Valletta Travel Forum

We will be in docking in Valletta for 7 hours. Will have about 5 hours to see the best available. Friends want to take the 3 cities & a Maltese 'Dghajsas' boat ride. The cities are Senglea, Vittoriosa, & Marsaxlokk. Is this a very good tour?

I would like to see more of Valletta & Marsaxlokk. Tell me about Vallett, Best way to get around and what is the cost of transportation around town and over the marsaxlokk.

Remember it is First Week Of December. Please help with experiences and suggestions.

Thank You

Steve

The 'three cities' are actually Senglea, Cospicua and Vittoriosa. They are 'next door' to Valletta.

Marsaxlokk is a fishing village to the south of the island.

With only 5 hours you would do better to take a tour if you want to see more of the island. Marsaxlokk is around 30 minutes drive from Vallatta centre.

You won't need transport to get around Valletta itself: it is a small place and very walkable.

To get to anywhere else, use the magnificent Malta buses. These run from the bus station just outside the Valletta city wall and are both frequent and reasonably-priced.

If you don't want to take a tour then I suggest you spend the time exploring Valletta, maybe including a short bus ride to one or two of the 'three cities'. I don't think you will have time to see Valletta and take the bus to Marsaxlokk (or Mdina/Rabat, which would be my preference), unless you hire a taxi.

If time allows, you can catch the regular (30 mins?) ferry across to Sliema where they do frequent "Hrand Harbour Cruises" where you get to see a lot of the city from the water as well as a guided commentary which takes-in some of the harbour fronts of the three cities. I heard that only Vittoriosa was worth a trip-to but best if you research the three cities yourself. Vittoriosa was very interesting though - a couple of museums there may be of interest to you. http://www.agius.com/birgu/index.htm
Marsaxlokk is pretty but not much else there - IMO I would take-in Mdina and Rabat instead if possible.

Agree about Marsaxlokk. Pretty, but Mdina is a better place to visit if you want to travel outside Valletta/the three cities.

Given that you are going in Dec which is very low season I'd entirely agree with Tango - visit Rabat/Medina which are interesting as is Valletta. Do have a coffee in Cafe Cordina whilst in Valletta with its mirroed walls and beautiful decor

Malta is a very popular December/Christmas destination for UK visitors, so you will not find the place deserted and everything shut. :-)

I agree. Skip Marsaxlokk. It's just a fishing village, so the biggest highlight is the fish market which is only there in the morning (and not everyday either). So unless you're planning on buying some fish it's not really worth going. There are nicer things to see.

Valletta has plenty of places to visit - lots of shops for shopping if you're interested (although might be quite busy due to Christmas season), museums, St John's Co-Cathedral, The Malta experience (a movie about the history of malta - very interesting - about 30-45mins long) and plenty of restaurants.

Mdina is the old capital city of Malta - also known as the silent city as no cars (other than of residents) are allowed to enter so you can only go in on foot. Again there is the Cathedral to visit and plenty of souvenir shops and some other audiovisual places and museums to visit. Just outside Mdina is Rabat which also has other interesting places such as the Roman Villa, Catacombs, etc. There is also a trackless train ride you can get which was introduced recently. It leaves from near the Roman villa and goes to Mgarr and back. It's 25-30mins long. Everyone who's been on it has given it lots of praise - and its a cool looking train to ride on! :) check out their website for more info - http://www.melitatrains.com/home_en.htm

If you want other information you can also check out - visitmalta.com which has plenty of useful information. I hope this helps...if you have any other questions just ask! enjoy your trip.

p.s. it can get quite chilly in december here mostly due to cold winds and the humidity! So get layers!