MaltaValletta, Mdina, Blue Grotto, Gozo

Why Visit Malta?

Malta is a Mediterranean island that most visitors underestimate until they arrive. In an area smaller than the Isle of Wight, it contains some of the world's oldest freestanding structures (the Ġgantija and Mnajdra temples predate Stonehenge by a thousand years), the baroque capital of Valletta (a UNESCO World Heritage city since 1980), the medieval walled city of Mdina, the vivid blue of the Blue Lagoon on Comino, and a harbour whose history includes the Knights of St John, Napoleon, and the WWII siege that earned the island the George Cross. For photographers, Malta is a gift of light, honey-coloured limestone, and history at every turn.

Valletta at golden hour — the Grand Harbour from the Upper Barrakka Gardens, with the Three Cities across the water turning amber as the sun drops, is one of the finest urban harbour views in the Mediterranean. The baroque architecture of Republic Street in the same light is worth an hour of slow walking.

Mdina at dawn — Malta's ancient walled city is almost deserted before 9am, and the honey-stone streets and carved doorways in the low morning light are extraordinary. This is the version of Mdina that the Game of Thrones crews came for.

The Blue Lagoon, Comino — the turquoise water really is that colour. Go early or in September/October to avoid the summer crowd boats; in low season you can have the lagoon almost to yourself, which makes for very different photographs.

The luzzu boats — Malta's traditional painted fishing boats, brightly coloured with the Eye of Osiris on the prow, are one of the most distinctive visual elements in the Mediterranean. The fishing harbours of Marsaxlokk on Sunday morning, when the market is in full swing, are the best place to find them.

Malta's historical density is astonishing for an island of 316 km². The Maltese Archipelago has been continuously inhabited for over 9,000 years, and every layer of that habitation has left visible traces in the landscape.

The megalithic temples — Malta and Gozo contain the world's oldest free-standing stone structures, built between 3600 and 2500 BCE by a civilisation that disappeared entirely before the Bronze Age. The Ħaġar Qim and Mnajdra temples on the main island's southern coast, and the Ġgantija temples on Gozo, predate Stonehenge by over a thousand years and the Egyptian pyramids by several centuries. They are aligned with astronomical precision — the Mnajdra temples are orientated so that at the spring and autumn equinoxes, the rising sun illuminates the central corridor precisely. They are UNESCO World Heritage Sites and among the most remarkable archaeological monuments in Europe. The Ħal Saflieni Hypogeum — an underground temple carved entirely from rock around 4000 BCE — is so fragile that visitor numbers are strictly limited; book months in advance.

The Knights of St John, 1530–1798 — the most formative period in Malta's modern history and the one whose physical legacy dominates every major town. The Knights Hospitaller, a medieval Christian military order founded in Jerusalem to care for sick pilgrims, had been driven successively from the Holy Land, Cyprus, and Rhodes by the Ottoman Empire. In 1530, Holy Roman Emperor Charles V ceded Malta to the Knights in perpetual lease for the annual tribute of one Maltese Falcon (a real arrangement). What followed was 268 years of extraordinary fortification building, baroque architecture, and Mediterranean warfare. The Great Siege of 1565 — when the Knights and their Maltese garrison of perhaps 9,000 people held off an Ottoman invasion force of 40,000 for nearly four months — remains one of the great military engagements of the 16th century. The Knights held. Malta was not taken. Grand Master Jean de Valette, who led the defence, founded the new capital that bears his name: Valletta. Napoleon took Malta from the Knights in 1798 without a battle — they had grown complacent and corrupt, and offered only token resistance. Two years later the Maltese rose against the French and asked Britain for protection.

WWII — "The George Cross Island" — Malta's most recent defining historical experience, and one still felt deeply in national memory. From 1940 to 1942, Malta — then a British Crown Colony housing critical naval and air bases — was subjected to the most sustained aerial bombardment of any territory in the entire Second World War. More bombs fell on Malta than on London during the Blitz. The harbours were bombed daily. The supply convoys were destroyed at sea. At one point in 1942 the island had supplies for only two weeks. The tanker SS Ohio — crippled, decks awash, towed into Grand Harbour by destroyers while Spitfires flew cover — became one of the iconic images of the war. In April 1942, King George VI awarded the George Cross — Britain's highest civilian bravery award — to the entire island of Malta, the only time in history a collective rather than an individual received it. The Cross now appears on the Maltese flag.

