Casa Rocca Piccola, a noble family home that still opens its doors

After the Co-Cathedral and the Palace of the Grand Masters, which show you Malta’s public face of power, Casa Rocca Piccola shows you the private one. It’s the home of a noble family who still own it, right on Republic Street, and you see it with someone who explains how life was lived there. For me it’s the visit that rounds Valletta off best.

A 400-year-old house that’s still a house

The house itself says it’s around 400 years old and was built by Don Pietro La Rocca, an admiral and Knight of Malta. It now belongs to the de Piro family, who have lived in Valletta for almost 350 years. There are more than 50 rooms, many of them open, filled with the furniture, silver and paintings the family has gathered over time.

What I find most interesting is who opened it up. Nicholas and Frances de Piro were the first members of the Maltese aristocracy to open their house to the public, and they still usually host the private tours themselves. You’re not in a palace the state has turned into a museum; you’re in somebody’s home.

The de Piros, the Order and a Spanish title

The family arrived in Malta in 1530 with the Order of St John, after the Knights had been driven from Rhodes by Suleiman the Magnificent. In 1716 Grand Master Perellos y Rocafull made them Barons of Budaq, and in 1742 Philip V of Spain created Giovanni Pio de Piro Marquis de Piro, in the Kingdom of Castile. For the bigger picture of the Order they arrived with, see the Knights of Malta.

The house’s website doesn’t hide the awkward parts. It notes that the family archives hold a bill for 1,500 scudi for the sale of Muslim slaves to a trader, one of that first marquis’s early deals. I think it’s to their credit that they say so, and it helps explain where fortunes came from at the time.

What the tour covers

The guided tour takes in the 12 rooms of the piano nobile, with an explanation of the customs and traditions of the Maltese nobility. There’s also a collection of costume and lace, looked after since 2011 by a dress historian who volunteers as its curator.

Then you go down to the shelters. The house had two wells, cut into the rock it stands on and part of the original quarry used to build it. In the Second World War they became shelters, and the larger one, also used as a chapel, held more than a hundred people at a time. The website recalls that in April 1942 there were days with as many as 15 air raids. For the public side of that underground story, see Underground Valletta.

Times, prices and what I can’t tell you

Guided tours run every day at 10:00, 11:00, 12:00, 13:00, 14:00, 15:00 and 16:00, and the house opens on most public holidays, though it asks you to check its social media. Tickets are non-refundable and non-transferable, and you can change the date by email if there’s space. Photos without flash are allowed in most rooms.

What I can’t give you is the price. It doesn’t appear on the pages of the official site I’ve read, and I won’t lift a figure from somewhere else. You’ll see it when you book. If it strikes you as steep, weigh it against the €12 Grandmaster’s Palace ticket and remember that here every visit is guided by the house’s own team and takes in the wartime shelters too. For me that guided element is exactly what sets it apart.

Nor is it fully accessible, which the family itself acknowledges given the age of the building. It’s about 600 metres from the bus terminus, downhill along Republic Street, and taxis can pull up outside. Inside there’s a garden, a café and an Italian restaurant in the old kitchens. The family also runs a B&B on the premises, so in theory you could sleep under the same roof as a Valletta noble family, although I haven’t found its rates on the pages I read. If you’re eating nearby, I have more ideas in the best restaurants in Valletta.