STAY AT THE GRAND HOTEL EXCELSIOR

Wednesday, July 28, 2010

FREE FAITHLESS CONCERT TICKET PER PERSON BOOKED

FAITHLESS LIVE IN MALTA


The Mega Malta Event will take place at Gianpula fields and Gianpula club, Malta’s largest open air venue on Saturday 7th August 2010.

The Faithless British electronic band consisting of Maxi Jazz, Sister Bliss and Rollo formed in 1995 have recorded several albums reaching sales of 12 million records worldwide. The event is part of their European tour this summer taking the band to numerous European music open air venues . The three person band consists of Jazz who acts as a vocalist in mostly rap format, Bliss constructs most of the music herself electronically, while Rollo heads and produces the band.

A FREE Faithless Concert Ticket per person booked at the Grand Hotel Excelsior!!

Benefit from A FREE FAITHLESS Concert Ticket per person booked over the 7th August when staying a minimum of 3 nights on Bed and Breakfast Basis. Offer includes Free Parking, Use of Gym, Pools and Jacuzzi.

Limited Time Offer, so Book Now or Check Availability through the main Book Now Button on the website with stay over the 7th August for 3 nights and over, and avail yourself of this Special offer in order not to be disappointed.

* Offer is only available when booking through our website.

Monday, July 26, 2010

FREE AKON Concert Ticket per person booked!!


So many concerts and parties this Summer!!! The world's international Minister, Senegalese R&B hit maker will be pumping the island with his music. He will be performing in a live concert at Ta' Qali on Saturday 14th August 2010.

The Grand Hotel Excelsior is giving out A FREE AKON Concert Ticket per person booked over the 14th August when staying a minimum of 3 nights on Bed and Breakfast Basis.* Offer includes Free Parking, Use of Gym, Pools and Jacuzzi.

Offer is subject to availability so Book Now or Check Availability through the main Book Now Button on the Grand Hotel Excelsior Website with stay over the 14th August for 3 nights and over and avail yourself of this Special offer in order not to be disappointed.

* Offer is only available when booking through our website.

For more information kindly check: http://bit.ly/cA8FC8

Monday, July 19, 2010

ROD STEWART LIVE IN MALTA - FREE CONCERT TICKETS DURING YOUR STAY!!

GRAND HOTEL EXCELSIOR MALTA - THE OFFICIAL HOTEL FOR THE ROD STEWART CONCERT IN MALTA



Legendary singer Rod Stewart will be performing in a live concert at the Fosos (Granaries), Floriana on Tuesday 3rd August 2010.

One of the most successful performers of all time with an estimated 250 million in album and single sales and with sold-out concerts across the globe, Rod’s first-ever concert in Malta is expected to be the biggest pop and rock outdoor gig this summer. His last five studio albums have held the top spots in the Billboard charts, including his last release, 2006's Still The Same…Great Rock Classics of Our Time, which entered the charts at Number One.

The British songwriter, famed for his distinctive raspy voice, is expected to belt out some of his biggest hits like ‘Do Ya Think I‘m Sexy‘,‘Sailing‘, ‘Hot Legs‘,‘First Cut Is The Deepest‘,‘Maggie May‘,‘Have I told You Lately‘, ‘Forever Young‘,‘Some Guys Have All the Luck‘ and many, many more.

Rod Stewart continues to attract audiences of all ages. The release of his latest album, SOULBOOK, a collection of classic Sixties/Seventies-era soul favorites, all newly recorded by the quintessential “blue eyed soul” singer, continues to define his status as a superstar of our generation.

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SPECIAL LIMITED TIME OFFER - ROD STEWART IN MALTA

FREE ROD STEWART CONCERT TICKET per person booked over the 3rd August 2010 with a minimum of 2 nights booked. CHECK AVAILABILITY & BOOK NOW through our website. Offer is only applicable on specific room types and subject to availability at time of booking.

For more information kindly contact us on reservations@excelsior.com.mt



MTV stars, Scissor Sisters and Kid Rock choose the Excelsior


Excelsior General Manager, Norbert Grixti sharing a moment with the Scissor Sisters.

Tuesday 6th July 2010, Malta - For the third year running, the international rock stars of the MTV Malta concert have chosen the Grand Hotel Excelsior. The Scissor Sisters, David Guetta, Kid Rock and Kelis all chose to stay at the Excelsior for their star appearances at the latest Isle of MTV Malta Special 2010. This free open-air concert was held at the Granaries in Floriana on 30 June where an estimated 50,000 fans attended to hear four steaming hours of pop and rock, and an exclusive opportunity to see some of the world’s best new and established artists.



