Valletta

Valletta exists because of the Great Siege of 1565. When the Knights Hospitaller and the Maltese held out against the Ottoman invasion, Grand Master Jean Parisot de Valette resolved to build a fortified city on the bare Sciberras peninsula between the two harbours, and laid its foundation stone on 28 March 1566. He died in 1568 without seeing it finished. The streets were planned wide and straight, running from the land gate to the rebuilt Fort St Elmo at the tip, and the city was mostly complete by the early 1570s; on 18 March 1571 Grand Master Pierre de Monte moved his seat from Fort St Angelo in Birgu, and Valletta became the capital. Seven auberges were built for the Order's national langues by the 1580s.

The Knights went on improving their city. The Manoel Theatre went up in ten months in 1731, the Floriana Lines were added outside the walls, and under Grand Master Pinto many buildings, the Auberge de Castille among them, were remodelled in Baroque style. The French expelled the Order in 1798, and after a Maltese revolt their garrison in Valletta capitulated to the British in September 1800. British rule brought new buildings, a railway to Mdina that ran from 1883 to 1931, and the Royal Opera House.

The Second World War left deep scars: the opera house was destroyed by bombing in 1942. UNESCO listed the city as a World Heritage Site in 1980, and the City Gate project by Renzo Piano, completed between 2011 and 2015, gave Valletta a new gate, a new Parliament House and an open-air theatre in the opera house ruins. In 2018 the city was a European Capital of Culture.

Valletta is often called an open-air museum: its 320 monuments are packed into about half a square kilometre, one of the most concentrated historic areas in the world. Benjamin Disraeli, visiting in 1830, called it "a city of palaces built by gentlemen for gentlemen". That inheritance is lived in as well as admired. The Manoel Theatre is the home of the Malta Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Valletta International Baroque Festival is held every January. Jazz first reached Malta through Strait Street, the sailors' quarter of both world wars.

The city is the main stage of the Maltese Carnival in February, a tradition of floats, costumes and masked balls dating back centuries. Its history has a darker side too: in 1823 a crush during the carnival killed at least 110 boys. Parish life remains strong. The feast of St Dominic is celebrated on or before 4 August and that of St Augustine on the third Sunday after Easter, each with its own celebrations.

Neighbourhood loyalties run along old lines that appear on no map — the Arċipierku near the old hospital, the Baviera around the English Curtain, Manderaggio on the Marsamxett side — and the city has boċċi clubs on both the Marsamxett and Arċipierku sides. Rowers from Marsamxett compete in the traditional regatta on Victory Day, 8 September, and a water polo club comes from the Marsamxett side.

About 5,200 people lived in Valletta in 2024, a small population for a capital, while many more come in each day to work. The city is the seat of the state: the Office of the President is in the Grandmaster's Palace, the Prime Minister's office in the Auberge de Castille, and Parliament in its new building by City Gate, with the law courts on Republic Street. It is also a commercial centre for shopping, bars, dining and café life.

Malta's buses run mostly to or from Valletta, so the terminus outside the gate is the hub of the island's bus network. A congestion charge introduced in 2007 aims to reduce long-term parking and traffic in the city. Inside the walls the rhythm changes through the day: office workers and tour groups in the morning, a quieter afternoon, and evenings when the bars of Strait Street and the restaurants along the waterfront fill.

The residential quarters on the slopes towards the harbours are quieter, and their old loyalties live on in the local boċċi clubs, the water polo club and the parish feasts.

The everyday food of Valletta is the pastizz, a savoury pastry filled with ricotta (tal-irkotta) or curried peas (tal-piżelli), sold from small shops on almost every corner and eaten at any hour, late at night included. Maltese bread, a crusty sourdough loaf usually baked in wood ovens, is the base of ħobż biż-żejt: bread rubbed with tomato or tomato paste, drizzled with olive oil and filled with tuna, olives, capers, onion, bigilla or ġbejna, the small Gozitan cheese.

At the table, stuffat tal-fenek, stewed rabbit, is often identified as the national dish, and aljotta is a fish broth with garlic, herbs and tomatoes. Lent brings its own dishes, from fish such as lampuki to stuffed artichokes, qaqoċċ mimli, and fritters of ġbejna and vegetables, and other seasons have their own sweets, such as the figolla and the prinjolata.

To drink there is Kinnie, the bittersweet brown soft drink made from bitter oranges and extracts of wormwood, introduced in 1952 by the Farsons brewery and often called the national soft drink; it is drunk on its own or mixed with alcohol. Restaurants cluster on the Valletta Waterfront and in the side streets, and Strait Street has wine bars.