Valletta City

Valletta is indeed a place that deserves specific attention while visiting. It offers a lot of things to do and offers a priceless outing into European history. Valletta is widely recognized as one of the most elegant and charming capitals in the world, and Malta is the lucky country that contains it.

General Overview

The city was called in the name of a noble knight who successfully the Turkish siege in 1565. After that very event Valletta has become the residential location for Maltese government. Today’s Maltese capital is a carefully preserved 16^th century city surrounded with a tall wall. Valletta reminds of a miraculous rectangle in its shape and is located at the peninsula cape in the north-eastern part of the Malta’s shore. It appears to be an antiquity museum in the open air. Valletta looks like a chessboard at a high altitude.

Valletta also serves as the gates to the country of Malta because it is the very point for tourists and ladings to come from all over the world. It’s here where you shape your first impression and visions of Malta. The walls surrounding Valletta strike not only in their height, but also in their width – there is a motor transport route established on them.

Valletta is not a place to see modernized skyscrapers with glass windows and bituminous concrete so typical for most Western capital cities. The steep banks are accompanied by severe buildings that arise above each other in an unusual manner. The Grand Harbor entrance contains antique remains of rampart wall that remind about the former military destination of Valletta.

One of its obvious advantages is that you can visit the main sights rapidly and won’t suffer from the Mediterranean sun heat. In fact, Valletta’s streets are situated next to chilly water channels. The approximate radius of the city is one hundred meters to any location, and afterwards the location is completely surrounded by the sea waves in the north, west and south.

In the evening streets get empty, Valletta citizens hurry up for the late dinner, while tourists get in their comfortable hotels or get closer to night life centers such as Slime, Paceville or Bugibba.

MajesticPalaceand Garden Ensembles of Valletta

From the city gates you can walk through a range of beautiful squares accompanied by palaces and cathedrals. The most astonishing one is Auberge Castille, the former palace of Spanish and Portuguese divisions of St. George’s Order. Nowadays it is prime minister’s house and is closed for tourist sightseeing.

Among the delights of Valletta Upper Baracca Gardens for you to enjoy picturesque scenery of the Grand Harbor and Cottonera. The gardens cause a relaxing effect and become the place you can afford to rest after sightseeing in numerous palaces and bastions. The wonderful image you see from the Upper Garden’s height helps you to understand the peculiarities of Maltese medieval architectures, that had planned the defensive installations of Valletta. The Maltese capital has become the first European city to be planned according to beforehand sketches. Thanks to the unusual rectangle shape, most streets give a seascape view at the end. Hasting’s Gardens present many shady alleys that pleasantly protect you from the burning sunlight.

St. John’s Cathedral is a place of particular interest because it seems to be an embodied death anthem. Cranium images are all over the place, as well as the other graveyard accessories. All the stucco molding covering the lion’s share of the wall, ceiling paintings, silver and golden ornaments are all done very delicately and contain lots of details. The cathedral building is situated in the very heart of the Valletta city at the St. John’s Square.

Other significant city edifice is Grandmasters’ Palace that is also a place for parliamentary and presidential conferences. Grandmasters’ Palace takes almost the whole block space between Republic Street and Merchants’ street. This building guards gobelins, frescos and borders that demonstrate victory celebration after the Great Siege. Apart from the courtyard design you really won’t regret getting inside. You will most likely feel like a child who imagines the life and settlement of noble knights who are ready to give their life in the name of their beloved beautiful lady. Armory department contains a large collection of weapons from all over the world.

Museums, fine arts galleries and other sights worth visiting

The museum of St. George’s Order is open for visitors in city’s Cathedral and appears as a building with severe facade architecture, while the interior is a fantastical masterpiece with a web of grave stones on the floor. You feel like they still remember pompous chivalrous victory celebrations. This museum holds a collection of notable tapestries and two canvases of famous Caravaggio.

Republic Street serves as a typical example of South European architectural style. It crosses several squares: the Great Siege Square, the Republic Square and the Palace Square where the Grandmasters’ Palace stays. Across the Liberty Square there comes Ferreria Palace built in the Italian classical traditions. If you go a little further, you find Royal Opera edifice for exquisite evening entertainment.

St. Elmo’s Frontier in the north-eastern outskirts offers excursion guides that are dressed exactly as the chivalry of that epoch, and also organizes historical battles. The frontier also offers you an excellent overview on the seaside and the city of Valletta. You might as well evaluate how unassailable it appears if you go down to the seashore and look at it from that point.

For those who are frequent movie-goers, there is a so-called Malta Experience film that you can watch in a movie theater next to St. Elmo’s Frontier. It covers seven thousand history of Malta and produced in simple colors and with certain taste. Multilingual visitors may not worry: as soon as they sit down, they find a pair of helpful headphones. You can just select the language you want to listen to the movie in, and enjoy the experience. It is very absorbing, and you won’t even notice how these 40 minutes have already passed.

National archeology museum is located near Oberg De Provence. You can find really genuine masterpieces here: the statue of Venus Maltese, ceramics and coin exhibitions. In the period of British government this museum hosted a high society men’s club in Malta. As for National Military museum, it belongs to St. Elmo Frontier edifice.

The Fine Arts museum includes masterpieces from Malta that represent different stages of art development. They also preserve some space for contemporary artists and sculptors: present-day exhibitions are frequent here.

Manoel is one of the oldest theaters in Europe built by a noble knight with the same name in 1731. The honored artists of the world consider it as a special regard to perform in Manoel.

If you would ever question yourself about what is the best option for historical holidays, just visit Valletta – it’s the right city to go.