Valletta, Malta: Knights, the Great Siege and Caravaggio in One Unforgettable Day

Alex van Terheyden

14 hours ago

8 min read

Valletta announces itself before you reach the gate: a honey-coloured fortress on a narrow peninsula between two great harbours, built by the Knights of St John so the Ottoman Empire would never come so close again. After five days elsewhere on the island, this was my first full day inside the walls. If you are planning a wider trip, start with my Malta travel guide: knights, temples, Gozo and the grit as well as the limestone.

This is the third of my seven Malta deep-dives. Watch the walk first, then read on for the George Cross, the Great Siege, Fort St Elmo and Caravaggio — with current prices at the end.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QNuSoXle2PI

A capital built to defy empires

I began just outside the gates, at the Malta War Memorial in Floriana, where a flame keeps burning for the men who fell in the two world wars. Around it are tributes showing how the world once saw this tiny island. King George VI’s message from Buckingham Palace, dated 15 April 1942, awards the George Cross to “the island fortress of Malta” to bear witness to a heroism and devotion “that will long be famous in history”. Beside it, Franklin D. Roosevelt’s salute of December 1943 describes Malta standing alone but unafraid, “one tiny bright flame in the darkness”.

That is the thread you follow all day in Valletta: a small population that refused to yield, first to the Ottomans in the sixteenth century and then to the Axis in the twentieth. Malta was a British colony, and the Britishness still pokes through — red telephone boxes and a wine shop called the Wembley Store that I mistook for a pub.

Walls born from the Great Siege

To reach the real heart of Valletta you have to get inside the walls, and those walls are the whole point of the city. The Knights of St John, driven from Rhodes, had been given Malta in 1530. Before 1565 the only defence on this bare peninsula was the small Fort St Elmo. After the siege, with the backing of the Pope and the King of Spain, the Order committed to a new fortified city. According to the Central Bank of Malta, it was designed by the Pope’s architect Francesco Laparelli, and Grand Master Jean de Valette laid the foundation stone on 28 March 1566. Stand in the great ditch, look up at the bastions, and you understand how any invader would have felt.

The first thing most visitors see is the Triton Fountain, created in the 1950s — three bronze figures I can only describe as mermen, holding a great basin aloft outside the gate. The entrance itself is modern now, part of Renzo Piano’s City Gate project, and on the day I walked through a Ukrainian musician was playing keyboard where guards and knights would once have challenged you. UNESCO inscribed the whole city as a World Heritage Site in 1980; it counts some 320 monuments packed into about 55 hectares, which makes it one of the most concentrated historic areas anywhere in the world.

The opera house the bombers flattened

Just inside the gate on Republic Street lie the columns of the Royal Opera House. The Pjazza Teatru Rjal history explains that it was designed by Edward Middleton Barry — architect of Covent Garden — and inaugurated on 9 October 1866 with Bellini’s I Puritani. Fire gutted it in 1873; it rose again, only to be devastated by Stuka dive-bombers on 7 April 1942, leaving just the columns and stone base. In 2013 the ruin was reborn as an open-air theatre within Piano’s scheme.

From here the streets fall into a strict grid. If you are from New York you will feel at home: you cannot get lost, and much of the centre is pedestrianised.

The National Museum of Archaeology

I could not resist the National Museum of Archaeology. It is housed in the Auberge de Provence, built in 1571 for the French knights of the Order, so the building ties straight into the story of the city. The collection runs from the Neolithic, 5900–2500 BC, to the early Phoenicians. For anyone following my Malta series, this is where everything connects: the cart ruts, Ġgantija and the giantess Sansuna, and Tarxien.

The undisputed star is the Sleeping Lady from the Ħal Saflieni Hypogeum, lying serenely on her side, head on a pillow, a window into rituals we can only imagine. Close by are the Venus of Malta and Tarxien’s colossal statue. There is even a small display on the cart ruts — and, tellingly, it admits that nobody really knows. Entry was €5, and it was well worth it.

The Great Siege Monument — and a memorial to a murdered journalist

On Great Siege Square, beside St John’s, stands the monument I had most wanted to see. Antonio Sciortino’s bronze group, inaugurated on 8 May 1927, shows three figures usually read as Faith, Fortitude and Civilisation: the central warrior with sword and shield, Faith holding up a papal tiara. To me it says one thing above all: we will not be defeated.

It has taken on a second meaning. Since October 2017 its base has been a makeshift memorial to Daphne Caruana Galizia, the journalist killed by a car bomb after years of reporting on corruption. As I said on camera, her death was heard around the world and put the Maltese government into deep disgrace. Government workers repeatedly cleared the tributes; in 2020, as Wikipedia records, a court ruled that the orders to do so violated protesters’ freedom of expression. The Courts of Justice stand directly opposite. Every society has corruption, my own included; my hope is that the Maltese get real justice.

Fort St Elmo — the last stand of 1565

Down past the silversmiths, cafés and painted wooden balconies — many under scaffolding as Malta builds — you reach the tip of the peninsula and Fort St Elmo. Heritage Malta records that the star-shaped fort was built in 1552 after a harsh Ottoman raid in 1551, the raid that carried most of Gozo’s population into slavery.

