Valletta Travel Guide for Women: Everything You Need to Know

Valletta covers about 0.8 square kilometres and houses roughly 5,700 people, which makes it one of the smallest capital cities in the world and, in its entirety, a UNESCO World Heritage site. It was built from nothing after 1566, in the aftermath of the Great Siege, in which several hundred Knights of St John and a few thousand Maltese held out against an Ottoman army for four months and won.

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The Knights then decided they needed a proper fortress, and built one on the Sciberras peninsula between the Grand Harbour and Marsamxett Harbour, on a grid, which was an advanced idea for the 1560s. The founding grandmaster, Jean Parisot de Valette, described the intention as a city built by gentlemen for gentlemen, and Malta's tourist literature has been quoting it ever since.

Everything is built from the same honey-coloured limestone, which is soft enough to carve and hardens on exposure, and which gives the whole island a single unified colour.

Two practical facts define a visit. Valletta is a city of staircases: the peninsula rises steeply from both harbours and the cross-streets are stepped rather than sloped, reportedly built shallow so armoured knights could manage them. And Malta is an English-speaking country, with English and Maltese both official, which combined with low crime and a compact geography makes this one of the best first solo destinations in Europe.

This guide covers safety, seasons, the city and the islands, transport, costs, accommodation and the packing list.

Is Valletta Safe for Women Travelers

Malta is among the safest countries in Europe and Valletta is a very easy city for a woman travelling alone. Violent crime is low, the centre is small and populated in the evening, English is an official language so there is no communication barrier at all, and buses and ferries are safe and straightforward at any hour they run.

The risks here are physical rather than criminal.

Limestone steps. The leading cause of visitor injury. Valletta's stepped streets, Mdina's lanes and Birgu's slopes are worn limestone that becomes genuinely slippery when polished by foot traffic or wet with winter rain. Flat shoes with grip are a safety decision.

Swimming entries. Malta has very little sand. Most swimming is off rock, often with a ladder, into water that is deep close in. The rock is sharp, and lifeguards exist only at the main sandy bays in season.

Traffic. Maltese driving is fast, roads are narrow, pavements are frequently absent, and they drive on the left, which catches out continental European visitors stepping off a kerb.

Wind and ferries. The Gozo and Comino crossings are suspended in high winds, which is common in winter with the northeasterly grigal, and can strand a day trip.

Heat. July and August at 30 to 35 degrees with high humidity and radiating limestone, and very little shade on the bastions or at the temple sites.

The one district worth a note

St Julian's and Paceville, fifteen minutes from Valletta, form Malta's nightlife quarter, with the usual late-night drinking, pushy club promoters and periodic drink-spiking reports. It is where a large share of the island's incidents occur, and it is entirely avoidable: Valletta's own evening scene on Strait Street is calmer, more local and more pleasant.

Emergency numbers: 112 for all emergencies, 196 ambulance direct, 199 fire. Malta operates a Community and Tourism Police unit with a presence in Valletta, Sliema and St Julian's, and officers speak English as standard.

Best Time to Visit Valletta

April to June

The best window. 18 to 28 degrees, dry, the island green from the winter rain and covered in wildflowers in April, the sea warm enough to swim from late May, and Comino and the temples manageable. This is also when walking Valletta's steps is a pleasure rather than a trial.

September and October

Equally good. The sea is at its warmest after the summer, the crowds thin sharply after the first week of September, and the light is excellent. October brings the first rain, usually as short heavy bursts.

July and August

30 to 35 degrees, humid, and busy. The island's population effectively doubles, the Blue Lagoon becomes one of the most crowded places in the Mediterranean, and cruise ships bring large groups into Valletta mid-morning. Sea temperatures are at their best. If you come now, do everything before ten and after five.

November to March

12 to 19 degrees, damp, windy and green, with most of the year's rain falling in short heavy spells. Swimming is for the hardy. Everything in Valletta is open, the city is quiet and local, and this is the best season for the museums, the churches and walking the fortifications. Carnival in February and Holy Week processions are genuinely major events. Ferries to Gozo and Comino are less reliable in wind.

