The Mediterranean
Malta
Three inhabited islands of limestone, holding temples older than the pyramids and a city built by knights.
Malta is 316 square kilometres, the most densely populated country in the EU, and has been fought over by everyone with a navy since the Bronze Age. Its megalithic temples predate Stonehenge and Giza. Valletta was built from scratch in the 1560s as a fortress city and is still walkable in twenty minutes. English is an official language, which makes it unusually easy going.
Getting around
Buses reach everywhere slowly and cheaply from Valletta. Ferries link Valletta, Sliema and the Three Cities, and Ċirkewwa to Gozo. Distances are tiny; traffic is not.
When to come
July and August are very hot and very full. Spring is green and brief — the island is brown by June. Winter is mild, swimmable on warm days, and almost empty.
Worth knowing
- Driving is on the left, a British legacy along with the letterboxes.
- The temples require timed tickets and Ħaġar Qim is roofed for protection.
- Swimming is off rocks and platforms more often than sand; the Blue Lagoon is beautiful and mobbed.
At the table
- Rabbit stew (fenkata), the national meal, eaten in company
- Pastizzi — flaky pastry with ricotta or peas, from a hole in the wall
- Ftira: sourdough with tuna, capers and tomato, and a UNESCO listing
Travel regions
2 editorial regions, each opening onto its cities.
Popular destinations
The destinations we have written most about, which is not the same as the ones most people go to — and is the only ranking we can honestly compute.
Valletta
A planned fortress city of 1566, on a peninsula between two harbours, with Caravaggio's largest painting in its cathedral.
Victoria, Gozo
A citadel town in the middle of an island where the pace drops noticeably the moment the ferry docks.
Mdina & Rabat
The old walled capital on a hill, with about 250 residents and no traffic — called the silent city for a reason.
Ħaġar Qim & the South Cliffs
Megalithic temples on a cliff over the sea, built between 3600 and 3200 BC.
Experiences here
A sample of what is listed across Malta.
The Journey Planner holds all 4 of these destinations and the real distances between them. It opens on 6 days, which is the shortest stay this atlas records for each of them added up — change the length, the month, the budget or the pace and build it again.
Fixed points in the year
The record
What we hold about Malta, where each figure came from, and when it was last checked. The score says what this country is for, not how good it is — it is useful once you are already interested and is not a reason to be.
- Capital
- Valletta
- Currency
- EUR — euro
- Languages
- Maltese, English
- Population
- 502,653 (2019) — Natural Earth 1:50m admin 0 countries
- ISO codes
- MT · MLT
- Time zone
- CET/CEST (UTC+1/+2)
- Membership
- European Union, Schengen area, Uses the euro, European Economic Area
- Typical day
- €60–145 per person
- Best months
- May, June, September, October
- Quieter months
- April, November
- Facts checked
- not verified why this matters
Europe Experience Score
How this is calculated — derived from our own tagging, not from measurement. It says what a place is for, not how good it is. The tick on each bar is the median across the whole Atlas, so a bar short of it is a dimension this place is not for.