Mdina ('The Silent City'), Rabat Catacombs & Dingli Cliffs Day Trip from Valletta

Twelve kilometres west of Valletta, perched atop a 200-metre limestone plateau at the geographic centre of Malta, stands the island's ancient walled capital: Mdina (L-Imdina), known as Città Notabile and "The Silent City". Fortified by the Phoenicians around 700 BCE, expanded into the Roman municipium of Melite (where tradition holds that the shipwrecked Apostle Paul converted the Roman governor Publius in 60 CE). Given its current moated footprint and name during the Arab period (870 to 1091), Mdina lost its status as capital when the Knights built Birgu and Valletta by the sea. That move left behind a whisper-quiet time capsule of Siculo-Norman and Baroque palaces inhabited today by fewer than 250 residents. Pair this day trip with our Valletta bus hub guide.

01How to Get from Valletta to Mdina & Rabat in 30 Minutes

Reaching Mdina from Valletta is effortless and inexpensive:

• By Direct Tallinja Bus (Routes 51, 52, 53, or 56 , €2.00 to €2.50, 28 to 35 minutes). Walk out of Valletta's City Gate to Bay C at the Valletta Bus Terminus beside the Triton Fountain. Buses 51, 52, and 53 depart every 10 to 15 minutes throughout the day and drop you at the Rabat / Mdina Interchange right beside the Howard Gardens moat and sixty metres from Mdina's main gate.
• By Bolt, Uber, or eCabs (~€13.00 to €16.00 one-way, 20 minutes). Ideal if travelling as a pair or returning to Valletta after a late dinner inside Mdina's floodlit walls.

02Walking Route Inside Mdina: Vilhena Gate, St Paul's Cathedral & Palazzo Falson

Cross the stone bridge over the grassy dry moat (now a sunken garden) and pass through the 1724 Baroque Mdina Main Gate, designed by French engineer Charles François de Mondion. The portal is immediately recognisable to television fans as the King's Landing gate from Season 1 of Game of Thrones. Immediately to your right inside the gate sits the courtyard of the Palazzo Magisteriale (Vilhena Palace), housing Malta's National Museum of Natural History (€5.00).

Follow the main artery of Villegaignon Street (Triq Villegaignon) into the heart of the city. Only residents' cars, wedding vehicles, and ambulances are permitted inside the walls, and carved wooden signs remind visitors to speak softly. Stop at three essential landmarks:

1. St Paul's Cathedral and the Cathedral Museum (€10.00 combined adult ticket as of November 2026; buy your ticket inside the Cathedral Museum on Archbishop's Square first!). After a catastrophic earthquake in 1693 levelled Mdina's medieval Norman cathedral, Maltese architect Lorenzo Gafà built this twin-bell-towered Baroque masterpiece between 1696 and 1702. Inside, it preserves Mattia Preti's striking apse fresco of St Paul's Shipwreck on Malta that survived the quake. Like St John's in Valletta, its floor is paved with inlaid marble tombstones, while the adjacent Cathedral Museum holds a rare collection of original 16th-century woodcuts and copper engravings by Albrecht Dürer.
2. Palazzo Falson Historic House Museum (€10.00 adult). Dating back to 1290 with 15th-century mullioned double windows (bifora), this two-storey medieval palace was restored in the 1920s by Captain Olof Gollcher. Today it displays Oriental carpets, medieval armour, and 17th-century paintings.
3. Bastion Square and Fontanella Tea Garden. At the northern tip of the walls, Bastion Square looks down over the entire eastern plain of Malta all the way to the Mosta Rotunda dome and Valletta's harbours. Sit on the upper rampart terrace at Fontanella Tea Garden for a slice of their famous rich chocolate layer cake (~€4.80) and coffee.

03Rabat: St Paul's Catacombs, St Agatha's Crypt, and Serkin's Pastizzi

Exit Mdina through the Main Gate or Greeks Gate and cross the street into Rabat . Its name comes from the Arabic word for suburb, as Rabat formed the outer half of Roman Melite. Walk eight minutes down St Agatha Street to St Paul's Catacombs (€6.00 adult or Heritage Malta Pass as of November 2026), an extraordinary subterranean labyrinth of . It spans more than twenty interconnected Roman-period burial complexes used from the 3rd to the 8th centuries CE. Descending into the cool rock tunnels reveals carved canopy tombs (baldachins), narrow wall niches (loculi), and circular stone agape tables sculpted out of the bedrock for funeral banquets.

Before catching your bus back to Valletta, or riding Bus 56 / 201 ten minutes further southwest to watch the sunset from the 253-metre-high sea precipices of the Dingli Cliffs, stop at Malta's most famous bakery. Is-Serkin (Crystal Palace Bar) sits beside the Rabat bus park (Triq San Pawl), and stays open almost 24 hours a day. Join the queue for piping-hot, flaky diamond-shaped ricotta and mushy-pea pastizzi for €0.60 each together with sweet tea served in a small glass with condensed milk (te fit-tazza).