Valletta

💡 About Valletta

Valletta, the tiny capital of Malta, is one of the most concentrated historic areas in the world — an entire fortified city built by the Knights of St. John in the 16th century, a golden-stoned masterpiece of Renaissance and baroque planning rising from a rocky peninsula between two magnificent natural harbours.

The whole city is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, its grid of narrow streets lined with ornate palaces, auberges and churches, and famous for its colourful enclosed wooden balconies that jut from honey-coloured facades. Despite its small size, it packs in an astonishing density of art and architecture.

The city's crowning glory is St. John's Co-Cathedral, a plain exterior concealing an interior of overwhelming baroque splendour, its floor paved with the tombs of knights and its oratory holding Caravaggio's masterpiece "The Beheading of Saint John the Baptist," the only work the artist ever signed.

Set in the heart of the Mediterranean, Valletta enjoys near-perpetual sunshine and stunning harbour views from its bastion walls and gardens. Steeped in the history of crusaders, Ottoman sieges and wartime heroism, it is one of Europe's most remarkable small capitals.

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