The Maltese language — one of the most linguistically distinctive languages in Europe. Maltese is the only Semitic language written in the Latin alphabet and the only Semitic language that is an official language of the European Union. Its core vocabulary and grammar are Arabic in origin (from the Arab occupation of 800–1090 CE), layered with Sicilian and Italian loanwords from the Norman and subsequent periods, English vocabulary from the British colonial era, and a distinctive sound system unlike anything else in the Mediterranean. Hearing it spoken — the gutturals of Arabic emerging from what looks like Italian — is one of the stranger and more fascinating linguistic experiences in Europe. Almost all Maltese people speak fluent English (another British legacy), making Malta uniquely accessible to Anglophone visitors.

Malta has been one of the most productive film locations in the world for several decades, and for entirely logical reasons: the concentration of authentic medieval and baroque architecture, a Mediterranean light quality that is unequalled in northern Europe, a vast outdoor water tank (one of the largest in the world, located at Fort Ricasoli) that allows sea-scale filming in controllable conditions, and a film services industry built up over 40 years. The result is that walking around Valletta, Vittoriosa, and Mdina, you are constantly walking through film sets you have already seen.

Gladiator (2000) — Russell Crowe's Roman epic used Fort Ricasoli (the fortress at the entrance to Grand Harbour) for the film's battle sequences and key dramatic scenes. The same location served Gladiator II (2024). The Roman Villa in Rabat — the Domus Romana, with its extraordinary mosaic floors — doubled as Roman interior scenes. Vittoriosa's streets appear as Roman imperial Rome.

Game of Thrones, Season 1 (2011) — Malta provided the visual foundation for the first season of the show before production moved to Northern Ireland and Croatia. Mdina became King's Landing (and its streets are immediately recognisable from the show — this is where Ned Stark and Arya Stark had their first season scenes). Fort Manoel doubled as the Great Sept of Baelor — the site of Ned Stark's execution. Fort St Angelo served as the Red Keep. Gozo's Azure Window was the backdrop for Daenerys and Khal Drogo's wedding. The Azure Window is now gone, but the other locations are all still there and identifiable.

Troy (2004) — Fort Ricasoli again, this time as the ancient walls of Troy itself. Brad Pitt, Eric Bana, Orlando Bloom. The scale of the fortification walls made Malta the only viable location in the Mediterranean for the siege sequences.

The Count of Monte Cristo (2002) — Comino's Santa Marija Tower as the Château d'If prison; Valletta and Vittoriosa's streets as 19th-century Marseille and Paris. The film's visual grammar is entirely Maltese.

Other productions: Captain Philips (Tom Hanks, 2013, Senglea harbour as the African coast), World War Z (Brad Pitt, 2013, Valletta streets as zombie-overrun Jerusalem), Jurassic World: Dominion (2022, Valletta and Vittoriosa), and the 1980 Popeye (Robin Williams — the set built at Anchor Bay in Mellieħa still stands and operates as Popeye Village, one of Malta's more surreal tourist attractions).

A dedicated film locations tour of Malta — running 4–5 hours by private car, taking in Valletta, Vittoriosa, Mdina, and Gozo's Dwejra — is one of the most entertaining half-days you can spend on the island, particularly if you rewatch Game of Thrones Season 1 in the days before arriving.

Maltese cuisine sits at the intersection of Sicily, North Africa, and the Levant — a Mediterranean diet shaped by centuries of trade routes, Ottoman occupation, Arab agricultural inheritance, and the limited but excellent produce of a small limestone island. It is not a glamorous cuisine by international standards, but it is honest, flavourful, and deeply embedded in local identity.

Pastizzi — the definitive Maltese snack, available at every pastizzeria (a ubiquitous small café serving essentially only pastizzi, coffee, and soft drinks) from early morning onwards. Flaky, greasy, diamond-shaped or round pastry parcels filled with either ricotta (pastizzi tal-irkotta) or mushy peas (pastizzi tal-piżelli). They cost around €0.30–0.50 each and are eaten hot, standing at a zinc counter, ideally with a bitter Kinnie (a Maltese soft drink made from bitter oranges and aromatic herbs, slightly medicinal in the best possible way). The pastizzeria is where Maltese social life actually happens: multigenerational, unhurried, entirely local.

