Valletta

Why Valletta works

Valletta is one of the most concentrated historic capitals in Europe — a fortified peninsula built almost entirely in the 16th century by the Knights of St John after the Great Siege of 1565, and now a UNESCO World Heritage Site in its entirety. St John's Co-Cathedral, plain from the outside, opens into one of Europe's most extravagant Baroque interiors, its floor paved with the marble tombstones of knights and a side chapel holding Caravaggio's The Beheading of Saint John the Baptist, the only work the artist ever signed. The Upper and Lower Barrakka Gardens sit atop the bastion walls, giving sweeping views across Grand Harbour to the Three Cities on the far shore — best timed to the noon-day gun salute fired from the Saluting Battery below. Valletta's streets, laid out on a grid by Renaissance architect Francesco Laparelli, run steeply between sea-facing bastions, past wooden balconies (gallariji) painted in reds, greens, and blues that give the city its distinctive colour against golden limestone. Republic Street, the main pedestrian spine, connects the City Gate to Fort St Elmo, home to the National War Museum. Grand Harbour itself, one of the deepest natural harbours in the Mediterranean, still handles cruise liners docking beneath the same walls that held off the Ottoman fleet.

Trip Snapshot

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