Tall buildings and fountains

Last night we went to see the singing and dancing fountains at the Petronas Towers. It was only a five minute walk from our hotel and we have seen them many times before over the years, but they never lose their attraction to me.

I am still enjoying looking at and studying tall buildings, so today we set off to see a new building in KL called Merdeka 118.

It is not quite finished inside yet, but it is the second tallest building in the world, only beaten by the Burj Khalifa in Dubai.

It is 678 metres tall, but that seems a bit of a cheat because that includes a huge spike on the top that has no rooms inside it. However, it seems to be copying the Burj Khalifa which also has a massive spike.

This viewing platform is the nearest that we got to it, and then we nipped into a brand new mall to enjoy a bit of shopping.

We then turned around and walked for about 20 minutes to see The Exchange 106 building, which comes in at number 19 on the world list.

Strangely, the Merdeka 118 has 118 floors however the Exchange only has 94 floors, so that's misleading although it has no spike and is only 453 metres tall.

But this building is fully open and underneath it is a fantastic mall with beautiful Christmas decorations.

I think that we have now seen enough tall buildings for at least this holiday, so I won't be mentioning the subject again. 

Putrajaya lake

Lovely walk this morning around the enormous man made lake that meanders through the city.

Construction of the lake began in 1998 by damming two rivers, and it was four years before the 650 hectare lake was complete.

To help sustain the water quality and to act as a coolant, approximately 12 million saplings of 70 tree species were planted in stages to create the Putrajaya wetlands. This included some on man made islands in the lake.

These islands have been completely taken over by large storks and herons, and we stopped to watch them gather twigs for new nests and glide gracefully over the water.

Two final interesting Putrajaya facts

1 - it was built on the sites of former rubber and oil plantations and was developed as a 'garden city'.

2 - an estimated 100 million trees are due to be planted in the Greater Putrajaya area.

After that quiet relaxing morning we caught a taxi to Kuala Lumpur city centre and are staying very close to the Petronas Towers. They were at one time the tallest buildings in the world, but have since slipped down to about 20th place now.

This is part of the view from our hotel balcony and it shows the children's small paddling pool.

This afternoon we went for a dip in the main pool and floated around looking up at three separate buildings that are each in the top 150 or so buildings in the world.

Quite a change of scenery in a distance of about 20 miles.

On the way to Kuala Lumpur

On Thursday we caught an overnight flight to Kuala Lumpur. Usually this would be a tiring and extremely long experience, but not this time.

After saving thousands of B A airline points, we are very temporarily joining the upper classes and flying Business Class.

What a luxury. We arrived at the airport and headed for the Airport Lounge where the prosecco was unlimited along with glorious snacks.

Then it got even better as we took our seats on the plane. It took quite a while to check out all of the hidden drawers, reclining seats, footrests and privacy screens.

I read a newspaper article recently about how to behave the first time that you travel Business Class. Apparently you should be very blase and pretend you do it all the time. However, it was just too exciting and lovely and we appreciated every second.

When we got to KL it had been such a good trip that I would have been quite happy to stay on board and go back home again.

But no, we had a holiday to go on.

However, before the relaxing could start we had a parkrun to complete.

Off we went to Putrajaya parkrun, and it was groundhog day for me. We last ran this parkrun in March 2019 and I finished as the fourth lady and 21st overall. Today I did exactly the same, but unfortunately my time was about a minute slower.

Nevermind, I am six years older.

Glastonbury and Street

We drove to Glastonbury yesterday for a mini break. 

We cycled through the town a couple of months and and decided that it looked such a beautiful place that we would come back for a longer visit.

This time we set off on the short walk from our hotel to the top of Glastonbury Tor.

All day the weather had been very iffy with lots of rain and occasional bursts of sunshine, but the weather for our walk was superb.

It is quite a steep hill, as you can see from the shadow photo, and is the highest point for many miles around, with a church tower on the top.

