Best Valletta Walking Tour: A Firsthand Experience
The best and original Valletta walking tour
In August 2022, I went on a free Valletta walking tour organised by Colour My Travel. While I knew a bit about Malta, I had not realised how rich its history was, and how much this walking tour would reveal. In this blog post, I explain all you might want to know about the tour.
Valletta walking tour map
First, I want to give you an overview of everything you will see so you know what to expect. Here’s a map with all the stops of the Valletta walking tour:
Valletta walking tour itinerary
Below is what you’ll visit during the walking tour. Note that these are only stops, meaning your guide will pause at the stops and give you some information about the various sites. It does not mean you will actually enter and visit some of the locations.
When I decided to go on this walking tour, it was at the beginning of my stay in Malta. I did this in order to get a quick introduction to Valletta and made mental notes on locations I might want to come back to at a later stage.
You can use this Valletta Walking Tour to orient yourself in this city and then decide which place excites you more. That way, it can be helpful to help you plan the rest of your visit to Malta.
- Start: New Parliament building
- Ruins of the Royal Opera House
- Church of Our Lady of Victory
- Upper Barrakka Gardens: you will see the saluting battery here.
- Auberge de Castille
- Auberge d’Italie
- Palazzo Parisio
- The Castellania
- St. John’s Co-cathedral (this is the church housing the famous Caravaggio painting, for which you’ll need to purchase an entry ticket if you’d like to visit).
- Great Siege Monument
- Law Courts
- Grand Master’s Palace (closed for renovation works when I visited, it reopened in January 2024). To gain access in, you’ll need to purchase a ticket.
- The Main Guard
- End: St. George’s Square
Frequently Asked Questions
How long does it take to walk around Valletta during the walking tour?
It takes 1.5h. The tour goes through mostly flat areas that are easily walkable too. I found that was enough time to ask questions and take photos.
Do you have to pay to enter Valletta?
Valletta is the capital city, as such, anyone can just walk through. It is free to enter Valletta; there’s nothing to pay.
Where should I park in Valletta?
For this tour, I’d recommend parking in the paid parking near the Triton fountain and walk to the meeting spot in front of the Parliament building. It’s much more practical and safe than spending time hunting for limited on-street parking.
Is Valletta a walkable city?
Valletta can be a walkable city depending on the route you take. It’s important to know the core of the city is built as a fort, on a much higher elevation relative to the nearby sea and harbour. Google Maps may not give you a good idea of elevation differences.
To get up to the city from the sea or harbour and vice-versa, use the Barrakka lift. You could also start your visit at the Triton fountain area, where the Valletta bus terminal is situated. From this area, it is mostly flat and will be the most walkable to visit most sights.
Some streets may have steep slopes (especially along St Paul street – avoid and walk on Merchants street). Some streets are narrow and not pedestrianised. It can be unclear which streets are for pedestrians only, so please exercise caution.
What should I pack for the Valletta walking tour?
When I visited and did the walking tour it was peak summer. Mediterranean summers are no joke! The heat is dry and scorching, you’re advised to take precautions to avoid heat stroke or dehydration.
Here are some essentials I suggest you pack (these are merely informational and not to be taken as medical advice):
In summer
- A hat. Some parts of Valletta don’t have much shade and summer temperatures can exceed 35C.
- Dress in light clothing (soft linen, light cotton)
- Reusable water bottle
- Cooling scarf (especially if you’re prone to headaches or heat-intolerant)
- A portable fan or handheld one
- Cash to tip the tour guide and some loose change for snacks, the Barrakka lift.
In winter
- A scarf and warm clothes – while the temperature may not seem low in terms of degrees celsius, it can actually feel much colder in Malta due to wind chill.
- Reusable water bottle
- Cash to tip your tour guide. It might be good to have spare change for pastizzis and for the Barrakka lift.
Will I see the Valletta saluting battery?
The walking tour will stop for a short while at the Upper Barrakka gardens so you can be familiar with where the saluting battery will fire, but to actually see the firing, you’ll need to return another day to view at midday or 4pm. During the free walking tour, you’ll get great photo opportunity of the Grand Harbour from the Upper Barrakka gardens due to less crowd.
Watching the saluting battery from the Upper Barrakka gardens is completely free, but it’s also very popular. You may need to jostle for space to get a good view so get there earlier if you can. You only need to pay if you want to go down a level to be closer to the saluting battery.
What can I do before/after the tour?
- If you’re around the Triton fountain before the tour, you could grab an imqaret (deep-fried, local date-filled pastry) from the shops next to the bus terminal in Valletta (not far from the meeting point at the New Parliament building).
- The tour ends at St George’s square: get some pastizzi and tea at Caffe Cordina nearby.
- Explore the Grandmaster’s Palace, also in St George’s square.
- Explore the Lower Barakka gardens (not included in tour)
- Go down the Barakka lift and take a short ferry to visit Birgu
- Go take a dip at Wuestenwinds beach (not a sandy beach, more of a rocky outcrop)
Conclusion: Valletta walking tour
While this free walking tour does not cover all the sites in Valletta, I would highly recommend to do this tour to orient yourself within Valletta on your first days in Valletta: Book the original Valletta walking tour
