Malta Shore Excursion: Mdina and Valletta

Group tour
Duration: 4 h
By car

Overview

Malta has been fortified by everyone who ever held it, and two cities show it best: Mdina, the walled hill capital the Arabs and the Maltese nobility built, and Valletta, laid out by the Knights of St John after they beat off the Ottoman siege of 1565. This four-hour tour takes in both, with the greatest Caravaggio outside Italy on the way.

The tour covers:

Mdina, its lanes, its palaces and the bastion viewpoint
St Paul’s Cathedral, rebuilt by Lorenzo Gafà after 1693
Valletta, the Grandmaster’s Palace and the grid of the knights
St John’s Co-Cathedral and two paintings by Caravaggio
The Upper Barrakka Gardens above the Grand Harbour

Please note that the tour order and the time spent at each venue may vary.

What you will see

Mdina, the old capital, walled and almost carless
St Paul's Cathedral, rebuilt in Malta's finest baroque
Valletta, built by the Knights of St John and a UNESCO site
Caravaggio's Beheading of St John, his largest work
The Grand Harbour from the Upper Barrakka Gardens

Itinerary

Meeting at the port

Meeting at the cruise terminal, where your guide and driver are waiting. The start time is adjusted to your ship's arrival and confirmed in your letter.
Drive to Mdina

A drive inland to the hill town at the centre of the island
Mdina

A walk through Mdina, capital of Malta from antiquity until the knights moved to the harbour in 1530. Fewer than three hundred people live inside the walls and traffic is barred, which is why it is called the Silent City. Its lanes are deliberately narrow and crooked, to break a charge and to keep out the sun, and they are lined with the palaces of the old Maltese nobility, among them the Palazzo Testaferrata.
St Paul's Cathedral

The cathedral, said to stand where the Roman governor Publius met St Paul after his shipwreck in AD 60. The present church was built by Lorenzo Gafà after the earthquake of 1693 and is the best baroque building on the island, with a marble floor of tombstones and frescoes of the shipwreck.
Piazza del Bastione

The bastion square on the walls, where the view runs over half of Malta to the sea and, on a clear day, to Valletta and the harbour.
Drive to Valletta

The drive back to the coast
Valletta

A walk through Valletta, laid out on a grid in 1566 by the Knights of St John after they held off the Ottoman siege of 1565, and built as a fortress and a city at once. The whole of it is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. You pass the Grandmaster's Palace of 1571, now the office of the president, with its courtyards and its armoury.
St John's Co-Cathedral

The knights' church, plain outside and overwhelming within: every surface carved, gilded or painted, and a floor of nearly four hundred marble tombstones of the knights. In the oratory hangs Caravaggio's Beheading of St John the Baptist, painted here in 1608, his largest canvas and the only work he ever signed, with St Jerome Writing beside it.
Upper Barrakka Gardens

The terrace above the Grand Harbour, with the Saluting Battery below it, where a gun is still fired at noon, and a view over the creeks and the fortified cities on the far shore.
Return to the ship

Back to the ship by vehicle, or you may stay on in Valletta and take the lift down to the quay yourself.