Cospicua, the dockyard town whose walls outlasted the Blitz

Of the Three Cities, Cospicua is the one people walk through and forget. The Valletta ferry docks here, so anyone crossing by boat steps onto its quays, and I suspect plenty head straight for Birgu without a second look. I’d give it half an hour at least, because it shows something the other two don’t quite manage, that this was a dockyard town.

Bormla, a name earned in 1565

The Maltese call it Bormla, which is also the official name of its local council. According to the Malta Tourism Authority, the Knights of St John renamed it Cospicua for the conspicuous part its people played in the Great Siege of 1565. The whole story of that summer is on the Great Siege of Malta.

It’s the largest of the three. The NSO counted 4,785 residents at the end of 2025, more than Birgu and Senglea put together, 695 of them foreign nationals. Even so, the MTA points out that the Second World War did huge damage and that, rebuilt as it is, the town still has fewer people than in the years before the war.

A waterfront that was a dockyard

Most of Cospicua’s shoreline is taken up by the old dockyard, which the MTA describes as being restored and developed into a marina. For me that’s the most interesting thing about the place, because it reminds you the Grand Harbour wasn’t just a stage for sieges but where the people of these towns earned their living.

The MTA sums up modern Cospicua as an important market centre in the heart of the docklands. It isn’t pretty in the postcard sense, and I don’t think it’s trying to be. I’d rather see a town that still works for a living than one polished purely for visitors, and that’s what Cospicua is.

What to see in Cospicua

The building the MTA singles out is the Collegiate Church of the Immaculate Conception, which it calls rich in exquisite works of art. It’s the church in the photo on this page, with the double flight of steps. No official source gives its opening times, so I’ll leave them out rather than guess.

The rest is walls. The Firenzuola fortifications of 1638 and the Margherita Lines are part of the Three Cities’ landward defences. The MTA says the Margherita Lines are the only part of old Cospicua that survived the Second World War, which tells you how the rest fared. If the Knights’ defences as a whole interest you, I’ve pulled them together in Malta’s forts and fortifications.

The MTA also mentions that Bormla was among the first places included in a 2011 tourism ministry project mapping walking routes through towns off the usual tourist trail. It’s a fair clue to what a visitor who comes here on purpose is after.

Is Cospicua worth a stop?

My short answer is yes, briefly. It has no museum open with an official source and no paid-entry landmark, so I wouldn’t build a day round it. What it offers is context. You see the harbour as a place of work rather than a postcard, and you see what the war did to a whole town, since the MTA says only the Margherita Lines survived of old Cospicua. That alone makes the half-hour worthwhile for anyone interested in how Malta came through 1940 to 1943.

There’s a second reason if you’re travelling in spring. The MTA highlights the Three Cities’ Easter processions, when statues of the Risen Christ are run through packed streets. I have no sourced route or time for Cospicua’s own, so I’d check with the parish before planning around it.

Getting there and where next

The Valletta ferry to the Three Cities ends here. It sails every 15 minutes on weekdays, costs €3 single by day and €5 return, and on the way back you get a free ticket for the Upper Barrakka lift. Timetables are on the Valletta ferries page. By bus, routes 3 and 4 leave from Valletta terminus.

From Cospicua you’ve two obvious choices, Birgu and its fort or Senglea and its point. With children in tow, Esplora’s website suggests walking 20 to 30 minutes round the Cottonera harbours to the science centre in Kalkara, or taking bus 3. For a full day’s plan, see the Three Cities of Malta.