Malta

My Malta travel summary:

Visited: June 2017

Duration of visit: 5 days

Capital city: Valletta

Population: 495.000 (2017)

Malta travel blog reading time: 5 minutes

• Exploring Valletta’s narrow streets, lined with churches, balconies, and limestone buildings.
• Blue Lagoon in all its splendor and crowds.
• Fantastic sunset over Dwejra Bay.
• Beautiful view from my hotel in Valletta.

My Malta travel adventure in 2017 was a five-day trip exploring historic cities, coastline, and cultural landmarks. Malta is small, so I stayed in Valletta, the capital, and explored the island on day trips by rental car.

Malta has one of the highest population densities in Europe and gained independence from the UK in 1964. Its British influence remains visible today, while the country maintains strong European identity. Malta’s main attractions and exciting places to visit include dramatic cliffs, caves, and crystal-clear coastal swimming spots.

Valletta is a remarkable walled city, where almost every street leads to the sea. Its landmarks and highlights exceeded my expectations. Traditional Maltese balconies, grand city gates, elegant churches, the Parliament Building, the Opera House, and narrow streets gave the city its charm.

The first planned city in Europe was designed by the Order of St. John in the 16^th century. Its grid layout, fortifications, and elegant architecture reflect careful urban planning and strategic design.

Valletta has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1980. Its dense concentration of monumental buildings makes it one of the most compact historic areas on earth.

I quickly noticed that one of the most distinctive features of Maltese houses – the outstanding balconies, full of character and charm. They’re usually wooden, closed and painted in bright colors. Malta has no forests, so wood was scarce and balconies were once expensive to build. Later, under British rule, imported wood from the UK made them more affordable.

Sliema Chalet Hotel was close to downtown. I enjoyed a beautiful sea view from my spacious top-floor room. Even on the sixth floor, the nights felt very warm, and I was surprised by the huge number of mosquitoes in my bedroom. I had never seen so many of them before.

I was trying to turn the AC on, but it didn’t work. Since it was so hot, I couldn’t live the balcony door closed. Mosquito bites all over my body woke me in the middle of the night. I looked at my girlfriend sleeping next to me and noticed her pillowcase was covered with black dots – mosquitoes. When I started the war against them, I had to count up to 55 before securing the room.

Early next morning, I mentioned the receptionist about hordes of mosquitos in my room and he calmly suggested me to close the balcony door first, if I wanted my AC to work.

Early the next morning, I told the receptionist about the hordes of mosquitoes in my room.

He calmly suggested: “Close the balcony door if you want the AC to work.”

“Of course, that was the problem,” I thought.

The air conditioning didn’t work with the balcony door open.

My Malta travel adventure continued with visits to Malta, Comino, and Gozo over the following days. The roads are good, distances short, everything well organized and signalized. You just need to be careful driving on the left side of the road.

Blue Lagoon is a beautiful bay of clear turquoise water, postcard colors, sandy stretches, and surrounding rock formations. I knew crowds gathered here all day, but it was still a must place to visit. Even in early June, the lagoon was far from quiet.

The Blue Lagoon was packed with tourists, but its crystal-clear water and bright colors still made it feel wonderful.

I swam through the crystal-clear water to the rocky side of the lagoon. The water felt refreshing, people were everywhere, and boats anchored just beyond the buoys. With palm trees instead of bare rocks and limestone, the place could have been somewhere in the Caribbean.

Gozo Island is a smaller, quieter, and more relaxed island than its bigger neighbor, offering some exciting things to do. We crossed five kilometers gap between the islands on a ferry and circle the island anti-clock directions by car. We visited several interesting spots, swam in a quiet bay, and drove back to Valletta in the evening.

The first stop was the still-active salt pans outside Marsalforn in northern Gozo. About 300 pans are operated by eight families harvesting sea salt. Production takes place in summer, from May to September, and some pans date back to Roman times or earlier.

They are shallow, flat holes cut into soft limestone, filled naturally by storms and waves or manually with buckets of seawater. The sun evaporates the water, leaving salt behind. This simple, centuries-old process remains completely natural.

Dwejra, one of Gozo’s highlights, features stunning coastal formations and dramatic cliffs. It offered a beautiful sunset, the perfect ending to a day trip on the island. Even without the Azure Window, which collapsed in 2017, the scenery remains stunning and worth exploring. The area still offers dramatic coastal formations and rugged beauty.

The famous Azure Window was a limestone arch in Dwejra Bay, near the Inland Sea and Fungus Rock. It was one of Malta’s main attractions until it collapsed in a storm on 8 March 2017, leaving nothing visible above the water.

Malta’s rich heritage is shaped by Carthaginians, Romans, and Byzantines, with lasting traces across the islands. The Arabs influenced the Maltese language, Napoleon ruled briefly, and the British governed until independence in 1964.

Today, Malta is a perfect holiday destination in the Mediterranean Sea, offering clean sea, a balance between nature, historic sites and comfort with good facilities. Air connections with mainland Europe are good and inexpensive, people treat tourists well, food is delicious, and prices are reasonable.

During my Malta travel adventure, I felt it was less affected by mass tourism than many other top European summer destinations.