Other must-see sights include the Grand Master’s Palace, the sumptuous residence of the Knights of St. St John’s is home to Caravaggio’s biggest and only signed painting, The Beheading of St. Highlights include the magnificent St John’s Co-Cathedral – so-called because it shares, along with the similarly baroque St Paul’s Cathedral in Mdina, the official seat of the Archbishop of Malta. ![]() The city is an ideal place to explore by a walking tour. Fearing Turkish invasion, the Knights quickly built fortified walls around the city.Įven today, Valletta’s buildings are primarily Baroque, with streets lined by grand palazzi and evocative statues. Each street was lined with buildings of a certain height, to provide protection from the sun, and designed to let in cooling sea breezes. Valletta’s planner, Francesco Laparelli, ignored the traditions of previous Maltese cities, and designed Valletta on a rectangular grid, with wide, linear, streets. And so they commissioned Europe’s first planned city. The Knights wanted an ultra-modern city in order to project their newfound power over Malta. John in Malta in the 16th century, the islands population centre had been the walled city of Mdina and the adjoining city of Rabat. In fact, it is Malta’s newest city – constructed in the 16th century, a relative newcomer. With its dusty golden hues, Valletta seems like it’s been there for eternity. Set on a striking peninsula overlooking Malta’s Grand Harbour, each of Valletta’s palazzi lined streets ends at the Mediterranean Sea. Only 1 kilometre by 600 metres, it packs in so much history and culture that when it was made a UNESCO World Heritage Site, UNESCO described it as ‘one of the most concentrated historic areas in the world’. Few European cities capture the imagination quite like Valletta, the evocative golden capital of Malta.
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