Excelsior General Manager, Norbert Grixti with Kid Rock

For additional information kindly contact the Grand Hotel Excelsior on 00356 2125 0520 or email info@excelsior.com.mt

Wednesday, July 14, 2010

The Making of Malta - Excellent Malta Holidays

Day 1 - More to Malta
The tiny island of Malta, adrift in the Mediterranean like a stepping stone between Italy and Africa, has been forced to endure many injustices in its 7,000-year history - a five-month siege by Ottoman Turks, irreparable looting by Napoleon’s garrisons and 154 days of Luftwaffe bombing to name but a few. Yet, in its own way, the current affront to Malta causes equal indignation.

I am talking, of course, of the island’s reputation as a mere bucket-and-spade, fly-and-flop package destination, with little more to offer than jam-packed dive sites and beaches crowded with leathery pensioners.

It is time to explode this myth and send it scurrying for cover like the returning French football team.

Malta is in fact the perfect destination for anyone with a penchant for history, culture, stand-and-stare architecture, gin-clear water and meals that revolve around the fishermen’s catch. And if you want that wrapped in a fabulous climate then you’ll find that too - April to October sees little but sunshine, usually tempered by a cooling sea breeze.

Better still, it’s just a three-hour flight from the UK. Easyjet, Ryanair and BMI Baby all fly the route, though the national flag carrier, Air Malta, offers the more civilised flight times, operating out of Heathrow, Gatwick, Birmingham, Manchester and, in summer, Glasgow.

Transfers? Hardly an issue. The only airport is less than 45 minutes’ drive from anywhere on the island, and is just 8 km from Valletta, Malta’s Lilliputian capital (at barely a kilometre long and only 600 m wide, it may well be Europe’s smallest).

Perhaps to prove that Malta can cater as well for the discerning traveller as it can for the mass market, my friend and I choose to stay at the Grand Hotel Excelsior, Valletta’s most luxurious hotel, with an enviable position on the Marsamxett Harbour waterfront.

The lobby sets a tone of classical-inspired elegance, with a wide central staircase, freestanding statues and the smart Harbour View bar. But it’s not until you stop to take in said view that you realise you’re already on the sixth floor, with the bulk of the hotel’s far-reaching facilities focussed on the waterfront below you.

Serried ranks of sea-front rooms boast spacious balconies with magnificent views of the passing yachts and the honey-coloured buildings of Manoel Island. In fact, barely anywhere in the hotel is the water out of sight. From the moment you wake for breakfast at the glass-fronted Spice Island Restaurant (the smoked swordfish is a treat) to watching the sunset - cocktail in hand - by the freeform pool or on the small private beach, it’s almost impossible not to gaze out to sea.

Then again, such marvellous panoramas had a great deal to do with Valletta being built in the first place, though its orchestrators were thinking more about defence than impressing hotel guests.

In 1530, Malta was given to the spiritual and military order, the Knights of St John, whose origins trace back to the Christian Crusades of the 11th and 12th centuries. The Knights, however, almost lost the island to the Turks in the Great Siege of 1565 and, fearing further reprisals, set about building a new city in a more defensible position on the Sceberras Peninsula.

The result was Valletta, named after Jean Parisot de la Valette, the Grand Master of the Knights and the hero of the siege. Surrounded on three sides by the sea, Valletta was bestowed with churches, palaces, uildings tall enough to offer shade from the sun and straight streets to allow the cooling sea breezes to circulate. A great ditch was cut across the peninsula to protect the landward approach and massive walls and bastions were raised around the city’s perimeter. It remains a masterpiece of architecture and town planning, described by UNESCO as "one of the most concentrated historic areas in the world".

Among its streets, as I discover to my delight, are a number of great restaurants, cafes and wine bars. We begin with a glass of merlot at Trabuxu, a cosy spot decorated with oak barrels, musical instruments and black and white photos, before sitting down to eat in the private courtyard of Fusion Four, set into the 400-year-old bastion walls. Few restaurants exude as much charm and character; fewer back it up with either such warm-hearted service (the owner gave us a private tour of the restaurant’s museum as she filled us in on the island’s history) or such mouth-watering food: freshly caught sea bass and tender pork fillet, wrapped in pancetta and served on a bed of stewed apples.


