# Valletta Malta's capital fits on a walled peninsula you can cross on foot in fifteen minutes: a cathedral with two Caravaggios, gardens above the harbour and boats to the Three Cities. Fuente: https://www.geocalia.com/en/malta/valletta · Revisado: 2026-11-12 ## What is Valletta like? A city of honey-coloured stone built in one go on the Sceberras peninsula, between two natural harbours: the Grand Harbour to the east and Marsamxett to the west. It was founded by the Order of St John in 1566, a year after surviving the Ottoman Great Siege, and named after its grand master, Jean de Valette. It has been the capital of Malta since 1571. It was laid out with straight streets in a grid, something new on the island, and almost all of it is Baroque. It covers only 0.61 km², is the smallest capital in the European Union and has about 320 monuments in that space. That is why you see it on foot: from the city gate to the tip of Fort St Elmo it is about fifteen minutes' walk along Republic Street. What tires you is the slopes: the cross streets drop with steps towards the water. ## What to see on foot? A one-day route, from the entrance to the tip: The city gate and Parliament. On entering through City Gate, Renzo Piano's building of stone and openings, where Parliament has met since 2015, and next to it the ruins of the Royal Opera House, destroyed by Second World War bombs. The Upper Barrakka Gardens. A terrace with arches above the Grand Harbour, with the Three Cities opposite. Below is the Saluting Battery, the battery of cannon that fires every day at 12:00 and 16:00. From the garden you see it free; to go down to the battery, the ticket costs €3. A public lift goes down from here to the boat quay. St John's Co-Cathedral. Plain outside; inside, covered in gold, marble and about 400 gravestones of knights of the Order in the floor. It was built between 1573 and 1578, designed by Girolamo Cassar. In the oratory hang two Caravaggios: the Beheading of St John the Baptist, from 1608, the largest canvas he painted and the only one he signed, and St Jerome Writing. The visit is paid. The Grand Master's Palace. It was the first building in the city and is today the seat of the Presidency of the Republic. You visit the State Rooms and the Order's armoury, with the suits of armour of the grand masters Wignacourt and Valette. General admission costs €12. It sometimes closes for official events: check the notice for the day. The National Museum of Archaeology, on Republic Street, with the figures from the megalithic temples. Fort St Elmo, at the tip of the peninsula. A star-shaped fort from 1552 that held out for a month of siege in 1565. Today it houses the National War Museum, with the George Cross awarded to the island and the Gloster Sea Gladiator biplane Faith, one of those that defended the island in 1940. The ticket costs €10. Lower Barrakka, the other garden above the harbour, smaller and quieter, halfway back. For the evening, Strait Street, narrow and in shade, which was the street of the sailors' bars and today has bars and restaurants. ## The Three Cities and the rest of Malta Opposite, across the Grand Harbour, are Birgu, Senglea and Cospicua, the Three Cities, where the Order settled before founding Valletta. The Valletta Ferry Services boat leaves from the quay below Upper Barrakka about every 15 minutes during the day and costs €3 each way. Another boat crosses to Sliema from Marsamxett harbour, at the same fare: it is the fastest way to go to and from the hotel area. From Valletta, almost all bus routes leave from the terminal beside City Gate. With them you reach Mdina, the old walled capital in the interior, and the temples of Ħaġar Qim and Mnajdra, over 5,000 years old, a World Heritage Site since 1992, with a €10 ticket and the stop three minutes' walk away. For Gozo, a fast passenger-only ferry leaves the Grand Harbour for Mġarr. ## How do you get there and get around? There are direct flights all year from Madrid and Barcelona, and in summer also from Palma, Málaga, Valencia, Seville and Bilbao. There is no boat from Spain: by sea, you have to go via Italy. A valid national ID card is enough. From the airport to Valletta there are direct buses. The ticket costs €2.50 in summer and €2 in winter, is paid to the driver in cash, by contactless card or phone, and is valid for two hours with transfers. If you are going to use the bus a lot, the Explore cards work out better: twelve journeys for €19, shareable. The official white taxis often do not use the meter: agree the price beforehand or buy the journey at the fixed-price booths at the airport. Uber, Bolt and eCabs also work. Within Valletta you do not need a car, and parking is difficult. In Malta you drive on the left, on narrow roads with few signs; if you hire, do it for Gozo or the south, not for the city. ## What to do, where to eat and where to sleep What to do: St John's Co-Cathedral, the Grand Master's Palace, Fort St Elmo, Upper Barrakka and the cannon salute and the boat to the Three Cities. Where to eat: Caffe Cordina, the historic café on Republic