Valletta (Malta): St John’s Co-Cathedral, Upper and Lower Gardens
Part 1: Travel Journal
Part 2: Practical Tips
Part 1: Travel Journal
It was driving to Valletta that made us realize the car wasn’t the ideal way to explore Malta’s capital. It’s better to get around by bus, boat, or on foot. Buses are plentiful even if they’re not always on time. You can pay by card, €2. There are tons of buses right by Pjazza San Publiju or Valletta Bus Station, which serve other Maltese towns. Malta is small, so when I say “other towns,” it could just be 15 minutes away, the next town over.
Valletta is like a massive fortress, and you really get that from this very impressive city gate.
While many Maltese towns are concrete-heavy and lacking in charm, that’s not the case with Valletta and its surroundings—it’s beautiful, really impressive.
To treat me, JB booked us a room at Palazzo Ignazio (Booking link), a lovely hotel, for 5 nights. That way, we could explore the city center on foot and visit the Three Cities around Valletta. Since the hotel was nearly full and we were staying a while, we got upgraded to a family room, very spacious and comfy. They didn’t give us the best room with the private jacuzzi though, haha. I’m really impressed by their terrace. JB sometimes works from the terrace since we can catch some Wi-Fi.
There’s another hotel I’ve got my eye on, it’s Castille Hotel (Booking link), and I’m particularly fond of Maltese balconies, which is why I find this one especially beautiful.
Everything is beautiful in Valletta—look at these buildings, these streets… sure, it’s constant ups and downs, but that’s part of the city’s charm. It’s very walkable, but try to group your visits so you’re not constantly going up and down.
Lower Barrakka Gardens
There are Lower and Upper gardens, two spots I really love. You can sit and enjoy the lovely view. It’s from here that I spot the places I want to visit in the Three Cities across from Valletta.
Upper gardens
For the Upper gardens, you need to be up high already, or take a pretty impressive elevator to get there (not too pricey, just a few euros).
The view is worth it—don’t miss it! I think there are cannon firings from here, but I can’t remember the time or frequency.
You can see there are several water taxis shuttling back and forth to Birgu for €2 each way. It’s the quickest way to get across. By bus or car, you have to go all the way around and it’s very slow.
I’m not sure what Blue from Jurassic World is doing here, but she’s very pretty.
St John’s Co-Cathedral
This is my favorite spot in Valletta. The exterior is understated, but the moment you step inside, you’re blown away.
It’s so beautiful, so ornate, so bling-bling that I’m utterly amazed. We’ll see other super bling-bling Baroque churches and cathedrals later in Sicily, but this one is particularly lovely. It reflects the legacy of the Knights of St John, with Maltese crosses everywhere, and beneath the marble floor rest 400 knights of the Order.
The walls of the co-cathedral are carved and decorated directly into the limestone, a very complex technique, and especially advanced for its time. It’s an example of Baroque splendor in Malta. Its meticulous decoration and walls laden with gold motifs are hard to find anywhere else in the country.
Plus, you can take a small staircase up for a breathtaking view, to admire the vault up close, as well as the marble floor.
There are a few Caravaggio paintings, including The Beheading of Saint John. It seems so violent to me that I didn’t take a photo of it. There’s a film funded by the European Union narrating Caravaggio’s life. Don’t forget he fled Italy to hide in Malta and became a Knight of the Order of the Knights of St John of Jerusalem, an order so powerful they could protect him from his crime.
I find this film isn’t very well made because they portray him as a violent person who only seeks out fights. In Milo Manara’s comics about Caravaggio, the portrait of the artist is much more nuanced: he only resorts to violence to defend himself or others. The comics also explain his genius, whereas the film here fails to highlight his techniques. It’s a shame!
After that Baroque cathedral, no other cathedral will ever impress me.
Casa Rocca Piccola
We hesitated a lot about visiting this house because of its high ticket price, but we went anyway after reading rave reviews. I shouldn’t have fallen for it, because a large part of the house is off-limits to visitors (they rent out rooms on Airbnb). Only the courtyard is nice, the blue bird in the courtyard is very friendly, and there’s a kind of bunker in the basement, but that’s it. Malta played a significant role in World War II. The Maltese islands were bombed relentlessly throughout the war, especially between 1940 and 1942, hence the importance of a bunker.
In Valletta, since it’s hot and the restaurants are small, we often dine outside, sitting on the street. It’s always a very bad idea, because shameless Italian tourists walk right by us to see what we’re eating. There was even one woman, with a cigarette in her mouth, who walked right past me and stubbed out her cigarette at the foot of my chair!!! She was so close that I initially thought she could steal my plate 😀 She has no idea of the minimum distance to keep between two strangers. After two such traumatic experiences, we no longer dine on the street at all and prefer to squeeze inside, dying of heat, but at least we feel protected from uncivil tourists.
I’ll make the bad decision to tell this story to Northern Italians, and what I hear is even more shocking. They tell me that Malta is near Sicily and receives many Southern Italians. Northern Italians consider Southerners savages, and this behavior “doesn’t surprise them at all”… This leaves me speechless; can one hate the inhabitants of one’s own country to that extent? Despite a bad experience in Syracuse, we’ll find the rest of Sicily really nice.
Part 2: Practical Tips
- Accommodation: Palazzo Ignazio (Booking link): €90/night, double room, without breakfast
- St. John’s Co-Cathedral: €15/person
- Casa Rocca Piccola: €9/person
- Restaurant: I recommend Trattoria Romana Zero Sei, but sit inside