Day 2 ­- Medieval Marvels
Valletta in daylight and my first impressions are of limestone façades fronting six- or seven-storey buildings. At street level, shopfront signs reveal Arabic and Italian influences ­- Maltese is close to colloquial Arabic and Sicily is just 90 minutes away by ferry - and on almost ever corner are the chiselled features of Catholic iconography. The Maltese claim to be one of the oldest Christian peoples in the world, having been converted by St Paul after his shipwreck on Malta in AD 60, and 98% of the island’s population remains Roman Catholic.

Fitting then that our first port of call is St John’s Co-Cathedral, the most impressive of Malta’s 359 Catholic churches. The façade may be plain, austere even, yet the interior is a celebration of Maltese baroque. The nave is long and low, with every wall, pillar and rib encrusted with ornamentation, including Maltese crosses and the arms of the Order. The floor is a patchwork of colourful marble tombs and the striking barrelled vault is divided into seven vast panels, each depicting a scene from the life of St John the Baptist.

But the headlines are held for what lies in the oratory: two original works by revolutionary painter, Caravaggio. His spine-tingling masterpiece, The Beheading of St John the Baptist, dominates the far wall (note the artist’s signature in the blood seeping from St John’s severed head), while opposite is his equally evocative work, St Jerome.

Outside, in the sunshine of Republic Square, waitresses ferry frothy cappuccinos while an enthroned statue of Queen Victoria looks on impassively. We don’t stop, however, preferring instead to take our refreshments at the Upper Barrakka Gardens, overlooking the British canons that top the bastion walls and the shimmering Grand Harbour beyond.

Once fortified, we board a yellow local bus for the short trip to Mdina. In medieval times, Mdina (from the Arabic for ’walled city’) was the favoured residence of the Maltese nobility and the seat of the governing council. But when the sea-faring Knights of St John made the Grand Harbour their base of operations, Mdina sank into the background.

This surely was its saving grace, as few old cities remain so gloriously unspoilt. This is historic Malta at its most photogenic: quiet streets and hidden lanes untouched by modern branding, wall-clinging bougainvillea and beautifully preserved palazzi (some, like Palazzo Falson, have been opened as museums, offering a rare glimpse behind aristocratic walls).

We eat lunch at the Fontanella Tea Gardens, perched on top of the bastion walls, looking out across the vineyards and dusty fields towards the ocean beyond. A pause between courses to wander the quiet streets, then dessert at Xara Palace, once a 17th century palazzo, now one of Malta’s most elegant small hotels.

Our trio of old cities concludes after dark with Vittoriosa, which faces Valletta from across the Grand Harbour. It was on this finger of land that the Knights of St John withheld the Turkish onslaught of 1565. Today, its regenerated waterfront sports open-air restaurants, a marina-cum-superyacht-parking-lot and even a casino. Yet despite the obvious flaunting of wealth, Vittoriosa remains quiet and picturesque. By day - I am told - its flower-bedecked alleys make for excellent aimless wanderings, while at night, the views of floodlit Valletta make a wonderful backdrop to the freshest of fish suppers.


Day 3 - Megalithic Magic
If seeing its walled cities had given me a sense of Malta’s last 500 years of history, I was about to be transported a lot further back in time. The temples of Hagar Qim and Mnajdra in south-east Malta were first thought to be copies of the Mycenaean temple style, yet carbon dating has since shown them to be a full millennium older.

Staggeringly, Malta’s megalithic temples are the oldest surviving free-standing structures in the world, built between 3600 and 2500 BC, more than 1,000 years before Giza’s Great Pyramid or Avebury’s Stonehenge. Hagar Qim and Mnajdra are among the best preserved and most evocative.

Tent-like structures have been erected above them to protect them from the elements and a shiny new visitors centre opened earlier this year. Walking through the monumental doorways into rounded rooms built of limestone blocks weighing up to 20 tons, erected by people who had neither metal tools nor even a written language, soon began to make my head spin.

What was needed was a walk to let history sink in. Leaving the temples, we take a coastal track towards Ghar Lapsi, where a cove in the limestone cliffs has been converted into a natural lido, with stone steps and iron ladders giving access to the limpid blue waters (such a pity about the blaring House music emanating from the waterfront restaurant).

Malta’s coastline is spectacular to behold, with layers of rock, millions of years old, forming vertical sea cliffs pocked with caves, reefs and vast limestone arches like the popular Blue Grotto. From June to October the average sea temperature is above 20°C and the water is an inviting turquoise blue.

