Island in the sun

Valletta was once famously described by Sir Walter Scott as “the city built by gentlemen for gentlemen'‘.

It is located at the tip of a peninsula on Malta's north-east coast and is named after Jean Parisot de la Valette, grand master of the Knights Hospitalers, or the Knights of Malta, a military religious order which founded the city in 1565.

This is a beautifully preserved 16th-century walled city which is small enough to ...