Best Things to Do in Valletta: Caravaggio, Grand Harbour, Knights' Palaces & Boats

Behind the austere military bastions built by the Knights Hospitaller after 1566 lies a city of astonishing theatrical wealth. The eight aristocratic Langues (tongues or national divisions) of the Order of St John competed fiercely to outshine one another in architecture and art. As a result, a ten-minute walk in Valletta takes you from Caravaggio's largest canvas to a 5,000-suit armoury, an underground World War II fighter-command bunker, and Europe's most striking fortified harbour. Pair this top-ten list with our Valletta travel guide and our 3-day Valletta itinerary.

01Stand before Caravaggio's masterpiece inside St John's Co-Cathedral

Designed in the 1570s by Maltese military architect Girolamo Cassar, the exterior of St John's Co-Cathedral looks deliberately like a plain limestone fort. Stepping across the threshold (€15.00 adult as of November 2026) reveals one of the most dazzling High Baroque interiors in Christendom, sculpted and gilded over thirty years by Mattia Preti. The entire floor is paved with 405 polychrome inlaid marble tombstones covering the aristocratic Knights of the Order, decorated with skeletons, coats of arms, and naval galleys.

Inside the adjacent Oratory hangs the single greatest work of art in Malta: Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio's 1608 The Beheading of Saint John the Baptist (measuring 3.61 by 5.20 metres). Painted during Caravaggio's striking fifteen months in Malta after fleeing a murder charge in Rome, it is the largest canvas Caravaggio ever painted and the only work he ever signed, tracing the words "f. Michelang.o" in the red blood spilling from the Baptist's neck.

02Watch the 12:00 Noon Day Gun from Upper Barrakka Gardens

Perched atop the highest tier of the St Peter and Paul Bastion at the southern corner of the city, the Upper Barrakka Gardens (originally built in 1661 as the private exercise arcade of the Italian Knights). Today the terrace commands a sweeping panoramic view across the blue expanse of the Grand Harbour toward Fort St Angelo and the Three Cities. Every day at 12:00 noon and 16:00 sharp, uniformed artillerymen of Fondazzjoni Wirt Artna load and fire a historic 32-pounder cannon on the Saluting Battery platform directly below. The shot originally marked noon time for ships in the harbour. Watching from the Upper Barrakka stone arcade is completely free, provided you claim a railing spot by 11:35.

03Cross the Grand Harbour in a wooden dgħajsa to the Three Cities

Ride the Upper Barrakka Lift down to Lascaris Wharf and walk past the modern catamaran ferry to the low stone steps. Here traditional painted wooden Maltese water taxis, called dgħajsa tal-pass (pronounced "die-sa"), bob in the water. For just €3.00 per person in cash (as of November 2026, departing as soon as 4 to 6 passengers step aboard), a local boatman motors you across the Grand Harbour in ten minutes. You land directly in the superyacht creek of Vittoriosa (Birgu), the original 1530 headquarters of the Knights of St John and site of the 1565 Great Siege.

04Tour the restored Grand Master's Palace, Casa Rocca Piccola, and Fort St Elmo

In the centre of St George's Square stands the Grand Master's Palace (€12.00 as of November 2026), newly reopened after a multi-year restoration of its frescoed Supreme Council Chamber, and Gobelins tapestries. Its ticket also includes the Palace Armoury, housing steel breastplates, Ottoman shields, and Grand Master La Valette's ceremonial parade armour. Two blocks northeast at Republic Street 74, join a live 45-minute guided tour of Casa Rocca Piccola (€9.50 adult), a 16th-century palazzo still lived in by the 9th Marquis de Piro. Inside you see ancestral portraits, a walled citrus garden, and a deep rock-cut World War II family air-raid shelter.

At the wind-swept tip of the peninsula stands star-shaped Fort St Elmo and the National War Museum (€10.00 adult), where interactive galleries trace 7,000 years of Maltese defence from the 31-day stand of 1565. Modern galleries display the Gloster Sea Gladiator biplane "Faith" and the original silver George Cross awarded to the people of Malta by King George VI in April 1942.

05Walk the Lower Barrakka, Siege Bell Memorial, and Strait Street at dusk

In the late afternoon, follow the eastern bastion rim from Fort St Elmo up to the Doric neoclassical temple of the Lower Barrakka Gardens (free entry) and the adjacent Siege Bell War Memorial. Its ten-tonne bronze bell tolls every day at noon in memory of the 7,000 soldiers, sailors, and civilians killed during the 1940 to 1943 siege. After sunset, stroll down the narrow limestone canyon of Strait Street (Triq id-Dejqa), known to generations of Royal Navy sailors as "The Gut". Today the lane is revived with intimate wine bars, jazz doorways, and cocktail lounges beneath vintage painted pub signs.

06Look Inside the National Museum of Archaeology

Housed inside the 1571 Auberge de Provence on Republic Street (€5.00 adult or included in the Heritage Malta Pass as of November 2026), the National Museum of Archaeology holds the original 5,000-year-old limestone sculptures excavated from Malta's UNESCO megalithic temples. Even if you only have 45 minutes, step inside to see the palm-sized terracotta Sleeping Lady found inside the Ħal Saflieni Hypogeum and the voluptuous limestone Venus of Malta from Ħaġar Qim.

After 18:30 when day-trippers depart the peninsula, the stepped lanes of St Ursula Street, Strait Street, and St Barbara Bastion turn wonderfully calm under warm amber streetlamps.