Easy Pace Malta

You’ll arrive in Malta to streets lined with limestone houses, painted wooden balconies and church domes scattered above the rooftops. Around Valletta, boats move across Grand Harbor beside old stone walls and Fort St Elmo, while the sea stretches beyond the headlands. Over the next few days, you’ll discover an island with more than 7,000 years of history, from prehistoric temples to the legacy of the Knights of St John. Your transfer is available at any time, taking you to your hotel where you can settle in before meeting your Travel Director and joining your fellow travelers for dinner.

With the day at leisure, you might head south to Ħaġar Qim and Mnajdra, where massive megaliths and weathered doorways sit high above Malta’s southern coast. In Marsaxlokk, rows of luzzu boats rock gently in the harbor, their red, blue and yellow bows bright sending sparkling ribbons of color across the water. Wander between the market stalls, browsing fresh produce, handmade goods and the day’s catch laid out along the quay.

High above Valletta, you’ll follow your Local Specialist into the Upper Barracca Gardens, where cool shade lies beneath the colonnaded arches and the city’s domes, rooftops and bastions spread beyond the balustrade. Through the Fortress City, you’ll continue to St John’s Cathedral, where hundreds of intricate marble tombstones lie beneath your feet as you take in Caravaggio’s Beheading of St John the Baptist, its deep shadow and stark light capturing one of the artist’s most dramatic works. At lunch, you’ll sit down to a meal prepared with fresh local ingredients before continuing to the National War Museum with a historian. Inside Fort St Elmo, you’ll explore Malta’s wartime past through the battered metal and machinery of the Gloster Sea Gladiator Faith, Roosevelt’s Jeep ‘Husky’ and the George Cross awarded to the island for gallantry during the Second World War.

A free day by the Mediterranean is yours to enjoy, perhaps following Sliema’s promenade as waves break against the rocky shore and restaurant terraces line the waterfront. Or you could join an Optional Experience to Gozo, crossing the channel for lunch on Malta’s smaller sister island. Here, limestone cliffs plunge towards the blue sea. Calypso Cave is traditionally linked to the nymph Calypso, who, according to Homer’s Odyssey, kept Odysseus on her island for seven years.

With your Local Specialist, you’ll head to Mdina, passing beneath its ancient gateways into the walled city before visiting Palazzo Falson for a MAKE TRAVEL MATTER® Experience. Inside this former private home, you’ll move through rooms of dark wood, gleaming silver, painted canvases and old armor, while shelves of leather-bound books hint at the private world of its last resident, Olof Gollcher. You’ll have the afternoon at leisure back on the coast before joining your fellow travelers for dinner at a local restaurant.

Your time in Malta comes to an end as you say goodbye to your fellow travelers and transfer to Malta International Airport for your onward journey.