From the rooftop of the Iniala Harbour House, Valletta’s new luxury boutique hotel, you can see the sea glitter beneath castles and curtain walls, and the panorama of the Grand Harbour is laid out before you. You might spot a tiny dghajsa, a traditional rainbow-striped boat, beetling across from the base of Valletta’s towering bastions to the nation’s old fort, St Angelo, where the Duke of Edinburgh was based in his naval days.
When I first came to Malta this little Mediterranean archipelago was a slightly faded package holiday fly-and-flop spot for the over-60s. Over the past ten years I have watched it transform into a smart destination for sightseers, foodies and sun-lovers of all ages. And despite the Covid-related economic pressures and loss of tourism, this metamorphosis has continued apace.
The nation is now gearing up to show itself off again from early June. The government has announced that it will open to fully vaccinated British visitors (second doses at least ten days before travel) and, subject to UK infection levels, also those with a negative PCR test. There will even be incentives — for those who book stays directly with hotels — of up to £175 per tourist.
This all depends, of course, on the UK’s international travel rules, but Malta has its fingers crossed that its vaccination programme will earn it a place on the so-called green list. One of the EU’s smallest nations is leading the bloc’s jab league table, with well over a third of adults having received at least one jab.
Valletta, Malta’s citadel capital, until recently a sleepy mini-city of crumbling limestone, is now a centre of sparkling historic restorations, trendy bars opening on to pedestrianised pavements, designer accommodation and restaurants selling everything from traditional Maltese fare to previously unheard-of vegan salads.
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The chips-with-everything mantra is a thing of the past. Malta was awarded its first Michelin stars last year — one each to three restaurants — and with Ion at Iniala as well as Bahia inland in the village of Lija just added to the list, the total number of stars has now reached five.
Bahia’s menu takes diners on an imaginative culinary ride through Malta’s seven millennia of history, from the Stone Age (venison fillet mosaic in onion ash, honey shallot agrodolce, bulgur wheat-stuffed onion, crispy shallots, nettle and nasturtium puree) via the Phoenicians, Romans, Arabs, Knights Hospitaller (or Knights of Malta), Napoleonic French and British to modern Maltese.
Each culture has left its mark, not only on cooking but on society as well. The neolithic period saw the inhabitants build what are today the oldest architectural stone buildings in the world (centuries older than Stonehenge), with semi-circular rooms and 5,000-year-old “Fat Lady” statues. Phoenician-style boats still bob in the harbour of the village of Marsaxlokk, where fish restaurants line the waterfront.
In the ancient capital Mdina, the tiny atmospheric alleys date from medieval times, before the Knights Hospitaller of St John took over. They built Valletta in the 16th century, gifting the nation its new capital, which proved to be invulnerable for 200 years and was embellished to become the baroque icon it remains today.
After a brief occupation by the French (who contributed the odd law and street name), the British ruled for more than 150 years, leaving considerably more than just chips. English is still an official language and red postboxes stand out like dashes of lipstick against Malta’s golden stone.
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Among older Maltese there remains, too, an affection for the Queen and Duke of Edinburgh, who lived here in relative normality in the early 1950s, a period and place they had always remembered with fondness. A lesser-known fact is the Queen’s love of Maltese oranges.
Which brings me back to Bahia. It’s named for a type of navel orange that grows in the restaurant’s courtyard in Lija, the upmarket area of the island known for its exceptionally tasty oranges.
Mabel Strickland, the daughter of Malta’s fourth prime minister, and the first editor of the English-language Times of Malta (founded in 1935 and still published daily), used to send a box of oranges from her Lija garden to the Queen each Christmas. The tradition has now been formalised by the Maltese high commissioner in London.
Strickland’s Lija palazzo is still lived in by the family. So too is Villa Bologna, her childhood home in neighbouring Attard, although this 18th-century villa is open to visitors. A wander through its formal gardens, complete with opulent statuary, and its gentleman’s-club leather interiors, provides a peek into the Anglo-Maltese world that Philip and Elizabeth occupied. Their own home, Villa Guardamangia, in a quiet suburb of Valletta, was bought mid-pandemic by Heritage Malta, just as its faded elegance was tipping into dereliction. A £9 million restoration is now planned, creating a museum of Maltese-British relations on the ground floor, and a reconstruction of the royal couple’s home on the first.
Marquis Nicholas de Piro, the gentle patriarch of one of Malta’s most important families and a modern-day Knight of Malta, has shown me round his home many times. Beneath antique tables are tucked two green velvet coronation stools. His parents moved in the same circles as the royal couple and attended the coronation in Westminster Abbey.
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The de Piros were the first Maltese aristocrats to open their home to the public, and shortly before the pandemic they added a few colourful suites allowing guests to stay (special reopening price from £95, B&B, for two; casaroccapiccola.com). “The last year has been so sad with the house empty of visitors,” de Piro tells me over the phone. For much of Malta’s tourist sector it has been a financial strain too.
He is looking forward to seeing his palazzo once again welcoming the curious to discover its artefacts. These include the best lace collection in Malta (which is known for the craft), a Knights chess set without a queen (suitable for celibate knights), the only surviving set of silver surgical instruments from the Knights’ sacred hospital, and a caricature of “very popular” Prince Philip on Malta’s polo field.
