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Malta is an island country in the Mediterranean Sea that lies south of the island of Sicily, Italy. The country is an archipelago, with only the three largest islands (Malta, Għawdex or Gozo, and Kemmuna or Comino) being inhabited.

Regions

By inhabited island:

• Gozo (Għawdex)
• Comino (Kemmuna)

Some Major Cities

• Valletta — the capital, named for Jean Parisot de la Valette, a French nobleman who was Grand Master of the Order of St. John and leader of the defenders during the Turkish siege of Malta in 1565.

• Buġibba
• Cottonera (Three Cities) — The name used when referring to the three historic and ancient cities of Birgu (aka Vittoriosa), Isla (aka Senglea) and Bormla (aka Cospicua), three towns conglomerated by 16th century fortifications called the Cottonera lines.
• Marsaxlokk — fishing village south of the island
• Marsaskala — an enchanting promenade ensures you a pleasant evening here
• Mdina — Malta's well-preserved quiet old capital. pronounced 'im-dina'
• Mgarr
• Rabat — hosts numerous historical attractions such as St. Paul's catacombs and the Roman Villa
• Qormi - a city in central Malta where there are still several old traditional bakeries.
• Saint Julians — perfect area for nightlife & entertainment
• Saint Gwann
• Sliema — shopping centre just north of Valletta

Other destinations

• Hagar Qim and Mnajdra - Two very beautiful stone age temples set on the cliffside of south west Malta. Their majesty has now been marred by protective tents and a 2 storey new building nearby.
• Mellieħa - A locality in Malta surrounded by the largest and some of the most wonderful sandy beaches on the Islands
• Golden Bay - One of Malta's most beautiful sandy beaches, on the northwest coast of the island.
• Għajn Tuffieha - "Long Steps Bay", just behind Golden Bay. Just as beautiful, but less crowded during the high season.
• Blue Grotto - A series of seven caves and inlets on the southern side of Malta famous for deep blue waters and spectacular natural rock formations. The Blue Grotto may be accessed by small traditional boats, skippered by cheerful Maltese guides, which leave from a well-signposted pier just off the main road along the south coast.
• Clapham Junction - An area of western central Malta (not far from Buskett woods) where deep ruts in the bedrock appear to have been formed in the remote past by wagons or carts. Some of these ruts cross rock-cut punic tombs, proving that the ruts existed before the tombs. In the vicinity there are large caves which used to be inhabited by troglodites.
• St.Thomas Bay - A quaint inlet, 1km beyond Marsaskala, with a sloping, built up area on one side, and barren Munxar white cliffs on the other. There are 2 small sandy beaches ideal for swimming in summer. Beneath Munxar there is now a 'window' at the cliffside. Beyond Munxar Point there are amazing, very high, white cliffs, with 2 large and deep caves in them. Many amateur fishermen own boathouses in the vicinity and go fishing whenever the sea is calm.

Understand

History

Although small, Malta has a long and rich history, with evidence for habitation going back to the Neolithic era (4th millennium B.C.). The country boasts some of the world's most ancient standing buildings (the Neolithic temples), and its strategic location and good harbors in the middle of the Mediterannean have attracted Phoenicians, Greeks, Romans, Arabs, Normans, Crusaders, the French and finally the British, with the colonial period lasting until 1964.

The Knights of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem, also known as the Knights Hospitallers, took over sovereign control of Malta in 1530, and by 1533 the Order had built a hospital at Birgu (one of the Three Cities) to care for the sick. In 1565, Suleiman the Magnificent, Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, mounted a great siege of Malta with a fleet of 180 ships and a landing force of 30,000 men. In response the Order, with only 8,000 defenders, drove the Ottoman Turks away after a hard siege of several months. After this siege, the Order founded the city of Valletta on a peninsula, and fortified it with massive stone walls, which even withstood heavy bombing during the Second World War. By 1575 the Order had built a new large hospital known as the Grand Hospital or Sacred Infirmary in order to continue with its primary mission of caring for the sick.

In 1798, the French under Napoleon took the island on 12 June, without resistance, when the Grand Master of the Order capitulated after deciding that the island could not be defended against the opposing French naval force. French rule lasted a little over 2 years, until they surrendered to the British Royal Navy, under Admiral Nelson's command, in September 1800.

Great Britain formally acquired possession of Malta in 1814. The island staunchly supported the UK through both World Wars.

The island was awarded the George Cross for its heroic resistance during the Second World War. An image of the cross is displayed on the flag.

