Birgu, the Vittoriosa the Knights called home before Valletta

Of the Three Cities, Birgu has the most to say for itself. The Knights of St John settled here when they reached Malta in 1530, they ran the defence from here in 1565, and they stayed while Valletta rose across the water. Today it’s a small town of 2,262 people that you can cover on foot in a morning.

Vittoriosa, the name La Valette gave it

Birgu sits on one of the peninsulas jutting into the Grand Harbour, directly opposite the capital. According to the Malta Tourism Authority, Grand Master La Valette renamed it Civitas Vittoriosa, the victorious town, in honour of its role in the siege. Both names are still in use, and you’ll see Birgu and Vittoriosa on signs alike.

The Fondazzjoni Wirt Artna, which is headquartered here, calls it Malta’s old maritime city. It was the Knights’ first convent before Valletta, their Great Siege headquarters and later home to the Royal Navy from 1800 to 1979. That last chapter came at a cost. In the Second World War it was one of the worst-bombed places of the whole conflict, and almost half the town was destroyed.

To me, that’s what gives Birgu its character. It has the Order’s oldest buildings, since the Knights’ auberges, palaces and churches here predate Valletta’s, as the MTA points out, but it also has gaps and post-war rebuilding. Keep that in mind as you walk, because the mix of old stone and newer infill makes far more sense once you know what the town went through between 1940 and 1943. For the full story of those months in 1565, start with the Great Siege of Malta.

What to see in Birgu in half a day

The big one is Fort St Angelo, out on the point. It was the harbour castle in the Middle Ages, the Order’s headquarters from 1530 and a British naval base until 1979. Allow a couple of hours and €10, and from the top you take in the whole Grand Harbour.

Second is the Inquisitor’s Palace on Main Gate Street. It started out as the Order’s civil court and from 1574 became the inquisitor’s residence and tribunal, cells included. It now serves as the national museum of ethnography, costs €6 and closes on Mondays. There’s more on the Inquisitor’s Palace in Birgu.

Third, the Malta at War Museum sits in the Couvre Porte gate, the old walled entrance. It’s housed in an 18th-century barracks, used in wartime as a police station and ARP centre, above a rock-cut shelter that sheltered hundreds of people. The doors open at 09:30 and close at 17:30, Monday to Saturday.

In between, drop down to the waterfront. The 1844 naval bakery designed by William Scamp later became the Malta Maritime Museum and is now closed for a full overhaul, with no date to reopen. The MTA also picks out St Lawrence’s Church, the work of Lorenzo Gafà, Malta’s great baroque architect, though I have no sourced opening times for it.

Getting to Birgu

From Valletta terminus, bus 2 goes straight to Birgu. The other way in, and my favourite, is the Valletta to Cospicua ferry, which leaves every 15 minutes on weekdays from the quay you reach via the Upper Barrakka lift. Wirt Artna puts its museum about 10 minutes’ walk from the landing stage, and Heritage Malta says the nearest bus stop to the fort is a 10-minute walk. Fares and times are on the Valletta ferries page.

Coming from Kalkara, the MTA mentions a footpath that climbs to Vittoriosa through an olive grove from the creek, by way of the great ditch in the walls. I can’t vouch for its current state from any source, so take it as an idea if you’re already over that side and fancy arriving on foot rather than by bus.

Living in and staying in Birgu

Birgu isn’t a film set. It had 2,262 residents at the end of 2025, 365 of them foreign nationals, and the NSO figures show it losing a handful of people between 2024 and 2025. For somewhere to stay on a first trip, I’d pick Valletta, with much more choice and the ferry right below. Birgu comes into its own once you know the capital and want a quiet base for seeing the Three Cities of Malta at your own pace.