The Grand Harbour
The Three Cities and their walls facing you.
C T Johansson โ CC BY-SA 4.0 ยท Diego Delso โ CC BY-SA 4.0 ยท Diego Delso โ CC BY-SA 4.0 ยท Frank Vincentz โ CC BY-SA 3.0
Birgu (Vittoriosa), Senglea and Cospicua on the facing promontory: the Knights' first cities before Valletta was built, reached by a five-minute ferry from the harbour below the garden.
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Malta's best view, and free: the Upper Barrakka Gardens sit on Valletta's highest bastion above the Grand Harbour, built as a private garden by the Italian knights in 1661 and opened to the public a century later โ arcades, trees, fountains and statues, with a terrace opening on the archipelago's greatest sight. Below you lie the deep natural harbour and the Three Cities on the facing promontory with their walls, domes and painted boats โ nine hundred years of maritime history in a single glance, cruise ships berthed at your feet. And at exactly midday (and again at six) the Saluting Battery beneath the garden fires its eight guns in a daily rite going back to the Knights: be on the terrace a few minutes before noon. The lift from the harbour rises fifty-eight metres to the garden in seconds for a token fare.
The Three Cities and their walls facing you.
Eight guns in a daily rite from the Knights' time.
Triq Sant' Orsla, Valletta