Valletta Co-Cathedral & Grand Master's Palace Shore Excursion

This full day Valletta shore excursion gives you an unhurried, in-depth look at Malta's capital, its history and its architecture. Highlights include interior visits to St. John's Co-Cathedral and the Grand Master's Palace, plus The Malta Experience, a multimedia film covering the island's history.

Your private licensed guide meets you at the pier and drives you up to the highest point of the 16th century city, built in six years by a workforce of 8,000 under the Knights of St. John. From the Upper Barrakka Gardens, perched on limestone fortifications above the Mediterranean, you get commanding views over Valletta's Grand Harbor. It's also where your guide sets the historical stage, explaining Malta's strategic importance over the past 7,500 years.

Walking along Republic Street, Valletta's main pedestrian thoroughfare, your guide explains Malta's role as the last line of Allied defense in the Mediterranean during World War II. From there you continue to St. John's Co-Cathedral, Valletta's most important historic and artistic treasure. Dating to the 16th century, its interior is covered in carved stonework, gilded columns, and a floor made from more than four hundred inlaid marble tombstones memorializing knights from across Europe. Two paintings by Caravaggio hang in the Oratory.

Next you visit the Grand Master's Palace, home to Malta's parliament and the president's office. In the Tapestry Chambers, Gobelins tapestries cover the walls, and you'll see suits of armor lining the halls and elaborate state rooms surrounding the palace's open courtyards. Most tours skip the palace's Fine Arts Museum, but this itinerary includes time to see its collection of works by Tintoretto and other masters.

After the palace, you have free time to have lunch (not included), shop for souvenirs, and wander Valletta's narrow streets, where enclosed wooden balconies overhang the honey colored limestone buildings characteristic of Maltese architecture.

In the afternoon, you visit Fort St. Elmo for The Malta Experience, a 45 minute film covering the dramatic history of the Maltese islands. It's a useful way to see parts of Malta's story that a single day on the ground can't otherwise cover. Afterward, you walk along the old city's bastions before returning to the pier.