Recommended Tours and Experiences

Top Regions and What Each One Requires

Valletta itself

St John's Co-Cathedral is the reason to come. An austere, almost military exterior conceals one of the great high baroque interiors in Europe: every surface carved and gilded, Mattia Preti's vault paintings, eight side chapels belonging to the national langues of the Order and competing in magnificence, and a floor of around 400 inlaid marble tombstones of knights.

In the Oratory hangs Caravaggio's The Beheading of Saint John the Baptist, painted in 1608: his largest canvas at roughly 3.7 by 5.2 meters and the only work he ever signed, signed in the blood from the Baptist's throat. Caravaggio had fled Rome after killing a man, was admitted to the Order as a knight, was imprisoned in Fort St Angelo after another violent incident, escaped, and was expelled in absentia as a "foul and rotten member". The painting remained, in the room it was made for, lit by the daylight he composed for. His Saint Jerome Writing hangs beside it.

Go at opening. The Oratory is small, cruise groups arrive mid-morning, and at eleven you will view it over shoulders. At opening you may have fifteen minutes with it alone. Entry around 15 euros with a good audio guide, closed Sundays and during services. Shoulders and knees covered, and no stiletto or narrow heels, which are banned to protect the marble tombs and which do get visitors turned away. No photography in the Oratory.

Also in the city: the Grandmaster's Palace, the National Museum of Archaeology holding the prehistoric temple finds including the Sleeping Lady, the Upper Barrakka Gardens with the Saluting Battery firing at noon and four, Fort St Elmo and the war museum, the modern City Gate and Parliament by Renzo Piano, and Strait Street, once the Mediterranean fleet's red-light lane and now the city's bar quarter.

Terrain: a grid on a steep peninsula, with stepped cross-streets. The Barrakka Lift from the waterfront saves the worst climb for a euro.

Pack: flat shoes with grip, covered shoulders for the churches, a hat, and a windproof layer for the bastions.

The Three Cities, across the Grand Harbour

Take the ferry, not the bus. The Valletta to Birgu crossing takes ten minutes and costs about two euros, and it shows you the thing itself: bastions rising sheer from the water, Fort St Angelo opposite, the creeks full of boats, and the Knights' entire defensive system laid out as designed. A bus goes around the harbour head and shows you none of it.

Birgu, or Vittoriosa, Bormla and Isla, or Senglea, are older than Valletta and are where the Knights first settled and where the Great Siege was actually fought. Birgu's lanes are quieter and more residential than Valletta's, with the Inquisitor's Palace, Fort St Angelo, and a superyacht marina sitting oddly beneath medieval walls. Senglea's Gardjola watchtower, carved with an eye and an ear for vigilance, gives the best view back at Valletta.

Pack: the same shoes, since Birgu is steep, and a layer for the windy crossing.

Mdina and the centre

Mdina was the island's capital before Valletta: a fortified hill town inhabited for 4,000 years, walled by the Arabs who named it, with about 250 residents inside the walls and cars almost entirely excluded. It is called the Silent City.

Go at dusk. It takes very large numbers of day visitors between ten and five and empties in the evening, when the lamps come on, the limestone turns gold and then blue, and the lanes become genuinely silent. It is the best hour on the island. The cathedral has another inlaid marble tomb floor and two Preti works, the bastion viewpoint looks across half of Malta to the sea, and Rabat outside the gate holds St Paul's Catacombs and most of the local life.

Pack: sensible shoes for uneven dimly lit lanes, cathedral covering, and a layer, since the hill is cooler and windier than the coast.

The prehistoric temples

Malta's megalithic temples are older than Stonehenge and the pyramids, among the oldest free-standing stone structures on earth.

The Hypogeum of Ħal Saflieni is the extraordinary one: a subterranean burial complex cut into rock, admitting only a handful of visitors a day in timed groups to protect its microclimate. Tickets sell out weeks in advance and must be booked before anything else in your trip.