The bastions of Fort St Elmo at the tip of the Valletta peninsula, Malta

In May 1565 a vast Ottoman fleet arrived. Visit Malta puts the invaders at some 40,000 men against roughly 700 knights and around 8,000 Maltese troops. The Ottomans chose to take St Elmo first. Heritage Malta says the little fort held for a month before it fell on 23 June; Visit Malta says taking it cost the attackers 8,000 men, including the corsair commander Dragut. The defenders, more than 1,500 of them, were killed almost to a man, and the bodies of knights were floated across the harbour. La Valette answered by executing his Ottoman prisoners and firing their heads back from his cannon. The final resistance was in the fort’s chapel. If these walls could talk.

The fort went on fighting. On 11 June 1940 it suffered the first aerial bombardment of Malta, and today it houses the National War Museum: armour of the Knights and the Ottomans, the Gloster Gladiator Faith, Roosevelt’s jeep Husky — and the George Cross itself, the medal from the letter I had read at the start of the day. The route is linear and a little basic in places, but I spent a good hour and forty-five minutes there. Young people should be taught far more about the courage of men like these.

St John’s Co-Cathedral and Caravaggio

After a detour past the Basilica of St Dominic — the Dominicans, Heritage Malta notes, settled in the new city in 1571 and dedicated their church to Our Lady of Porto Salvo for sailors — I finally stepped through the plain, fortress-like doors of St John’s Co-Cathedral. Nothing prepares you for what is inside. Commissioned by Grand Master Jean de la Cassière and designed by Girolamo Cassar, it was built between 1573 and 1578 as the conventual church of the Order, dedicated to St John the Baptist.

The gilded Baroque nave and painted vault of St John’s Co-Cathedral, Valletta

Underfoot lie some 400 inlaid marble tombs of knights from across Europe — skulls, skeletons and trumpeting angels reminding you that death comes for everyone. Look up and Mattia Preti’s vault, painted in the 1660s, bursts with scenes from the life of the Baptist. Along the sides, the chapels of the langues — Aragon, Italy, France, Germany, Auvergne, Provence, Castile and the Anglo-Bavarian langue — compete in splendour.

Then the oratory, and the painting that stops everyone: Caravaggio’s The Beheading of Saint John the Baptist, completed in 1608. It is his largest altarpiece and the only work he ever signed, his name written in the blood flowing from the saint’s neck. Caravaggio had fled to Malta, was briefly made a knight, and was then expelled. To me the cathedral is proof of what faith, brotherhood and sheer will can create: sword in one hand, cross in the other.

Jean de Valette — and a city you cannot do in a day

The city carries the name of Jean de Valette, the Grand Master who commanded the defence in 1565. The state rooms, the Upper Barrakka, statues at every turn, museums I never reached: it cannot be done in one video, or one day. Come and see it for yourself.

How to visit — tickets and opening hours

St John’s Co-Cathedral: adults €15, seniors and students €12, per the Co-Cathedral’s visit page; open Monday to Saturday 09:00–16:45 (last entry 16:00), closed Sundays and public holidays.

Fort St Elmo and the National War Museum: adults €10; seniors, youths and students €7.50; children €5.50 (Heritage Malta). Allow at least 90 minutes. On In Guardia re-enactment Sundays, regular admission starts at 12:00.

National Museum of Archaeology, Republic Street: adults €5, concessions €3.50 (Heritage Malta). Heritage Malta tickets are valid for 30 days after purchase. Prices were checked on 17 October 2026; confirm opening hours on the day.

Where to stay

Valletta is small, so staying inside the walls puts the history on your doorstep. In the film I picked out Casa Reale Boutique Hotel and Mattia Preti Apartments. Use the Malta hotels map below (Stay22 Hub, AID thewonderingenglishman) to compare Valletta with Sliema, St Julian’s and the rest of the island.

Walking tours in Valletta

If you would rather walk with a licensed guide, browse Malta tours on Viator or Valletta walking tours on GetYourGuide. Then read the Malta travel guide again before you lock the itinerary.

Stay connected

Malta’s buses and maps are easier with data from the moment you land. I use Roamless — an eSIM you can set up before you fly. Code WONDERING for 20% off. If you want a driver waiting after the flight into Malta International, book a private transfer with GetTransfer.

Plan your trip

Hotels: Booking.com Valletta
Apartments: Airbnb
Tours: Viator Malta
Tours and tickets: GetYourGuide Valletta
Flights, ferries, trains and buses: Omio (the film’s sponsor; code WONDERING for a discount)
Private transfer: GetTransfer
Mobile data: Roamless (code WONDERING, 20% off)
Island guide: Malta travel guide

Flights

Flying to Malta? Compare fares below.

The Wondering Englishman has visited over 90 countries so far, and I'm slowly making my way around the world. Valletta is why I keep going: a city built by people who would not submit, and layer upon layer of wonder in every street.

Sources: UNESCO — City of Valletta, Central Bank of Malta, Visit Malta — The Great Siege, Pjazza Teatru Rjal, Heritage Malta (National Museum of Archaeology, Fort St Elmo), St John’s Co-Cathedral, and my film Knights, Sieges & Baroque Wonders. Prices were checked on 17 October 2026 and can change.