St John's Co-Cathedral, gold, marble and two Caravaggios.

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.