When I was originally planning our European cruise through the Mediterranean, I knew I wanted to see Italy and Greece. What I didn’t know would turn out to be a great stop was Valletta, Malta. This was our final port of call on our cruise, and was so beautiful! Valletta, Malta is the capital of Malta, a tiny nation located at the crossroads of Europe and Africa. The entire city is a UNESCO World Heritage site, which is pretty awesome. For the majority of our cruise, we explored the majority of the ports on our own. Since we had saved money this way, we decided to book a shore excursion through Royal Caribbean. Our first and only actual ship excursion on this cruise.

We booked the Blue Grotto Boat Trip and Marsaxlokk village tour, and it was so worth it! I am not a fan of a large group tour, but besides being on the bus to travel to the Blue Grotto, it never felt like a major group excursion. The Blue Grotto is formed in cliff-side caves accessible only by boat. The caves’ location, combined with the sunlight, creates a beautiful sight — the water mirrors the colors of the underwater flora, which creates an amazing color of blue. These boats that took us out to the Grotto, were old school fishing boats. I couldn’t believe we were out in the high seas in these dingy style boats, but it was so old school and so cool. It was an experience that was unlike anything else.

After our Blue Grotto tour, we were taken to Marsaxlokk, which is a traditional fishing village in Malta. It was SO cute and so cool to see all of the colorful boats. We went into town and found an old historic church along with a cute café to order drinks along the water. Since we only had about 45 minutes here,  we stopped for drinks at Harbour Lights right on the water. It was great scenery with great service. Fair warning: When visiting Malta in the summer, it is HOT AND HUMID. I know living in Florida, I have felt my own fair share of heat and humidity, but this was unlike any other. It was still a nice visit to Marsaxlokk, despite the temperatures.

Our tour concluded with the visit in Marsaxlokk, so we boarded our bus and headed back to Valetta where the cruise ship terminal was. The Valletta Waterfront is right next to where our ship was docked, so we decided to stroll the cobblestone streets for a spot for a late lunch. You can easily walk back to the ship from here. What is so cool about European culture is that the restaurant is on one side, and then there is an extension of the restaurant on the other outside overlooking the water. While it would have been nice to sit outside, we were craving air conditioning, so we opted to sit inside the restaurant. We ate at Pepe Nero and it was delicious. The ingredients were fresh and everything from the pizza to pasta was so good.

From there, we continued to wander the street and pop in and out of shops. Our time here was short, but it was well worth the visit. You can easily visit Malta on your own if you are stopping here on a cruise. We just decided to do the tour so we didn’t have to plan and knew everything would be taken care of for us. If you are short on time, you can easily go see Saint John’s Co-Cathedral, Fort St. Angelo, and do some shopping. I also read how cool Popeye’s Village is, but since it was on the other side of Malta, we were limited to choose between the boat ride to the Blue Grotto or Popeye’s, and since there wasn’t a shore excursion to Popeye’s Village, it made our decision easy for us.

Regardless of what you see and do in Malta, you won’t be disappointed!

Love and Travel Dust,

Molly