Independence

21 September 1964 (from UK)

National holidays

Freedom Day, 31 March (1979); Sette Giugno, 7 June (1919); Feast of Our Lady of Victories, 8 September (1565); Independence Day, 21 September (1964); Republic Day, 13 December (1974).

Malta remained in the Commonwealth of Nations when it became independent from Great Britain in 1964. It is still a member.

A decade later Malta became a republic. Since about the mid-1980s, the island has become a freight trans-shipment point, financial centre and tourist destination.

Malta gained European Union membership in May 2004.

Climate

Mediterranean with a warm, humid climate on average. Winter days can be wet, cool and windy or mild and sunny while in spring and autumn the latter is more usual. Summers are virtually guaranteed to be dry and hot.

Terrain

Mostly low, rocky, flat to dissected plains, with a coastline [2] that has many coastal cliffs and numerous bays that provide good harbors.

Highest point

Ta'Dmejrek 253 m (near Dingli)

Get in

Malta has joined the Schengen agreement, which means that you can enter on a European Union Schengen visa and there are no longer any ID/passport controls on the EU borders.

No visa is required for entry by EU, Canadian, and American citizens. Visitors from outside the EU, including Americans, must fill out a landing card, available on board some arriving flights (sometimes) or in the entrance hall of the airport from the small box between the customs agents.

By plane

Malta possesses its own national carrier, Air Malta [3], with regular connections to many European, North African and Middle Eastern centres.

Ryanair [4] flies to/from London Luton, Dublin, Bremen, Pisa, Stockholm (Skavsta), Valencia, Girona and Bari. Easyjet flies to/from Manchester and London Gatwick.

The island's international Airport [5] is located at Luqa.

By boat

There are frequent fast ferries to the Sicilian port of Catania, Italy. The trip takes around 3 hours, and can be turbulent with a heavy swell, if it's windy. There is also a highspeed catamaran between Pozzallo and Valletta that takes approximately 90 minutes, as well as weekly trips from Palermo,Genoa and Tunis.

Get around

By bus

One of Malta's joys (at least in small doses) is the wonderfully antiquated public bus system, consisting of 1950s-era exports from Britain usually kitted up with more chintz than a Christmas tree plus icons of every saint in the Bible and then some (as well as new chinese buses -king long-). Fares are very cheap and even the longest ride across the island costs less than €1.30; the only catch is that almost all buses radiate out from Valletta, so you may have to detour back to the capital to reach your next destination. A short question - "To Valletta?" - to the driver when you get on will help you confirm your ending destination.

The only problem there might be is the smouldering heat during the summer but a typical bus ride is only around 20 minutes so it should be fine. A typical bus fare is €0.47 so do not expect to give €20 to change as you will probably be denied a bus fare (with good reason), so be ready with reasonable change when getting on a bus.

By taxi

Malta's white taxis are a ravenous lot and fares are quite expensive. These are the ones you can pick you up off the street. They have meters that are uniformly ignored, figure on €12 for short hops and not much more than €30 for a trip across the island.

For airport transfers and local taxis try using one of the local "Black cab" taxi firms such as Swansea Chauffeur Drive http://www.active-car-hire.com or Wembleys http://www.malta-airport-taxis.co.uk for airport transfers. Their rates are normally lower than white taxis and their drivers are smarter and more educated. Their services must be prebooked however (at least fifteen minutes notice) since SwanSea and Wembley cabs cannot be picked up from the street and have to be prebooked or called (356) 20107444 or (356) 21313261. Wembley is the largest taxi firm but Swansea offers a more reliable, personalised and professional service at roughly the same rates.

A new shared transport service maltatransfer.com started operating from the Malta Internation airport to all hotels in Malta & Gozo. Prices for the transfers are very cheap and you can prebook on line from http://www.maltatransfer.com or you can purchase your ticket from the desk which is situated in the arrivals luggage reclaim section while waiting for your luggage. They have speciale offers for group bookings as well.

By car

Renting a car in Malta is a fine way to see the country, since it's cheap and driving conditions have improved greatly in the last ten years. Having your own car allows you to make a lot more of your trip and discover the many hidden charms these small islands have to offer.

It is always best to pre-book your car rental online as this works out cheaper than booking when you arrive. According to the Mediterranean markets, Malta has very low rates for car rental. Any driver and additional drivers must take with them their driving licenses in order to be covered for by the insurances provided by the local car rental supplier.

There is GPS coverage of the Island by popular brands such as Garmin, however, do check with your rental company as to whether they make this available to you or not. Popular opinion states that the GPS mapping of Malta isn't altogether that accurate, where certain routes planned on the GPS, will send you up 1 way streets without warning, best to use common sense in conjunction with this technology. Also the Maltese can be a very friendly bunch of people when giving directions are concerned.

