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My one and only previous trip to Valletta, the capital of Malta, had been for the Notte Bianca Festival back in October, where I had shared the city with about 12 billion other people (see October blog post), so I had been meaning to return when it was quieter to have another look around. Figuring that a Tuesday in January was about as off-peak as I was likely to get, off I went.
It's a six hour round trip from here to Valletta and back, so not one I shall be doing terribly often. I like Valletta though, very much. It was built after the repelling of the Ottoman invasion in 1565, on a slim peninsula to the northeast of Malta. Occupying less than a third of a square mile, it's a UNESCO World Heritage Site and positively crammed with history.
It's a six hour round trip from here to Valletta and back, so not one I shall be doing terribly often. I like Valletta though, very much. It was built after the repelling of the Ottoman invasion in 1565, on a slim peninsula to the northeast of Malta. Occupying less than a third of a square mile, it's a UNESCO World Heritage Site and positively crammed with history.
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Palaces and churches are everywhere, majestic with their Baroque architecture. There are forts and watchtowers, wide open piazzas and narrow intimate streets, museums, gardens, statues, fountains. Valletta has a pleasing worn and weathered feel about it, partly due to the age and history of it and also that the limestone of which it's built takes on a 'honeycomb' appearance over time. The surrounding water and the sunshine gives the whole place a cream-coloured glow. Disraeli remarked that 'Valletta equals in its noble architecture, if it does not excel, any capital in Europe'. Quite so.