Back by the pool at the Grand Hotel Excelsior, watching fireworks mark the start of another of Malta’s festas (a series of feast days that runs almost without stopping from June to September), I take stock of where I am. In front lies a harbour that’s played host to crusading knights and an Ottoman armada. Behind tower the walls of Europe’s first planned city. Scattered around me are contented guests and smiling staff - service alone at the Grand Hotel Excelsior is good enough to earn it its 5-star rating. I’ve found history and culture, swum in crystal-clear water and eaten like a king. But something is missing. Oh yes ... the buckets and spades and the package parades.


Writer: Pete Mathers
12 July 2010

Monday, July 12, 2010

Summer Breeze Dining at the Piazza Marina


For light dining outdoors, The Yacht Club at the Grand Hotel Excelsior is ideal. It is centrally-located in our external ‘Piazza Marina’ just outside the main hotel block on the harbour side, adjacent to the swimming pool. Serving Pizza, Pasta, Salads and Light Snacks...

Open Daily for Lunch & Dinner

For bookings and further information kindly contact us on: info@excelsior.com.mt or by phone on 21250520.

Tuesday, July 6, 2010

JOSEPH CALLEJA CONCERT SPECIAL - FREE TICKETS DURING YOUR STAY!!

JOSEPH CALLEJA IN CONCERT WITH RICCARDO COCCIANTE AND DIONNE WARWICK

A lot is happening in the music scene this Summer and one of the biggest highlights is the world famous and local talent, Tenor Joseph Calleja’s performance. He will once again be performing live in concert this time with Riccardo Cocciante and music legend Dionne Warwick. The three internationally acclaimed artistes will perform in a live concert on July 24 on The Granaries in Floriana, a historical setting for such a great event. The concert will fuse elements of pop music with the classical.

BOOK a minimum of 2 nights on Bed and Breakfast Basis over the 24th July 2010 and get a FREE Joseph Calleja Concert Ticket per booking. Offer includes Free Parking, Use of Gym, Pools and Jacuzzi.

Offer is subject to availability so CLICK HERE TO CHECK AVAILABILITY & BOOK NOW in order not to be disappointed.
 
The Grand Hotel Excelsior is located just a few meters away from The Granaries in Floriana.


Should you require any further information about the event kindly visit OUR MALTA EVENTS PAGE.

Kid Rock soaking up the sun

Kid Rock on a yacht at the Excelsior Hotel. Picture: Alexandra Pace.

29th June 2010: Global superstar, Kid Rock has been soaking up the Maltese sun ahead of the Isle of MTV concert.

He arrived in Malta on Sunday 27 th June and enjoyed the scenery, the sun and the sea while also preparing for the mega-concert where he presented his mix of Southern rock, blues and country-tinged ballads and hip-hop. He joined top band Scissor Sisters and Kelis, among other performers.

Monday, July 5, 2010

And the World Cup Fever Continuous... The Last Exciting Week!

Join us for some drinks and fun. Watch all the World Cup matches at the Chartroom of the Grand Hotel Excelsior and experience World Class Benefits.

Whistle to Whistle is the name of the game and as any other game there are rules that need to be followed. HOWEVER the rules are quite interesting for the football fans watching the matches in the Chartroom...


Special discounts on drinks and the themed night buffets available at the bar.

HAVE FUN!!!

Thursday, July 1, 2010

Malta’s Archbishop tours the Grand Hotel Excelsior

Thursday 1st July, 2010, Malta – On the 15th June, the Archbishop of Malta, Mgr. Paul Cremona O.P. visited the Grand Hotel Excelsior at the invitation of the General Manager, Norbert Grixti for a tour of inspection. Staff on duty welcomed him and an Excelsior group photograph was taken to commemorate the occasion.


Caption: The Archbishop of Malta together with the Excelsior management and staff.

His Grace was proudly shown round a number of different departments meeting staff members from Reservations, Administration, the Kitchen, the Pastry Kitchen and Laundry. There followed a private lunch with the Excelsior management and the Archbishop, together with his entourage (Mgr. Anton Gouder – Pro-vicar General, Fr Charles Tabone O.P. - Archbishop’s Delegate for Social Communications and Mr. Kevin Papagiorcopulo – Communications Officer).

For additional information, contact the Grand Hotel Excelsior on 00356 2125 0520 or email info@excelsior.com.mt.