Visit Valletta

A taste of Valletta

Valletta is one of the most extraordinary capital cities in the Mediterranean — a 16th-century fortress city built from honey-coloured limestone on a slim peninsula between two natural deepwater harbours, founded in 1566 by the Knights of St John after the Great Siege as a deliberately impregnable Christian outpost. The entire city, only 1km long, is UNESCO-listed and packs an astonishing density of baroque palaces, parade-ground squares, and gilded churches into a tight orthogonal grid. The headline sight is St John's Co-Cathedral, austere from outside and overwhelming inside: every surface is gilded and carved (the floor is paved with 405 inlaid marble tombstones of knights), and the Oratory holds two of Caravaggio's greatest works — 'The Beheading of St John the Baptist' (the only painting he ever signed, and one of his largest) and 'St Jerome Writing'. Don't miss the Grand Master's Palace, the panoramic Upper Barrakka Gardens overlooking the Grand Harbour, the brilliantly restored Valletta Market, and the cliff-edge Fort St Elmo with its detailed Maltese War Museum. Cross the Grand Harbour on the traditional dghajsa water taxi to the Three Cities (Birgu, Senglea, Cospicua), the older medieval districts that pre-date Valletta and where modern Maltese life still happens.