There used to be a church as well, dating from the 14th century, but it was demolished during the dissolution of the monasteries in 1539.  But now only the tower remains. 

Glastonbury is a very mystical place, and while we were at the Tor a man appeared with a large gong that he kept bonging, and then another man with a drum joined in.

On the way down we found a wall with Tibetan prayer wheels, and a cave where volunteers play mystical music while people bathe naked in the very cold water.

Fortunately the cave was just closing as we arrived so we missed out on the bathing opportunity.

This morning we drove to the neighbouring town of Street where we did the parkrun to finish off a lovely visit.

Tangier, Morocco

Another beautiful sunny day for our stop at Tangier.

We walked from the ship into the old town and the ancient streets of the Kasbah.

It is a maze of tiny streets with brightly painted houses and beautiful flowers.

We gave up trying to follow the map and just wandered down each street, sometimes reaching a dead end, but other times leading on to another narrow street.

Then we arrived at a green park with tall palm trees.

However, the most memorable thing about Tangier was the huge number of cats and kittens everywhere.

They all looked well fed and lots of locals put food out for them.

We also found the café from the Bourne Ultimatum film where Nicky sat outside at a table waiting for Bourne to appear after an epic chase scene. Unfortunately it didn't photograph well, but just around the corner were some massive cannons, although they didn't appear in the film.

Cartagena, Spain

We arrived at Cartagena early this morning and started the day with a jog along the seafront. One of the must see items is a 95 year old crane that in it's day was enormous and was used on the shipyards to move materials.

Nowadays it sits in the middle of a roundabout and looks quite small.

After taking a break for breakfast we set off again to explore the town. There is a large and impressive Roman amphitheatre and you can climb many steps to a park and look down on it rather than actually going inside.

As we wandered around the town I remarked to Darren that I was certain that we had never been here before.

We were both really surprised by the number of buildings that were just had the front wall remaining and the rest of it was held up with scaffolding.

However, once we got back to the ship I searched this extremely useful blog, and it turns out that we cycled actually here from a campsite in March 2015. 

I took almost identical photos of the amphitheater and in 2015 I was also surprised at the buildings that were just fronts held up by scaffolding!

At that time I wondered why the buildings had no rooms or roofs, and over 10 years later I am wondering again.

There is a big naval base here too with lots of handsome sailors around, and an attractive barracks where a lot of them are based.

Finally, a large sangria in front of the town hall before heading back to our ship.

Lots of steps in Valletta

Back to Valletta today for the second half of our cruise. Lots of passengers got off, but also lots of us stayed on board for the journey to the Canaries.

We are on the 15th floor of our ship, and are about level with most of the town, so that's quite a treck above sea level.

This morning we went for a run around the outside of the town and then up about 100 steps to be level with the town, and then of course, the nice bit back down again.

This afternoon we cheated and took the lift up, which costs one euro for the return journey.

Then we started on a walking tour that took us all over Valletta.

Lots of steps in both directions, and nearly all of them were full of bars and cafes with tables and chairs placed carefully on the steps.

All of the buildings are very tall and close together, probably to provide lots of shade to try to keep the houses cool in the summer, and lots of them had lovely balconies looking out on to the street.

The bars were all serving happy hour cocktails and we sat out on the waterfront to sample Aperol Spritzers which are always disappointing, and then Malta Mules which more than made up for it.

Back on board now and will soon be sailing away.

Ajaccio, Corsica

 I drew back the curtains this morning and was greeted with the lovely sight of Ajaccio harbour.

Ajaccio is the capital and largest city on Corsica and is best known for being the birthplace of Napoleon Bonaparte. He was born in 1769 but left when he was only nine years old to go to school on the French mainland.

As you might expect, there are lots of statues and monuments dedicated to him, as well as a museum, a beer, an ice cream shop, a hotel, a very large car park, a fountain and many streets.

We went for a sightseeing jog this morning, then an afternoon stroll round the town ending at a nice sandy beach, and even Darren couldn't resist a quick paddle.