I stepped off the gangway into the smallest capital in the European Union — just 6,000 souls living inside a UNESCO World Heritage Site that's been protected since 1980. They call Valletta an "open-air museum," and after wandering through 320 monuments compressed into just 0.55 square kilometers of golden limestone peninsula, I understand why. Every corner holds another chapel, palazzo, or auberge built by knights who knew they were building something eternal. In 2018, when Valletta served as European Capital of Culture, the world finally started to pay attention to what the Maltese have known for centuries: this is one of the most densely historical places on earth.

The city itself was born from siege. After the Knights of St. John barely survived the Great Siege of 1565 — when Ottoman forces nearly took Malta — Grand Master Jean de Valette decided Malta needed a fortress that could never fall. On March 28, 1566, he personally laid the foundation stone of a new city that would bear his name. Pope Pius V sent his finest architect, Francesco Laparelli, who designed a perfectly rational grid plan enclosed within an Italian bastioned system so formidable that it still dominates the harbour today. Tragically, Grand Master Jean de Valette never saw his city completed — he died on August 21, 1568, at the age of 74, with construction still underway. But by 1571, the city was finished, and what emerged was more than a capital — it was a vast network of fortifications stretching 25 kilometers around Grand Harbour, transforming the natural harbour into an impregnable fortress with Valletta as its beating heart. Today, cruise ships dock at one of seven berths across three terminals, all sheltered by walls that have stood for four and a half centuries.

We walked off the ship and took the lift straight up to Upper Barrakka Gardens — you can also climb the monumental stairs if you're feeling ambitious — and arrived just in time for the noon gun salute. The Saluting Battery has fired that cannon at midday since the 16th century, and standing there as the boom echoed across Grand Harbour, I felt the weight of all that history. The view from the gardens is breathtaking: the whole harbour spread below, the Three Cities across the water, and the fortifications marching along the coastline like something out of a medieval dream.

Later, we visited St. John's Co-Cathedral, which looks deceptively plain from the outside — just another fortress-like limestone facade. But step through those doors and you're hit with pure Baroque splendor: gilded walls, painted ceilings, and a floor made entirely of marble tombstones inlaid with the coats of arms of the knights buried beneath. You literally walk on their graves. We came for the Caravaggios — his masterpiece "The Beheading of Saint John the Baptist" hangs in the oratory — and the contrast between the darkness of that painting and the blinding sunlight outside afterward still stays with me.

In the afternoon, we took a boat to Blue Lagoon and swam in water that looked Photoshopped.

We had pastizzi and Kinnie bitter orange soda on the waterfront at sunset.

Last reviewed: January 2026

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