Travel Tuesdays: Valletta

Good evening, travelers. Join me for a stroll through a most magical city: Valletta, Malta!

I visited Valletta many times during my 3-year stay in Malta. Often I had to go for some kind of business or another, it being the capital of the country, but sometimes I just went to spend a quiet evening wandering its quiet, golden streets.

They really are golden. The whole city is. It's built out of white or yellow sandstone that glows with romantic luster by lamplight.

A little history about this city:

It was built by the Knights of Malta, or rather by their prisoners of war, the Ottoman pirates who had tried and failed to take the island during the Great Siege of 1565. The knights wished to fortify Xiberras Peninsula in case of a further attack.

The result was a rather magnificent, though tiny, city, which retains much of its medieval flavor to the present day.

Valletta was celebrated as the 2018 European City of Culture, so while I was there, lots of repairs and preparations were being made. I wonder how much has changed since I last saw it...

I took these pictures on many different walks, so they go back and forth between night and day. Will you join me? Let's go!

One of the massive fortifications in the trench that divides Valletta from Floriana

This is a very typical Maltese building: sandstone with green box balconies

A doorknocker

More box balconies in a wider range of colors

This was one of my favorite places, a quiet street leading up to the Upper Barrakka Gardens

The reason the steps are so tiny is so the Knights could climb them in their armor

Another of my favorite streets, overlooking the Grand Harbour

Here's a picture I took there on the day of the Rolex Middlesea Race

My favorite fort, Fort St. Angelo, across the harbor on Birgu peninsula

Birgu, Senglea, and Cospicua, The Three Cities that face Valletta on the other side of The Grand Harbour

The Grand Harbour at night

St. John's Co-Cathedral--all one color on the outside, but crazy fancy inside.

Another doorknocker

A very nice cafe overlooking the pool and Marsamxmett Harbour, on the other side of the peninsula

The courtyard garden in the Grandmaster's Palace, still Malta's seat of government. Sometimes you could see the president getting in his car after work in the evening :)

The two lighthouses at the mouth of the harbor

Kalkara. A lot of movies have been shot here.

And you can see this exact view in the movie Daniel Deronda, only it's supposed to be Genoa ;)

Oh look, it's Captain Jack Sparrow in the Lower Barrakka Gardens ;)

And finally, some mermen from the fountain just outside Valletta's city gates...

Just looking through these pictures, I'm a little surprised not to have photos of some of Valletta's most iconic places... The City Gates, Independence Square, the Bridge Bar... Well, I guess you'll just have to go and see them for yourself. :)