Today was our last full day in Malta and our last for this beautiful weather; our next stop is London and it’s going to be about 20° cooler. The most enormous cruise ship snuck in early this morning, so silently and effortlessly, and it seemed the harbour wouldn’t be big enough to accommodate the vessel. We’d watched them come in all week and they do so very quickly and seem to be able to turn on a dime followed by a quick reverse park; it’s amazing to watch.

Our plan for the day was to catch the water taxi across to the Three Cities to explore the area but we managed to get a morning walk in before hand, and many more photos of the huge cruise liner.

We took a traditional water taxi, from just below our apartment, across the harbour to Vittoriosa. This area was renamed from the previous ‘Birgu’ after the Kinghts were successful in the Great Siege of 1565 against the Arabs. The majority of interesting sights to see within the Three Cities are found within Birgu; the imposing Fort St Angelo, the Inquisitor’s Palace, St Lawrence Church, the Maritime Museum and the Malta at War Museum and World War II Bomb Shelter.

Our first stop was at Fort St Angelo, the imposing structure on the headland off the Great Harbour facing Valletta. The fortress was originally built during the Medieval period as a castle but was rebuilt by the Knights of Saint John as a fortress between the 1530s and the 1560s and named Fort Saint Angelo. It is best known for its role as the Knight’s headquarters during the Great Siege of Malta of 1565 and the top level is still inhabited by one of the Knights. It was interesting to note that the Fort has only been open to the public since 2015. We spent about an hour or so rambling through the ancient fort before heading to the Inquisitor’s Palace.

The Inquisitor’s Palace was built over Medieval remains in the 1530s by the Knights of St John of Malta to host the civil law courts of the Order. It wasn’t until 1574 that that the first inquisitor arrived to take up residence in the palace and these Roman Inquisitions lasted until  the French arrived in 1798. The building has been open to the public since 1966 and a museum since 1995. We noted claims that torture was rarely used but we did wonder if they were trying to white-wash themselves a bit.

It was around 12.30 by the time we left the Inquisitor’s Palace and we went on to have lunch and roam the narrow winding back streets of Birgu when we realized just how quiet the area is; we were glad we were staying over in Valletta. Whilst we were at lunch we’d noticed a small tourist train doing the rounds and found out that this did a 35 minute tour through the Three Cities. We decided to take this train after lunch as a way of exploring the other two cities, Bormla and Senglea, as they were too large for us to cover adequately by foot in the time we had remaining and this proved to be a good use of time. After that, it was back home via the water taxi, to sort our luggage in preparation for our departure the next day, and then to head on to dinner for our last night in Valletta. We had booked a different restaurant for our last night, Tap Room, and it was great; the first time we’d had decent serve of vegetables since we’d left Sydney. This is another restaurant I’d recommend if you’re ever in Valletta, Malta.