Ħaġar Qim and Mnajdra sit together on an exposed south-coast clifftop with no shade at all, and Ġgantija is on Gozo. Tarxien is in the suburbs and easy to reach.

Pack: hat, water, sunscreen. These sites are fully exposed and there is nowhere to shelter.

Comino and the Blue Lagoon

Comino has a permanent population in single figures, and the Blue Lagoon is a shallow channel between it and a rocky islet where the water is an improbable turquoise over white sand.

In July and August it is among the most crowded places in the Mediterranean, with thousands of day visitors and boats moored across the channel. Take the first ferry of the day from Ċirkewwa, a 25-minute crossing, and arrive before nine for an hour or two of it looking like the photographs. Or come in May, June, September or October.

There is essentially no shade and no infrastructure, the rocks at the water's edge are sharp, and walking fifteen minutes to Santa Marija Bay or the Crystal Lagoon escapes the crowd entirely. The public ferry is usually better than the resort "Blue Lagoon trips", which spend more time selling drinks than swimming.

Gozo

Twenty-five minutes by ferry from Ċirkewwa, and greener, slower and more rural than Malta. The Citadel at Victoria, the Ġgantija temples, salt pans cut into the rock at Xwejni, Ramla Bay's red sand, and some of the best diving in the Mediterranean. Worth a night rather than a day trip.

What to Pack for Valletta: Women's Packing List

The full detail is in the Valletta packing list for women. The essentials:

Base layers. Two Roman Trail Women's Merino Wool Base Layers ($49-59) in long sleeve. The long sleeve does three jobs here: it satisfies the cathedral dress codes without a separate shawl, it protects you from sun on unshaded bastions, temple sites and boats, and it handles the swing from a 30-degree afternoon to a windy evening on the water. Merino at 17.5 micron also stays wearable through several days of Mediterranean heat and humidity.

Mid layer. The Columbia Women's Fast Trek II Jacket ($65) for winter, when Malta is 12 to 19 degrees and damp and windy, and for evenings from October to April.

Outer layer. The Marmot Women's PreCip Eco Rain Jacket ($110), which matters less for rain, since Malta is dry, than as the windproof layer on the bastions, the harbour ferry and the Comino crossing, all of which are breezier than the sheltered streets.

Footwear, which matters most. One properly comfortable flat walking shoe with grip, because the stepped streets, Mdina's lanes and Birgu's slopes are worn limestone that gets slippery, and because narrow and stiletto heels are banned at St John's Co-Cathedral to protect the marble tomb floor. Plus ELETON Barefoot Hiking and Water Shoes ($23.99) for the Blue Lagoon and the rock swimming entries, which are sharp across the whole island. The Darn Tough Women's Hiker Micro Crew Merino Socks ($28), two pairs, for the step count.

Sun and sea. A Wide Brim Sun Hat Women UPF 50 ($25) with a chin strap, because Malta is consistently windy and there is no shade on the bastions, at the temples or on Comino. High-factor sunscreen, sunglasses, two swimsuits, a quick-dry towel, and a refillable bottle, since Maltese tap water is desalinated, safe and unpleasant to drink.

Covered clothing and documents. A light scarf or linen shirt for shoulders at every church, and modest clothing in the towns, since beachwear away from the water reads badly in a Catholic country. A European Health Insurance Card or its UK equivalent if you hold one, and travel insurance that covers diving if you intend to dive, which many policies exclude.

Organisation. The Eagle Creek Pack-It Cube Set ($59), which on a short island trip keeps the beach half separate from the city half.

Maltese Food

A genuine cuisine shaped by Sicily, North Africa and 150 years of British rule, and better than the island's reputation suggests.

Pastizzi, the national snack: flaky pastry parcels of ricotta or mushy peas, eaten from a hole-in-the-wall pastizzerija for small change, and the correct Maltese breakfast.