Street; Ta' Nenu, Maltese cooking open every day, and Rubino, the old confectioner's from 1906. Where to sleep: the Osborne, a three-star with a pool inside the walls; Casa Ellul, nine suites in a small palace, and The Phoenicia, a five-star with gardens beside City Gate. Plans: Valletta on foot in a day, the Three Cities by boat and the three nights in Valletta getaway. ## Dónde está - Cerca: Gozo (a 29.0 km) ## Qué hacer - **St John's Co-Cathedral and the Caravaggios** (1 h 30 · All ages; with small children, the visit feels long · 15): It is the conventual church of the Order of St John, and the essential visit in Valletta. Go first thing or last thing, when you will not coincide with the cruise groups. What you will see It was built by the Order between 1573 and 1578, designed by the Maltese architect Girolamo Cassar, a few years after founding the city. The facade is austere, almost military, flanked by two bell towers. The contrast is inside: the Baroque arrived in the seventeenth century and covered the walls with carved and gilded stone, the vault with paintings of the life of St John the Baptist and the floor with about 400 coloured marble gravestones, the tombs of knights of the Order, each with its coat of arms, skulls and inscriptions. You walk over a mosaic of the Order's history. Along the sides of the nave open the chapels of the different langues, the national divisions of the Order: Aragon, Castile, Provence, France, Italy, Germany. Each is decorated on its own, with funerary monuments to its grand masters. The two Caravaggios in the oratory In the oratory, an adjoining room, hang the two paintings that bring the most people here: The Beheading of St John the Baptist, from 1608. It is the largest canvas Caravaggio painted and the only one he signed: he wrote his name in the blood that flows from the saint's neck. He painted it in Malta, where he had arrived fleeing a murder sentence in Rome and where the Order made him a knight, before expelling him months later. St Jerome Writing, smaller, with the saint bent over his book beside a skull. Give yourself time in front of the great painting: it is more than five metres wide and has details you do not see in passing. Opening hours, tickets and rules Open Monday to Saturday from 9:00 to 16:45, with last entry at 16:00. Closed on Sundays and public holidays, when you can only enter for Mass, not as a visit. The ticket costs €15 for adults and €12 for seniors and students. In high season, arrive at opening time to avoid queuing at the ticket office. It is a church in use: go with shoulders and knees covered, and in flat shoes, because the floor is marble gravestones. How to get there It is in the centre of Valletta, five minutes' walk from City Gate along Republic Street. Nearby: the Grand Master's Palace, two streets away, and Caffe Cordina, for coffee afterwards. - **Grand Master's Palace and the Order's armoury** (1 h 30 · All ages; the armoury appeals to children and teenagers · 12): If you go into only one museum in Valletta besides the cathedral, make it this one: it explains who the knights were and how they ruled, and its armoury is one you do not forget. What it is It was the first building raised by the Order of St John in its new capital and was extended over the centuries. The grand masters lived and governed here; under the British it was the governor's palace and, in 1921, the seat of Malta's first constitutional Parliament. Today it is the seat of the Presidency of the Republic, which is why parts are sometimes closed for official events. Heritage Malta has restored it thoroughly and now more than 85% of the building can be visited; it is its most visited site, with about 300,000 people a year. What you see The corridors of the main floor, with painted ceilings, coats of arms of the grand masters and the Uccelliera, the old aviary rediscovered during the restoration. The State Rooms: the grand master's study, the Pages' Room, the Ambassadors' Room and the Throne Room. In them is the most complete cycle of paintings of the Great Siege of 1565, by Matteo Perez d'Aleccio, and late-eighteenth-century Baroque ceilings painted in trompe l'oeil. The armoury, back in its original hall, the one that was the parliamentary chamber. It is one of the richest collections of weapons of a military order in the world: armour of the grand masters Alof de Wignacourt and Jean de Valette, Ottoman arms and armour and pieces of artillery. At present the Throne Room is closed until further notice. Opening hours, price and closures From 1 November to 3 January it is open every day from 9:00 to 17:00, with last entry half an hour before. The summer timetable changes; check it on the Heritage Malta website. It closes on 1 January, Good Friday and 24, 25 and 31 December. Ticket: €12 adults; €10 for ages 12 to 17 and over-60s; €8 for ages 6 to 11; free for ages 1 to 5. There are days of partial closure for State events: the State Rooms close until 13:30 on 18 November and 2 December 2026, all day on 13 December, and the rooms and armoury from 13:00 on 16 December. In 2027 they