18/11/2025
Entering the Grand Harbour at Valletta is an amazing experience. The first thing you see are fortifications on a scale that look impenetrable.
Starboard Mark at the entry to the Grand Harbour, guarded by Fort St Elmo
and Fort Ricasoli on the Port Side
Fort Ricasoli
There are two harbours, Grand Harbour and Marsamxett Harbour divided by a peninsula on which the fortified city of Valletta was built. Both harbours have heavily fortified entrances. The cruise terminal is located in the grand Harbour alongside the city of Floriana. Viking Saturn is berth alongside this heavily fortified harbour side, within walking distance of the city centre of Valletta.
Malta has an enviable strategic location, placed right in the centre of the Mediterranean Sea. Therefore every empire that was looking to grow attempted to gain control of Malta, leading to a very colourful history.
Map of the two ports divided by Valletta
Viking Saturn is berthed alongside the fortifications of the Peninsula on which Valletta was built.
Our morning shore excursion is a cruise of the two harbours starting at Sliema, where most of the tourist harbour tours seem to be run from. It is about a 20 minute bus ride to get around there through pretty busy traffic. Population wise Malta is a very small country with around 550,000 inhabitants spread over 3 of the 5 islands that make up the archipelago, Malta (the largest), Gozo and Comino. There are two other Islands which are unoccupied. The population of Valletta is only 6,300 making it the EU's smallest capital City.
Sliema is is Malta's most densely populated city with a population of around 23,000. More than 500,000 live on the Island of Malta, with around 45,000 on Gozo and only 3 on Comino.
The economy is very dependent on tourism and with unemployment running at around 2%, there is a huge dependence on foreign labour. about 30% of the population of Malta are foreigners, as the size of Maltese families reduces, the demand for foreign workers increases. On our tour bus, the tour guide, Doris, was Maltese, but the driver was Indian. The building industry is the second biggest part of the economy with locally quarried limestone blocks being the cheapest building material. Just about everything in the old cities is built from this material, including all of the fortresses.
Occupation of Malta by humans dates back to 5,900 BC, where DNA analysis has shown the first inhabitants originated from various European and African regions of the Mediterranean. A second colonisation occurred from Sicily in 3850 BC, which lasted for 1500 years.
In 1000 BC the Phoenician colonisation of Malta began. In 539 BC Phoenicia was conquered by Cyrus the Great, founder of the Persian Empire and the islands soon came under the control of Carthage. The Roman empire was next in line to seize control until the 5th century AD when the Vandals occupied Malta, Twenty years later it was occupied by the Goths. For the next 300 years the Byzantine Empire ruled Malta and in 870 AD the Arabs moved in building the first fort on the site of present day Fort St Angelo. There were several other changes of rule including the Normans, Sicilians, French, Spanish, Arabs and english
It was during the renaissance that the Knights of Malta era began. In 1522 the Ottomans drove the Knights of St John of Jerusalem out of Rhodes. The Islands of Malta were granted to the Knights by Holy Roman Emperor Charles V in 1530. They ruled Malta for over 2 centuries defending it against the Great Ottoman siege of 1565. The city of Valletta was founded and named after their Grand Master, Jean de la Valette. The knights were largely responsible for much of the fortifications we see today. After the Knights rule came the French and then the British who ruled Malta until they gained independence in 1964.
After such a colourful history, it should be no surprise that the unique Maltese language is a mixture of Arabic, Italian, and English.
Following our history lesson on the bus, we arrive at Sliema to board our cruise boat for our harbour cruise.
The cruise is in two parts, firstly Marsamxett Harbour and then around the tip of Valletta to the Grand Harbour.
Just opposite our departure point is Manoel Island (now connected to the mainland by a stone bridge.
Health was a major focus of the Knights (who were officially known as the Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of St John of Jerusalem) and to ensure diseases were not introduced to Malta they built a quarantine facility on Manoel Island. Naturally, the island is protected by a fort, as it is located just inside the harbour
Quarantine Hospital on Manoel Island
This harbour appears to be the home of the marinas and there are some impressive super yachts here.
The Grand Harbour, where we head next is more of a working harbour and is a very impressive natural harbour with good facilities for cruise ships and several dry docks for ship maintenance. There are several creeks separated by peninsulas around the boundaries of the harbour.
As you enter the harbour, the first creek on the port side is Kalkara Creek. When the Knights of St John arrived in Malta they established their headquarters at Birgu and commenced buiding the massive fortifications at the harbour entrance, Fort Ricasoli. The British Royal Navy also used Kalkara Creek for drydocks and ship maintenance. These days a marina occupies the shoreline at Kalkara.
Kalkara Creek Marina
Kalkara is now a seaside resort town, rather than the small fishing village it started out as.
The entrance to the creek is protected by Fort St Angelo
The Royal Navy built a naval hospital at Kalkara on the site of the gardens of Palazzo Bichi. It served the eastern Mediterranean in the 19th and 20th centuries contributing to nursing and medical care of casualties when hostilities broke out in the Mediterranean. It is now know as Villa Bighi and is used to house a restoration unit.
Royal Naval Hospital Bighi.
Dockyard creek and French Creek are the location of substantial dry dock and ship repair facilities. They houses 6 dry docks and are a major ship repair centre. The largest and most recent dock, dock no 6 was financed and built by the Chinese. At the moment a large cruise ship is in the dock for maintenance.
The MSC Magnifica in dock 6
The fortification of the peninsula dividing the creeks , has a guard tower at its tip with carvings of eyes and ears on it signifying it is always watching over the Grand Harbour.
At the far end of the Grand Harbour, we see a small cruise ship, Emerald Azzura, docked another cruise wharf in what seemed a more industrial area.
Emerald Azzura
Our cruise headed back around to Sliema, seeing a few of the local water taxi boats along the way.
Once we disembarked the cruise boat, our bus returned us to the ship where we had lunch. As we were leaving the World Cafe after lunch, there was a distinguished gentleman and lady, very well dressed greeting staff as we were leaving. It was Torsten Hagen, the owner of Viking and his daughter. It seems he is here for some sort of meeting and is staying on board overnight.
Our stay in Valletta is overnight, not departing until tomorrow afternoon, so after lunch we decide to go for a walk into town to have a quick look around. We have an organised tour tomorrow to see it in more detail.
Getting out of the port compound is a bit of a long way around, but it ensures we pass through all of the shops at the port entrance. Also a bit different were the small electric rental cars below, claiming to be able to carry 2 people. Two Maltese, perhaps, but certainly unlikely to carry two cruise boat passengers.
Once out of the port there is about a 200 metre walk to get to an elevator which will take you up to the top of the fortifications for 1 Euro return. The alternative is a very long and steep walk.
Elevator to the City Centre
The lift terminates at the Upper Barraka Gardens, a large elevated park providing wonderful views of the Grand Harbour, including the view below looking towards the harbour entrance.
Lower Barraka Gardens where a cannon is fired daily at 12 noon and 4 pm
Viking Saturn with views across the harbour of French Creek
Looking across the Harbour at the 3 creeks and forts guarding them
Exit from the gardens to enter the city centre
More detail to come in tomorrows post after our walking tour of Valletta.
Tonight there was a traditional cultural dance performance from the Maltese community, held in the Star Theatre. We only caught the last part of it as we had been at dinner in one of the specialty restaurants.
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