Fenkata, rabbit, which is the national dish, slow-cooked in wine and garlic and traditionally eaten as a communal meal. The eating of rabbit has a political history here as an act of defiance against the Knights, who reserved hunting rights.

Lampuki pie, made with the dorado that runs off Malta between August and December, and aljotta, a garlicky fish soup.

Bragioli, beef olives, and ross il-forn, a baked rice.

Ftira, the flat sourdough loaf, filled with tuna, capers, olives and tomato, and now UNESCO-listed as intangible heritage.

Ġbejniet, small sheep's cheeses, fresh or peppered and dried.

Kinnie, the bitter orange soft drink that Maltese people are genuinely attached to, and Cisk, the local lager. Maltese wine from indigenous Girgentina and Ġellewża grapes is worth trying and rarely leaves the island.

Getting Around

Walking covers Valletta entirely; it is eight hundred meters end to end and largely pedestrianised.

The Barrakka Lift connects the waterfront to the Upper Barrakka Gardens for about a euro and saves a substantial climb.

The harbour ferries run from Valletta to Birgu and to Sliema, both about ten minutes and a couple of euros, and both are better than the equivalent bus in every respect.

Buses are the island's public transport, radiating from the terminus outside Valletta's city gate, and they are free for residents and cheap for visitors, reaching everywhere including Mdina, the temples and Ċirkewwa. They are also slow, crowded in summer and prone to passing full stops, so allow more time than the timetable suggests.

Bolt and eCabs both operate and are inexpensive, which is the practical answer for getting back from Mdina at night.

Ferries to Gozo and Comino leave from Ċirkewwa at the northern tip, roughly an hour from Valletta by bus. A fast ferry also runs directly from Valletta to Gozo.

Hire car: useful for the temples and the west coast, and pointless in Valletta, where parking is impossible. They drive on the left, roads are narrow, and Maltese driving is assertive.

Costs: What to Budget

Malta is mid-priced for Europe, cheaper than Italy for food and accommodation, and dearer than its size suggests in high summer.

Budget, 60 to 90 euros a day: a hostel dorm at 20 to 35 euros, pastizzi and a ftira for lunch at 10 to 15, buses, free churches and viewpoints, one paid site.

Mid-range, 130 to 210 euros a day: a small hotel or guesthouse at 80 to 150 euros, restaurant meals at 35 to 55, ferries and the occasional Bolt, two or three paid sites.

Higher end, 350 euros and up: Valletta's boutique palazzo hotels from 220, tasting menus, private guides, a diving package.

Specific costs: St John's Co-Cathedral around 15 euros, the Grandmaster's Palace around 12, the National Museum of Archaeology around 5, Fort St Elmo around 10, the Hypogeum around 35 and booked weeks ahead, Ħaġar Qim and Mnajdra around 10 together, the Birgu or Sliema ferry around 2 to 3, the Barrakka Lift about 1, the Comino ferry around 13 return, the Gozo ferry around 5 return as a foot passenger, a pastizz under a euro, a fenkata 20 to 30 a head.

Money: the euro. Cards are accepted almost everywhere including buses, contactless is universal, and ATMs are plentiful. Tipping: 5 to 10 percent for good service, and not obligatory. Site opening times, Hypogeum tickets and ferry schedules are at visitmalta.com.

Where to Stay: Hostels, Guesthouses and Hotels for Women

Valletta itself is the best base and has changed enormously in the last decade, with a wave of small palazzo conversions and boutique hotels in seventeenth and eighteenth-century townhouses. You are walking distance from everything, the city is quiet and local in the evening, and the ferries leave from below it. The trade-off is steep stairs and no lifts in many old buildings, plus limited vehicle access.

Sliema, ten minutes by ferry across Marsamxett Harbour, has the larger hotels, a seafront promenade and the best view back at Valletta, at lower prices. A good practical choice.

Birgu and the Three Cities are the quiet, atmospheric alternative: fewer visitors, residential lanes, and the ferry into Valletta in ten minutes.

