Hal Saflieni Hypogeum

3.00 2Flow2 United States - 24-Dec-24

There were two deaf people in my group of visitors. At the beginning of the tour, everyone is given a fully automatic hand-held speaker to hold up to their ear throughout the duration of the tour like a cellphone. As others have mentioned, the tour of this well-preserved underground marvel is limited to groups of 10 and consists of a surround-view movie, then a walk down into the hypogeum. The entire group stops every few feet to listen to a segment of audio coming from each of their respective devices for a number of minutes, then moves forward at the physical guide's prompting and repeats the process. The in-person guide does not interact with the group nearly at all other than to prompt people forward at the end of each audio segment

Toledo

5.00 2Flow2 United States - 17-Jan-25

Wow, when I went to Toledo I was not expecting it to become my new favorite city that I have travelled to in all of Spain! I visited this WHS in January 2025 during my year of living in Spain, and currently this is my favorite WHS in the country.

I used Hubert's review pretty much as a checklist guide for what to see in the city instead of trying to cross-reference a bunch of different tour guide resources online and in physical pamphlets. I was not disappointed! Out of the dozens of cathedrals I have visited in Spain, the Cathedral of Toledo is my new favorite and has the best audio guide that I've experienced. (You have to download it as a separate app.) I'm expecting the only cathedral that will rival this one will be when I visit the Sagrada Familia.

Salamanca

4.00 2Flow2 United States - 08-Jan-25

A beautiful old city! Others here have already done a good job explaining what is best to see in the town so I will keep this review fairly brief as not much has not changed since then to here in Jan 2025. My wife and I spent a day here with my cousin, who had come to Salamanca a few days before us to spend time with her graduate school friend who is a native of the city. The friend who had grown up there (a "Salamantina") somewhat cheekily put the things to see in Salamanca into three categories:

Avila

4.00 2Flow2 United States - 17-Jan-25

Living in Spain for a year, I have found that mine is an unpopular opinion for putting Avila among my top favorite cities to visit in Spain. Maybe I just happened to be in a a great mood during our November 2024 visit, but whatever the case I found Avila to be a charming place to wander around and see the beautiful architecture.

The city is jam-packed with impressive cathedrals (they boast to have one of the largest quantities in Spain) but be warned: even if they say they are free on your favorite Maps app, nearly every one of them actually charges a fee to visit inside. The repeated small costs can add up quick, and it is also difficult to fit seeing all of them into one day (without great intentionality) because they all close decently early.

Megalithic Temples of Malta

3.00 2Flow2 United States - 24-Dec-24

Read others' reviews first for more in-depth content on individual sites.

There are six temples scattered across the island. Here are my and my wife's experience visiting them in December 2024 during Malta's "off season":

Ġgantija on the island of Gozo: Tied for the best of the Megalithic Temples, absolutely worth a visit. A great interior museum area giving you context for the temples, their history, their mystery, and what has been done recently since their re-discovery to preserve them