In the garage sits a black and yellow Bentley Mark 6, of the royal couple’s era. Princess Elizabeth preferred a little MG convertible in which she roamed about the island — doing her own shopping, and once stopping to help a local man to fix his broken-down car. Malta was a lot more rural then, but there is plenty of beauty left: from the towering heights of the Dingli Cliffs to the clear blue waters of the Mediterranean.
Malta is so much more than beaches, but these should certainly not be overlooked. The sun shines 300 days a year (every day in summer) and the sea is warm and inviting. Many also consider Malta the best diving destination in Europe — its transparent waters revealing Second World War wrecks, scuppered boats, and an undersea landscape as rich as that above ground.
Throw in water sports and boat trips, as well as golf, tennis, spas and pools, and it is not hard to see why more than 805,000 British tourists holidayed here in 2019. Malta is hoping we’ll be back this summer, and the government is negotiating with airlines to ensure there will be enough flights to get everyone out there. After a long hard locked-down British winter, I have to say, I can’t wait.
The pick of the packages to Malta
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Chris Haslam
Art deco grandeur, Valletta
Valletta’s art deco grande dame, the Phoenicia, was destroyed during the Siege of Malta, then rebuilt and reopened in 1947. It remains the Queen’s preferred address when visiting Malta and retains an air of quiet elegance. The pool has magnificent harbour views, as do the best rooms, which won’t win any design awards but are clearly comfortable enough for royalty. The Club Bar, by the way, is one of the world’s classics.
Details Seven nights’ B&B from £675pp, including flights, departing on June 5 (britishairways.com)
Family-friendly, St Paul’s Bay
The 488-room Dolmen is in St Paul’s Bay, half an hour north of Valletta and on the fence between the full-on Bugibba neighbourhood and slightly less excited Qawra district. There are five pools, nine bars and restaurants, a kids’ club and a spa, and guests have access to the hotel’s beach club across the road.
Details Seven nights’ all-inclusive from £472pp, including flights, departing on June 1 (maltadirect.com)
Spa retreat, Dwejra Bay
See the sights of Malta, then slip across to Gozo for a week of doing little at the Kempinski San Lawrenz, a luxury spa retreat two miles up the hill from spectacular Dwejra Bay. There are three pools, fabulous breakfasts, something of the Caribbean about the palm-shaded gardens and a touch of the subcontinent about the spa, which is staffed by Keralan specialists in Ayurvedic treatments.
Details Seven nights’ half-board from £1,847pp, including flights, departing on July 1 (kuoni.co.uk)
Five-star retreat, San Anton
Edward de Bono’s extravagant childhood home is now the 150-room five-star Corinthia Palace Hotel & Spa just down the street from the presidential palace and the lovely public gardens in San Anton. It’s better suited to couples than families, and if you’re the type whose idea of bliss is afternoon tea and a good book beside a pool in a butterfly-filled formal garden, this is the property for you. The beach at St George’s Bay is half an hour away by bus.
Details Seven nights’ B&B from £1,060pp, including flights, departing on June 5 (tui.co.uk)
Five-star with a private beach, Valletta
This high-rise five-star, the Grand Hotel Excelsior, straddles the city walls in Valletta’s Balzunetta district, so named owing to its former reputation for similar nocturnal shenanigans as Barcelona’s La Barceloneta. The hotel has terrific views across Marsamxett Harbour to Fort Manoel, and while the decor looks as though it was picked from ships arriving from random nations, the rooms are big, there’s a spa and a beach.
Details Seven nights’ B&B from £656pp, including flights, departing on June 7 (easyjet.com)
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Medieval boutique, Mdina
Mdina is the fortified hill town west of Valletta that served until 1530 as the Maltese capital. By day it’s a busy tourist town but by night it becomes the Silent City of medieval streets and baroque piazzas. The 17-room Xara Palace in Mdina’s heart is the 17th-century former home of the Moscati Parisio family turned antique-filled boutique hotel with a Michelin-starred restaurant on its roof.
Details Five nights’ B&B from £928pp, including flights, departing on July 1 (kirkerholidays.com)
Private tour of Malta and Gozo
Explore’s eight-day private tour of Malta and Gozo begins with a walking tour of the three cities of Senglea, Vittoriosa and Cospicua and continues with a Grand Harbour cruise offering a pirate’s eye view of the ramparts, an exploration of the treasures of Valletta, foodie day trips to Gozo and Mdina, and a boat trip to the Blue Grotto.
Details Seven nights’ B&B from £1,799pp, departing on June 5 (explore.co.uk). Fly to Valletta
Sustainable suites in a medieval village
If you care about sustainability, you should be looking for passionately run, locally owned guesthouses, and that doesn’t mean compromising on luxury. The Chapel 5 Suites are six fabulously decorated rooms in a 300-year-old palace in the medieval village of Naxxar, north of Valletta. Offerings include yoga, spa treatments, a village dining experience and a pool.
Details B&B doubles from £695 a week based on two sharing (bedandbreakfast-malta.com). Fly to Valletta
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