Mdina and Rabat for a night or two of the Silent City after the day visitors leave, which is a genuinely different experience of Malta.

St Julian's and Paceville is where the nightlife and many of the package hotels are, and the one area worth avoiding if you want a calm trip.

Hostels: Malta has a good hostel scene, concentrated in Sliema and St Julian's with a few in Valletta, most with female dorms and organised trips to Comino and Gozo.

What to check as a woman travelling alone: how many flights of stairs, because Valletta's converted townhouses frequently have four floors and no lift, and you will be carrying a suitcase up a stepped street to reach the door. Whether there is air conditioning, which between June and September is not optional. Whether the room faces Strait Street or another bar lane, which is noisy until late. And whether the property is in Valletta proper rather than Floriana, which is a short walk further out.

Essential Resources for Women in Valletta

Emergency numbers in Malta: 112 is the European emergency line for police, ambulance and fire. 196 reaches the ambulance service directly, 199 the fire service.

Police and tourist assistance: Malta operates a Community and Tourism Police unit with a presence in Valletta, Sliema and St Julian's. Officers speak English as standard, since it is an official language, and reports for insurance can be filed at any district station.

Maritime emergencies: the Armed Forces of Malta run search and rescue, reachable through 112. Gozo and Comino ferries are suspended in high winds, which is common in winter.

US consular services: the US Embassy in Malta is at Ta' Qali near Attard, outside Valletta. Contact details, hours and the after-hours emergency number are at mt.usembassy.gov.

Main hospitals: Mater Dei Hospital at Msida is the main public hospital with a 24-hour emergency department and the largest in the country, with St James Hospital and Da Vinci Hospital as private options. Gozo General Hospital serves Gozo, with serious cases transferred to Mater Dei, sometimes by helicopter. EU and UK visitors should carry a European Health Insurance Card or its UK equivalent, which covers public treatment; everyone else needs travel insurance, and it should cover diving if you plan to dive, since Malta is a major diving destination and many policies exclude it.

Official health authority: the Maltese Ministry for Health at deputyprimeminister.gov.mt.

Official tourism authority: visitmalta.com, the Malta Tourism Authority, which is where to book Hypogeum tickets and check site and ferry schedules.

US State Department travel advisory for Malta: current advisory level and detail.

UK FCDO travel advice for Malta: entry requirements, safety and health guidance.

Solo women safety assessment: Malta is one of the safest and easiest destinations in Europe for a woman travelling alone, and the fact that English is an official language makes it an unusually good first solo trip. Violent crime is very low, Valletta is small and lively in the evening without being rowdy, and eating alone is entirely unremarkable. The risks are physical rather than human. Worn limestone steps are the leading cause of visitor injury, so wear flat shoes with grip, which are also required at the co-cathedral. Swimming is almost all off sharp rock into deep water with few lifeguards, so pick your entry carefully and do not swim alone in a swell. Traffic is fast, pavements are often missing and they drive on the left, which catches out continental visitors. And St Julian's and Paceville, the nightlife district fifteen minutes away, is where most of the island's late-night incidents and drink-spiking reports occur; Valletta's own evening scene is calmer and more local, and staying there rather than there is the simplest precaution.

Reading On

Valletta is the smallest capital in Europe, holds one of its greatest baroque interiors and the only painting Caravaggio signed, and Malta is an unusually easy country to travel alone in. The Valletta packing list for women has the gear detail, and the Malta travel guide for women covers the islands as a whole, with the Malta packing list for women alongside it. Ninety kilometres north, the Sicily travel guide for women is the nearest neighbour and the natural pairing, with the Italy travel guide for women beyond it. The travel packing guide for women is the parent for every destination. For why one merino long sleeve covers a cathedral dress code, an exposed clifftop temple and a windy ferry crossing, the merino wool base layer guide explains the fibre, and the full collection is at Roman Trail women's merino base layers.

If the outer journey is calling you, the inner one usually is too. Explore SoulMap at romantrail.com/blogs/soulmap.