Kalkara, the fishing creek that plays fourth city to the Three Cities

Guidebooks talk about three cities, but the map shows a fourth tucked in beside Birgu. Kalkara isn’t part of the Cottonera group, yet it shares almost everything with Birgu, Senglea and Cospicua, their history, their reliance on the sea and the role they played in wartime. That’s how the Malta Tourism Authority presents it, calling it the unofficial fourth city.

A fishing creek between two forts

The MTA describes Kalkara as a sleepy, picturesque fishing harbour, and the creek that gives it its name is also called English Creek, a nickname it traces back to the days of Henry VIII. The NSO counted 3,322 residents at the end of 2025, a few more than the year before.

What sets it apart from its neighbours is having forts of its own. At the entrance to the Grand Harbour stands Fort Ricasoli, a massive fortress dating from 1670. Then there’s Fort Rinella, a 19th-century British addition to the harbour defences. Between the two, the MTA places the Mediterranean Film Studios. I have no official source publishing visits to Ricasoli, so I’ll leave it as something you see from outside; its film career is covered in films shot in Malta.

What to see in Kalkara

The weightiest visit is Fort Rinella in Kalkara. It’s one of four batteries the British built in Malta and Gibraltar between 1878 and 1886 to mount an Armstrong 100-ton gun, and Rinella’s is still in place. The Fondazzjoni Wirt Artna has been restoring it with volunteers since 1991, and the €14 ticket includes a guided tour, a film and re-enactments.

Second comes Esplora, the interactive science centre that opened in 2016 with EU funding at Villa Bighi. The villa dates from 1675, designed by Lorenzo Gafà for an Italian knight, and in the 19th century it became the Royal Naval Hospital Bighi. Today it has more than 200 exhibits and a planetarium under a 10.7-metre dome. With children in tow, it’s my first choice round here. There’s more on Esplora, Malta’s science centre.

The third is quieter. Villa Portelli, above the creek, is an early 19th-century residence built for Agostino Portelli, requisitioned by the British Admiralty in 1902 and later home to the Commander-in-Chief of the Mediterranean Fleet. Heritage Malta only opens the villa for special events, but its gardens, regenerated with Project Green, open on Sundays from 07:30 to 16:00 until 31 October 2026.

Heritage Malta’s head office is also in Kalkara, in the former naval hospital, though it isn’t somewhere to visit. It does tell you something about the place, mind you, that the agency looking after Malta’s heritage chose to base itself here.

Kalkara and the Royal Navy

If one thing ties Kalkara’s sights together, it’s the British navy. Esplora’s own history says George IV gave the Admiralty the go-ahead in 1827 to make Villa Bighi a naval hospital, with building under way from 1830. Wounded from Crimea and both world wars passed through, and the stone still bears shrapnel scars from the second.

Villa Portelli housed that same fleet’s top brass, and Fort Rinella was built to guard the harbour mouth against the Italian navy of the late 19th century. For me, Kalkara makes more sense as the Royal Navy’s quarter than as a fourth city, and a British visitor will find a good deal of their own history here.

Getting there and pairing it up

Buses 3 and 4 both run out to Kalkara from Valletta terminus. Route 3 is the useful one, as it stops right outside Fort Rinella’s gate and opposite Esplora; Wirt Artna says it runs every half hour, Monday to Saturday. Esplora also suggests a water taxi from Valletta to Bormla and a 20 to 30-minute walk round the Cottonera harbours. Follow the coast east past Smart City and you reach Xgħajra, a village that grew up around the British Delle Grazie Battery.

For walkers, the MTA describes a path that rises from Kalkara Creek through an olive grove and across the great ditch of the Three Cities’ fortifications to Vittoriosa. No source tells me what state it’s in today, but linking Kalkara and Birgu on foot strikes me as the best way to see they’re one landscape.

My day would be Esplora or Fort Rinella in the morning, depending on who I’m with, and Birgu (Vittoriosa) in the afternoon. The wider area is covered in the Three Cities of Malta.