The small capital of Malta is a great place to visit and I was happy to make this World Heritage Site visit number 100!

The city sits at the end of a peninsular and is enclosed in impressive fortifications. We spent four nights here using it as a base for exploring the country via the unique bus service. The city itself is uniform and surprisingly hilly with streets of steps a regular feature, St Ursular’s Street is perhaps the nicest and contains the thoroughly recommended Asti Guesthouse. The tall buildings are quite uniform however there are a few lovely façades especially on the Auberge de Castille. On the whole Valletta would be a nice site, however it does have two magnificent features that really warrant a visit.

Firstly there are the Gardens dotted around the extremities of the city. The most impressive are the Upper Barakka Gardens, which overlook one of the greatest natural harbours of Europe. These are a great place to just sit and relax and soak up the great panorama. The Hastings Gardens on the opposite side of the city are also worth a bit of time and offer nice views of the fortifications.

The most impressive thing in Valletta however is St John’s Co-Cathedral, as said elsewhere on this page the outside is nothing special, however the interior is spectacular. It is reasonably small but it is perfect! Baroque decoration covers every surface and the floor rightfully claims to be the most impressive in the world, it is covered in incredible memorials to the Knights of St John. This would be enough however the Cathedral contains one more undoubted masterpiece in the shape of Caravaggio’s ‘Beheading of St John the Baptist’. Truly an exceptional Cathedral and one not to be missed, despite the entrance fee.

These two world-class attractions, coupled with a lovely centre and two more World Heritage Sites in the suburbs make Valletta well worth a few days of anyone’s time.