I am not looking for website links, I am looking for personal experiences. Tell me the good and the bad, tell me the food, tell me the folk, tell me the fun, tell me the frustration.
I was only there for ~8 hours as part of a cruise of the western Med (so we only went to Valetta, but walked all over it), and this was in about 2002.
So, with those caveats, I loved it. We had lunch in a restaurant in the (ex-)powder storage room of the grand castle; the staff were all young Maltese and all the food and wine was local too - very good indeed. The town was as if a 1950s English village magically appeared though a time warp, more English than England.
Malta is visually interesting as a country. I haven’t been to Gozo, which is the less-developed Island. However, the cliffs on the main island are very pretty, as are the surrounding sea and boats, etc. The Co-Cathedral is quite enjoyable, with works by Caravaggio and a huge floor of crypts with very attractive Memento Mori-style artwork. There’s a nice archeology and history museum. If you have some lead time, get online and read about the Hypogium (UNESCO). You need to book tickets at least a couple of months in advance because they restrict entry. It’s an underground religious site that still raises many questions and has few answers. However, once you have been to the Hypogium, you can then go to the above-ground Tarxien Temples and see many of the same glyphs and architectural motifs in use.
I doubt very much that anywhere I ate or any shops I frequented are still there because it’s been quite some time. The buses were pretty straightforward to use, and I suppose a person could also get a taxi. Speak English, not Italian. Italians invaded Malta, and Malta hadn’t forgotten.
I should have mentioned that - approaching Valletta from the east as the sun rose behind the ship was incredible. The cliffs and the castle perched on them glowed gold, it was hard to tell where one finished and the other started.
You mean in WWII? Italy attacked Malta then, but never invaded.
Although if he’s going to look for it, he should know it’s spelled Hypogeum.
I’ve been there twice, mostly to see the megalithic temples of Malta. The stone on this island is particularly easy to work, which is why there are so many large temples dating back to between 3600 BC and 2500 BC; contemporary roughly with Stonehenge and the Pyramids. As well as the Hypogeum (an underground, excavated temple, which is amazing but you have to book) there are Tarxien, Ħaġar Qim, Mnajdra and Ġgantija. Oh, and you have to learn the pronunciation of each of these weird names, which is fun.
The (much later) walled towns of Valetta, Rabat, and Rabat (another one) on Gozo are also fascinating.
We spent ten days there on a family vacation back in 2018 or 2019.
We liked it a lot. The cultural vibe is extremely interesting, a melting pot of various influences, as befits a Mediterranean crossroads. The language sounds like a gentler Arabic, more like what you might hear in Morocco. The pace of life in the larger cities is fast and haphazard, similar to Naples. They drive on the right, a practice inherited from the British who used to govern them, but their style of driving is aggressive and intimidating, like Italy turned up to 11. It’s a stew of stuff that reminds you of other places, but it has a feel all its own.
We thoroughly explored Valletta, and liked it a lot: friendly people, good food, easy to get around. The layers of history are unmistakable everywhere you look. We also took a day trip out to the historical city of Mdina, the so-called Silent City, which was like nowhere else we’ve ever been; we highly recommend a day to explore it.
The landscape is generally rugged but beautiful, ranging from arid scrubby hiking on the hilltops to some truly beautiful beaches. Get out of the cities, and you’ll see some open countryside, rocky coastlines, and other attractive, if sometimes severe, terrain.
The main-street restaurants tend to cater to tourists, with a fair amount of stuff intended to appeal to the palates of the British tourists we saw frequently, as well as Americans and others. This is middling in quality, at best, and should be avoided (the worst attempt at BBQ I’ve had in Europe was in Malta). Head down the side streets into the quieter neighborhoods and stick to the local specialties; the Maltese have raised the cookery of rabbit to a high art, for example.
There were definitely signs of their boom-bust economics when we were there. We saw lots of building projects in various states of abandonment, skeletal building frameworks that were left incomplete when investment dried up. Many of them had been that way for years: they were too degraded to finish, but there also wasn’t money to tear them down and start over. It’s a common sight in countries that teeter on the edge of figuring out how to truly modernize; some areas pull off the transition, and others fall behind and get left to rot into shambles.
At the time we were there, this scandal was raging; investigations into the journalist’s assassination were actively closing in on the Prime Minister’s inner circle, and he would resign later. We spoke to a number of locals, who expressed a mixture of frustration that the government was still messy with corruption, plus hope that the outrage indicated a public unwilling to tolerate business as usual, and a possibility for real change. The fact that people were happy about our interest in local affairs and open about discussing events suggests a fair degree of social engagement with political reform, but I wouldn’t claim any kind of knowledge beyond casual interest. It’s a fascinating place, I’ll say that much.
If you’re considering a visit, I’d say, absolutely, it’s worth your time. Unique, fun, beautiful, welcoming, and just a little bit challenging for the average tourist. A great destination.
I think you mean on the left.
Oops. Yes. Car on the left, driver on the right.
Not sure if this interests you, but the fictional town of Sweethaven was built for the movie Popeye starring Robin Williams back in the 70’s outside Mellieha, Malta. It has been maintained and still exists today. Sometimes called “Popeye Village”, it has at least one beautiful waterside restaurant serving terrific Mediterranean food. As a fan of the movie, it was a fun day excursion.
Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that. We didn’t go into the village itself, but we parked along the cliff overlooking the harbor from the opposite side and could see down to it. Through binoculars, we spotted the costume players wandering around as Popeye, Olive Oyl, etc.
Very strange attraction (how many leftover movie sets for mostly-forgotten films are maintained as theme parks?), but certainly noteworthy.
We only saw Mnajdra, which we found fascinating. We didn’t have a car, so we rode a public bus to Hagar and then caught a second bus out to the site.
We had some good ice cream in Hagar, but the restaurants there were all tourist traps.
We were there over the long Easter weekend, so many shops were closed.
We did to a really good Italian restaurant in Valletta - even our Italian colleague liked it. But that was in 2019, and it has since closed.
I didn’t realize before we arrived how scarce water is on Malta so I wasn’t expecting the weirdness of the water at our hotel. The hotel provided one bottle of water per day, so we ended up buying more. The tap water’s drinkable, but coming from Switzerland, we’re used to much better water.
That’s basically the only thing I know about Malta.
If the history of Malta interests you then you might want to look into the Great Siege of Malta in 1565. If you’re planning to visit there some of the landmarks of this fascinating event must still be there.
We were just there for a day, during a Mediterranean cruise, and we went to see some of the ancient temples. But the most impressive thing was the port. We were clever enough to get a table by the front window of the dining room as we entered, and the fortifications made it the most impressive port entrance I’ve ever seen.
All accurate corrections, thanks. Typing fast during a quick break.