By ferry

There is the regular ferry service [6] between Ċirkewwa on Malta and Mġarr on Gozo, it goes every 45 minutes in the summer and almost as often in the winter. You buy a return ticket at the Malta end for about €4.70. There are also irregular services to Comino.

By seaplane

Regular flights between Valletta Grand Harbour and Mgarr by Harbourair [7] started recently. There is also a planned service to Sicily. The company also offers scenic flights for around 90EUR that take 30mins and provide beautiful views of the Maltese islands. Flights start in Valletta's grand harbor. Check-in and ticket office is at the sea passenger terminal, on the very end of the "Valletta waterfront", behind the cruise ship terminals.

By helicopter

Scheduled helicopter service between Malta and Gozo has been terminated.

By bike

Renting a bike in Malta is a very common and popular practice. It doesn't cost much, but offers enough flexibility to explore.

Talk

The official languages are Maltese and English. Italian is widely understood and spoken. Some people have basic French, but few people can speak fluent French in Malta. Getting around with English or Italian is very much possible

Maltese is a Semitic language, though it has borrowed a substantial amount of vocabulary from the Romance languages (particularly Italian). The closest living relative of Maltese is Arabic, though Maltese is now written in the Latin alphabet instead of the Arabic script. Maltese is also more distantly related to Hebrew and Amharic, so if you speak any of these three languages, you'll recognise some similarities. It also has substantial Anglo-Saxon (English) elements in it. Knowing a few phrases in Maltese may be useful. See the Maltese phrasebook for details.

Buy

The official currency of Malta is the euro (€).

Major currencies, even though they were widely accepted years ago and changed on the fly at restaurants and bars are no longer acceptable as an over the counter currency. So if you have dollars or pounds, it's best to change them at the plethora of exchange bureaus or banks across the island prior to going out.

Costs

Goods in Malta are of average value by north European standards.

Eat

Distinctly Maltese cuisine is hard to find but does exist. The food eaten draws its influences from Italian cuisine. Most restaurants in resort areas like Sliema cater largely to British tourists, offering pub grub like meat and three veg or bangers and mash, and you have to go a little out of the way to find 'real' Maltese food. One of the island's specialities is rabbit (fenek), and small savoury pastries known as pastizzi are also ubiquitous.

The Maltese celebratory meal is fenkata, a feast of rabbit, marinated overnight in wine and bay leaves. The first course is usually spaghetti in rabbit sauce, followed by the rabbit meat stewed or fried (with or without gravy). Look out for specialist fenkata restaurants, such as Ta L'Ingliz in Mgarr.

Twistees is the famous snack from Malta - available in the UK as Tastees.[8]

True Maltese food is quite humble in nature, and rather fish and vegetable based -- the kind of food that would have been available to a poor farmer, fisherman or mason. Thus one would find staples like soppa ta' l-armla (widow's soup) which is basically a coarse mash of whatever vegetables are in season, cooked in a thick tomato stock. Then there's arjoli which is a julienne of vegetables, spiced up and oiled, and to which are added butter beans, a puree made from broadbeans and herbs called bigilla, and whatever other delicacies are available, like Maltese sausage (a confection of spicy minced pork,coriander seeds and parsley, wrapped in stomach lining) or ġbejniet (simple cheeselets made from goats'or sheep milk and rennet, served either fresh, dried or peppered). Maltese sausage is incredibly versatile and delicious. It can be eaten raw (the pork is salted despite appearances), dried or roasted. A good plan is to try it as part of a Maltese platter, increasingly available in tourist restaurants. Sun dried tomatoes and bigilla with water biscuits are also excellent. Towards the end of summer one can have one's fill of fried lampuki (dolphin fish) in tomato and caper sauce (see here for the peculiar method of catching this fish: [9]. One must also try to have a bite of ħobż biż-żejt, which is leavened Maltese bread, cut into thick chunks, or else baked unleavened ftira, and served drenched in oil. The bread is then spread with a thick layer of strong tomato paste, and topped (or filled) with olives tuna, sun-dried tomatoes, capers, and the optional arjoli (which in its simpler form is called ġardiniera).

Drink

A typical soft drink that originated in Malta is Kinnie, a non-alcoholic fizzy drink made from bitter oranges and slightly reminiscent of Martini.

