URSULINO VALLETTA
The weather is pleasant and quite warm in Valletta Malta, I’m trundling down narrow streets between biscuit coloured buildings, passing tourists and locals. In front of me is the Mediterranean ocean, a fairly regular sight in Malta, always there to remind you that you are on an island that has seen more history and change than many countries in Europe.
After check in, I caught the elevator to the room. I am a person who puts a lot of weight into first impressions. I judge books by their covers, gifts by how they’re wrapped and stories by their prologues. Coming out of the elevator I relished in the clever use of space in the hotel. Dimensionally there isn’t a great deal of space to work with, so they’ve gone vertical. The corridors are narrow and uncluttered, the walls tastefully decorated with tall works of art and ceilings that are very high. Offering a sense of grandeur which is carried through by the tall heavy framed door of the room/apartment.
Thanks to Valletta’s citywide status as a UNESCO world heritage site, the exterior of the buildings throughout this wonderfully picturesque city are all, save for minor details, untouched. The occasional minor paint-job aside, the architecture is exactly the same as it has been for generations and walking down the streets is a return to the past. Along cobbled streets, Ursulino Valletta offers a polite entrance that I could almost have missed if I hadn’t been keeping an eye out.
I could totally live here. That was my immediate thought. Hotels are meant to be comfortable by nature and there are certain expectations of all hotel rooms irrespective of how many stars. No real need to focus on how smartly the bed was made up (it could have featured in a pop music video). No need to tell you that the bathroom was cleaner than some surgery theatres and, of course, no need to mention about how fresh and crisp the linen was. You’d expect all of that for a hotel with the reputation of Ursulino Valletta which I had the pleasure to write about previously.
URSULINO VALLETTA Delightfully understated, the boutique hotel offers an immediate flavour of class and space with a tall ceilinged entrance hallway, large mirrors on either side and a receptionist behind a smart if modest desk. Unlike some hotels where your first impression is a wide open foyer bedecked with decorations and pamphlets, my first impression here was that of entering into a secret, invitation only party of some highly exclusive secret society!
No, what instantly got me, and it will get you too, is the architectural design and the use of space and natural lighting. These are not hotel rooms,
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