1 destination · 10 things to do

Malta

Malta packs seven thousand years into an archipelago you can cross in an afternoon. Valletta, the honey-stone capital the Knights of St John built after the Great Siege of 1565, is a whole city on a peninsula, with a gilded cathedral holding Caravaggio’s greatest painting, gardens that look straight down on the Grand Harbour, and a battery of cannons that still fires at noon. Inland, the walled hilltop town of Mdina keeps its silence; under a suburban street in Paola, the Hypogeum is a carved underground temple older than the pyramids. Then come the islands: Comino and its impossibly clear Blue Lagoon, and green, slower Gozo, a short ferry ride away, with Neolithic temples, salt pans and red-sand beaches. This guide books the essentials properly, tells you which tickets sell out weeks ahead and which boats are worth taking, and matches you to the right base, from a grand hotel at Valletta’s gates to a family-run classic above the harbour and a sea-view hotel at Gozo’s ferry port, because on islands this small, where you sleep decides how much of them you see.