Adelaide no more

New blogger Andre laments the destruction of Sliema's Victorian architecture and particularly the latest victim, the Adelaide Hotel. From 'Confessions of an atheist':

One of my earliest memories is that of me going for a walk with my parents on the Sliema Front. I was always fascinated by the houses on the front. There was something charming about the Victorian houses with the bay windows and each of them had an individual feature which made them unique. Time passed. I stopped going for walks with my parents, and the carefully planned Victorian Houses where replaced with blocks of concrete. The traditional Maltese Balcony was replaced by hard wearing aluminium. And Sliema lost its charm. It’s just another shopping town in a world which is full of shopping towns.

There were however one house which stood proud – the Adelaide Hotel and the adjacent “Old Vic” pub. The hotel was not a five star hotel, it did not have all the modern comforts one would expect, and in the last few years I doubt it was used. It was however one of the last examples of Victorian architecture on the Sliema front. Last time I passed by the site where the Adelaide Hotel stood – and I was shocked to see that the hotel was demolished, probably to be replaced by another one of the anonymous concrete buildings where one apartment might sell for something close to Lm 300,000.

Service with a scowl