close all day on 14 and 15 January and until 13:30 on some Wednesdays (27 January, 24 February, 17 March, 14 April, 26 May and 16 June). On those days you see only the armoury. There is a cloakroom, baby-changing, shop, and a place to sit and have a drink. Accessibility is partial: some areas cannot be toured in a wheelchair. How to get there It is on St George's Square, halfway along Republic Street, five minutes' walk from the co-cathedral. Opposite is Caffe Cordina. - **Upper Barrakka and the Saluting Battery gun salute** (1 h · All ages · Desde 3 € per adult at the battery): It is Valletta's viewpoint: a terrace of arches hung over the Grand Harbour, with Birgu, Senglea and Cospicua right opposite. Arrive at a quarter to twelve and you will see the cannon fire. The gardens Upper Barrakka is a small garden, at the top of the bastion of St Peter and St Paul, next to the Castille building, seat of the prime minister. It was the pleasure garden of the Italian knights of the Order. It has fountains, trees and benches, a gallery of stone arches and, at the end, the balcony over the harbour, with the most photographed view in Malta: the entrance to the Grand Harbour, the forts of St Angelo and Ricasoli, the dockyards and, if you are lucky, a cruise ship coming in. The garden is free and open. From the garden itself a public lift goes down to sea level, beside the quay from which the boat to the Three Cities leaves. The Saluting Battery On the terrace below is the Saluting Battery, the battery of cannon with which the Order and later the British saluted ships and marked the time. It is run by the Fondazzjoni Wirt Artna, an association of volunteers that has restored the cannon and fires them every day at 12:00 and 16:00. From the garden you see and hear it free; if you want to be down below, beside the uniformed gunners, the ticket to the battery costs €3 for adults and €1 for ages 5 to 15. They recommend arriving about 15 minutes before the shot. The battery is open Monday to Saturday from 9:30 to 17:30, with last entry at 17:00; it closes on New Year's Eve, New Year's Day, Good Friday, Easter, Christmas Eve and Christmas. They do not publish Sunday hours. From the battery there is also the guided tour of the War H.Q. Tunnel, at 10:00, 13:00 and 14:00, for €17 per person, booked on their website or on the spot. How to get there Upper Barrakka is five minutes' walk from City Gate: enter the city, turn right towards Castille and follow the signs. It is a good start to the day, because the lift to the boat leaves from here, and a good finish at sunset, when the light falls on the Three Cities. - **Fort St Elmo and the National War Museum** (2 h · Families and teenagers; there are stairs in several areas · 10): At the tip of Valletta, at the end of Republic Street, Fort St Elmo looks out over the Grand Harbour and Marsamxett at once. It is a good visit with teenagers: a history of sieges, tunnels, cannon and a real aeroplane. A fort older than the city St Elmo is older than Valletta. As early as 1417 there was a lookout post here, and in 1552, fearing an Ottoman attack, the grand master Juan de Homedes ordered a star-shaped fort built, the work of the military engineer Pietro Prato. In 1565 it took the hardest blow of the Great Siege: the Ottoman fleet attacked it first and the small fort held out for a month, until it fell on 23 June. That month gave the Order time to hold on in the Three Cities until reinforcements arrived. After Valletta was founded, St Elmo ended up within its walls (in 1689) and kept growing: barracks, two chapels dedicated to St Anne, a lighthouse. The British adapted it for modern artillery, and on 11 June 1940 it suffered the first air raid on the islands. The National War Museum It occupies a good part of the fort and is divided into seven sections covering 7,000 years of Maltese military history, from the Bronze Age to joining the European Union. There are armour of the Order and the Ottomans, but the war with the greatest presence is the Second World War, when Malta was the most bombed island in the Mediterranean. What people look for most: Faith, the Gloster Sea Gladiator biplane N5520, one of the few aircraft that defended the island in 1940. Husky, Roosevelt's jeep. The George Cross, the gallantry decoration that King George VI awarded to the whole island and which is today on its flag. A war memorial with the medals awarded during the conflict. At present the part devoted to the First World War, in section 4, is closed. Opening hours, ticket and the In Guardia parade From 1 November to 3 January it is open every day from 9:00 to 17:00, with last entry half an hour before. On some Sundays there is In Guardia, a re-enactment with period soldiers from 11:00 to 12:00; on those days, anyone not going to the show enters from 12:00. See the calendar on the Heritage Malta website. Ticket: €10 adults; €7.50 for ages 12 to 17, over-60s, students and other concessions; €5.50 for ages 6 to 11; free up to 5. There is a café, shop, cloakroom and baby-changing. A lift takes you to the last part of the museum, but