The local beer is called Cisk (pronounced "Chisk") and, for a premium lager (4.2% by volume), it is very reasonably priced by UK standards. It has a uniquely sweeter taste than most European lagers and is well worth trying. Other local beers, produced by the same company which brews Cisk, are Blue Label Ale, Hopleaf, 1565, Lacto ("milk stout") and Shandy (a typical british mixture pre-mixture of equal measures of lager and 7-UP). Other beers have been produced in Malta in direct competition with Cisk such as '1565' brewed and bottled in the Lowenbrau brewery in Malta. Since late 2006 another beer produced by a different company was released in the market called "Caqnu". A lot of beers are also imported from other countries or brewed under license in Malta, such as Carlsberg, Lowenbrau, SKOL, Bavaria, Guinness, Murphy's stout and ale, Kilkenny, John Smith's, Budweiser, Becks, Heineken, Lowenbrau, Efes, and many more.

Malta has two indigenous grape varieties, Girgentina and Gellewza, although most Maltese wine is made from various imported vines. Maltese wines directly derived from grapes are generally of a good quality, Marsovin [10] and Delicata [11] being prominent examples, and inexpensive, as little as 60-95ct per bottle. There are also many amateurs who make wine in their free time and sometimes this can be found in local shops and restaurants, especially in the Mgarr and Siggiewi area. Premium wines such as Meridiana [12] are an excellent example of the dedication that can be found with local vineyards.

The main Maltese night life district is Paceville (pronounced "pach-a-vil"), just north of St. Julian's. Young Maltese (as young as high school-age) come from all over the island to let their hair down, hence it gets very busy here, especially on weekends (also somewhat on wednesdays, for midweek drinking sessions). Almost all the bars and clubs have free entry so you can wander from venue to venue until you find something that suits you. The bustling atmosphere, cheap drinks and lack of cover charges makes Paceville well worth a visit. The nightlife crowd becomes slightly older after about midnight, when most of the youngsters catch buses back to their towns to meet curfew. Paceville is still going strong until the early hours of the morning, especially on the weekends.

Interestingly it does not rain much on Malta and almost all of the drinking water is obtained from the sea via large desalination plants on the west of the island or from the underground aquifer.

Learn

Malta has promoted itself successfully as an entirely bi-lingual nation for Maltese and English. It counts for many educational institutes in the rest of the world as a country where English is the first language and they therefore will often even subsidise students to go there to learn it. Admittedly their command of the language is on average better than in other European countries.

Work

For foreigners work is unfortunately often very hard to find, the Maltese are rather insular and figures show that even in the tourist sector they are very reluctant to hire people not from the island. There is a sense that since joining the EU there is more willingness to hire professionals from abroad as the business sector diversifies.

Stay safe

Malta is generally safe, in fact it's considered as one of the safest in the world with little in the way of violent crime or political disturbances.

Malta is generally safe compared to it's European counterparts. However, with growing illegal immigration in detention camps located in the south of the Island, locals are beginning to feel a sense of uncertainty in regards to their safety in these areas.

In regards to nightlife, the Island is very safe as long as you do not walk alone. Due to Malta being a major Mediterranean port, sailors with shore leave tend to become quite rowdy after long voyages, as well as with the advent of low cost air travel coming to Malta has brought an influx of teens from across europe enjoying short cheap weekend breaks in the sun.

Stay healthy

The main health risk in Malta is the fierce sun in the summer, which can scorch unsuspecting tourists. Apply sunblock liberally.

For ambulance, fire or police dial 112. The main hospitals are Mater Dei Telephone: (+356) 2545 0000 and Gozo General Hospital in Gozo, tel. 2156 1600. For a complete list of government hospital services visit [13].

Respect

• Malta is a strictly Roman Catholic country and carousing by tourists, while tolerated to some extent, is not looked on very favorably, especially outside of St. Julian's and Paceville.
• Dress respectfully when visiting churches. As a guide, remove any hats and sunglasses and make sure your knees and shoulders are covered. Some churches, especially those on popular package tours, provide shawls and/or skirts for any inappropriately-dressed visitors.
• You may be refused entry to a church if there is a service going on that has already started, make sure you arrive promptly if you wish to see them.

CONTACT

The country has three mobile phone networks available: Vodafone, Go Mobile, and Melita Mobile; as well as with other countries, you can find white labelled cell plans such as the Bay Mobiles plan that can offer alternative rates. Due to international agreements with providers across the globe, Vodafone, GO and Melita are sure to be apart of your carriers roaming plan.

Internet cafés and wi-fi zones are quite abundant with connection rates peaking at 30mbps.

Special credits and sources from Wikitravel. Based on work by Peter Fitzgerald, Anonymous user(s) of Wikitravel and others.

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