Cities and Towns

Ambling around Malta’s UNESCO-listed capital at your own pace, taking in the historic sights within the impressive bastions of the Old Town, in an absolute joy. This charming walled city – established on a peninsula by the Knights of St John in the 1500s – is a packed with grand churches, palaces and museums, including St John’s Co-Cathedral –home to the only painting ever signed by Caravaggio, The Beheading of St John the Baptist. For more recent history, explore the Lascaris War Rooms with their subterranean tunnels and chambers that housed the World War II headquarters, now a fascinating museum.

We also recommend hopping aboard a five-minute ferry from Valletta to have a wander around 'the three cities' Vittoriosa, Senglea and Cospicua – the place to see authentic local life in action. Having provided a refuge for almost all the settlers who came to these islands, they were the first homes to the Knights of St John, so their palaces, churches, forts and bastions are even older than Valletta’s. Discover them by electric self-drive buggy (Rolling Geeks) which is a brilliant, fun way of navigating their narrow streets, with GPS and historic commentary.

Festival, Events and Cuisine

Malta is a lively place of colourful traditions that include boisterous village festas (holy days) where you can join locals in a celebration of Maltese culture through processions and music by local bands.  One of the biggest festas is the harvest festival of Mnarja at the end of June.

Another unique aspect of Malta’s culture is its love of fireworks displays, which have their origins in the Order of the Knights of St John’s pyrotechnic displays celebrating important feasts. The biggest manifestation of this is the Malta International Fireworks Festival, held at the end of April in Valletta. Another prestigious annual event is April’s Mużika Mużika (Festival Kanzunetta Maltija) bringing together different genres of Maltese music.

Malta’s fabulous food and drink – which can be sampled as regional street food sold from stalls and street carts at the festas, as well as in great restaurants all over the island –is another way of absorbing its is history: it mixes several influences including Sicilian (and other Italian), Arab and North African.