section 6, the knight's roof, the cells and part of the bastions have only stairs. How to get there On foot: about fifteen minutes from City Gate along Republic Street, straight ahead. On the way back, go down to the Lower Barrakka gardens, above the Grand Harbour, five minutes away. - **Boat to the Three Cities and a walk round Birgu** (3 h 30 · All ages · Desde 3 € per trip): Malta's cheapest boat is also one of the best views of Valletta: ten minutes across the Grand Harbour, with the capital's walls on one side and the forts of the Three Cities on the other. What it is The Three Cities are Birgu (or Vittoriosa), Senglea (or L-Isla) and Cospicua (or Bormla), the three fortified towns that face Valletta across the Grand Harbour. That is where the Order of St John settled on arriving in Malta, and from there it withstood the Ottoman Great Siege of 1565, before building the new capital opposite. By road it takes a while to go round the harbour; by boat you cross in about ten minutes. The Valletta Ferry Services catamaran leaves from the quay below the Upper Barrakka Gardens. From the gardens you take the public lift down to the water and walk a few metres to the landing stage. It arrives at Cospicua, at the head of Dockyard Creek harbour, a short walk from Birgu. Timetable and price The daytime trip costs €3 and the return €5; children pay €1 and €1.50. From 19:30 the night fare applies, €3.50 each way. You do not need to book: you buy the ticket and board the next departure, about every quarter of an hour. In winter (1 November to 31 May) the boat runs from first thing; on Sundays and public holidays it goes from 9:00 to 18:15, and from Friday to Sunday there are extra departures. In summer (1 June to 31 October) it runs until the small hours. Check the day's timetable on the operator's website before setting out. What to see on the other side The Birgu promenade, along the marina, with the old buildings of the Order and the view of Valletta opposite. Fort St Angelo, at the tip of Birgu, seat of the grand masters before Valletta. It is run by Heritage Malta; in winter it is open every day from 9:00 to 17:00. The Inquisitor's Palace, in the interior of Birgu, also Heritage Malta, which in winter is open Tuesday to Sunday. Senglea, on the other side of Dockyard Creek, with the Gardjola garden at the tip and its watchtower over the harbour. In three or four hours you cross, walk round Birgu, go into one of the two monuments and return for the afternoon. ## Dónde comer - **Caffe Cordina** (Café, Valletta, €). Qué pedir: a coffee with a pistachio or ricotta cannolo, or a Maltese sweet from the house such as the honey ring, sitting on the square terrace - **Ta' Nenu** (Restaurant, Valletta, €€). Qué pedir: a ftira to share, such as the Ta' Nenu or the pork one with Maltese sausage, and the fried rabbit with garlic (fenek moqli); for dessert, imqaret with ice cream - **Rubino** (Restaurant, Valletta, €€€). Qué pedir: the fenek moqli, the fried rabbit in red wine with a bittersweet finish, and for dessert the Sicilian cassata; let them tell you about the blackboard of the day ## Consejos ### Go to Upper Barrakka at midday Arrive a quarter of an hour before twelve to see the Saluting Battery fire from the garden, and then go down in the lift to the Three Cities boat. ### Go into St John's first thing The cruise groups arrive by mid-morning. At opening time you see the oratory in peace. ### Use the boats as transport The crossing to Sliema or the Three Cities costs €3, takes little time and saves you the jams on the road round the harbour. ### Sleep inside the walls At night, when the cruise ships leave, the city falls silent and the lit-up streets are something else. ### Wear comfortable shoes The streets are polished stone and sloping, with stretches of steps. They are slippery in the rain. ## Preguntas frecuentes ### How many days do I need in Valletta? One day for the city, half for the Three Cities and another for Mdina and the southern temples. Three or four nights as a base for seeing Malta, and one or two more if you go to Gozo. ### Can you go to Malta with a national ID card? Yes. Malta is in the European Union and in Schengen: a valid national ID card or passport is enough on entry and exit. ### How do I get from the airport to Valletta? By direct bus to the City Gate terminal, with a €2.50 ticket in summer. By taxi, agree the price beforehand or buy it at the fixed-price booth. ### Which Caravaggios are in St John's Cathedral? Two, in the oratory: the Beheading of St John the Baptist, the only painting he signed, and St Jerome Writing. ### Is there a beach in Valletta? There is no sandy beach. People swim from the rocks on the Sliema coast, a boat ride away. The few sandy beaches are in the north of Malta and in Gozo. ### Is English spoken? Yes. English is an official language alongside Maltese, and is used everywhere. ### How do I get to Gozo from Valletta? On the fast passenger ferry that leaves the Grand Harbour for Mġarr, or by bus to Ċirkewwa, in the north, and then the Gozo Channel ferry, about 25 minutes.