

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