Fenek (rabbit) — Malta's national dish and the one that most surprised me. Rabbit is eaten here with a frequency and devotion that reflects its historical importance as the primary source of meat protein on an island with limited cattle-grazing land. Fenek moqli (fried rabbit), fenek fil-inbid (rabbit braised in local wine and garlic) — the latter slow-cooked until the meat falls from the bone and the sauce becomes something deeply savoury and aromatic. The Sunday fenkata — a traditional family feast of rabbit, shared with wine and village bread — is a cultural institution. Order it at a village restaurant rather than a tourist establishment.

Ftira — Maltese sourdough bread, its texture denser and its crust thicker than Italian bread, made in a ring shape and traditionally eaten as an open sandwich topped with tomatoes, tuna, olives, capers, and ġbejna (sheep's cheese). The ftira tal-Malti as a lunch — bought from a village bakery, eaten sitting on a harbour wall — is one of the finest simple things to eat in the Mediterranean. In Gozo, the ftira ghawdxija is a thicker, pizza-like version stuffed with potatoes, tomatoes, anchovies, and local cheese.

Ġbejna — small round cheeses made from fresh sheep's milk (Gozo's herds graze on distinctive wild herbs that flavour the milk). Available fresh (mild, creamy), salt-cured (firmer, saltier), or peppered (rolled in coarsely cracked black pepper). An essential ingredient in Maltese cooking and one of the finest artisan cheeses in the Mediterranean. Buy from a farm shop in Gozo.

Lampuki pie — a seasonal treat, available August to November when the lampuki (mahi-mahi/dolphin fish) runs. Fresh lampuki in a savoury pastry case with spinach, olives, capers, and tomatoes. Malta's most elegant local dish and the one most worth seeking out in season.

The village festa — every Maltese village celebrates its patron saint's feast day with an intensity that must be experienced in person. The festa season runs May through September, peaking in July and August, with at least one village celebrating each weekend. The preparations begin weeks in advance: statues of the patron saint decorated with baroque gold, church facades covered in electric bulb outlines (thousands of individual coloured bulbs, not LED strips — the old-fashioned kind that give a warmer, more chaotic light), street arches of greenery and banners in the parish colours, rival band clubs marching through streets too narrow for them. The evening culminates in a fireworks display — Maltese fireworks are a tradition of extraordinary pyrotechnic ambition, ground-level as well as aerial, with the village square vibrating from the concussions. Being in a Maltese village during its patron saint's festa is one of the great European folk culture experiences.

Malta consistently ranks among the top ten diving destinations in Europe, and for measurable reasons: water visibility of 30–45 metres (exceptional by Mediterranean standards), water temperatures warm enough for comfortable diving from April to November, an extraordinary variety of site types within a small area, and a well-developed dive industry with centres on all three islands.

The visibility is a function of Malta's geology — the islands are almost entirely limestone with very little sediment runoff, and the deep, clear water of the central Mediterranean surrounds them. On a calm day at a site like the Blue Hole in Gozo, the underwater visibility is so extraordinary that it creates a disorienting sense of scale.

The Blue Hole, Dwejra, Gozo — consistently cited as one of the top dive sites in Europe. A natural rock chimney descends from the surface to 15 metres before opening through an arch (the "window") into open water. The outer face drops to 60 metres along a wall covered in gorgonian sea fans, sponges, and Mediterranean reef life. Entry is from the shore by ladder — no boat needed. The site is accessible to divers of all levels above beginner.

The Inland Sea tunnel, Dwejra — a short boat dive through a natural tunnel in the cliff, emerging from the sheltered lagoon into the open sea. The light effects as you move through the tunnel — blue filtered through rock, the open Mediterranean appearing as a circle of light at the end — are extraordinary. Entry from the small fishing boats that take dive groups through for a modest fee.

Wrecks — Malta has several accessible wreck dives, including the deliberately sunk Um El Faroud (a Libyan oil tanker, 105 metres long, now sitting upright at 25–35 metres off Wied iż-Żurrieq) and the HMS Maori (a WWII destroyer bombed in 1942, broken into sections in Valletta's harbour — historically significant and photographically extraordinary). The wrecks are new ecosystems now, colonised by grouper, barracuda, and octopus.

Practical notes — diving in Malta is available year-round but optimal April to November. Water temperatures peak at 27°C in August–September and drop to 14°C in January–February. Most dive centres offer PADI courses, equipment rental, and guided boat trips. The dive infrastructure is excellent and the English-speaking instructors are generally highly qualified. A 3mm wetsuit is sufficient for summer diving; 5mm for autumn and spring.