The Saluting Battery, Valletta's daily gun salute

Few things in Valletta are this cheap or this punctual. Twice a day, at 12:00 and 16:00, a row of guns below the Upper Barrakka Gardens fires out over the Grand Harbour. It’s over quickly, but nothing makes you feel more like you’re in a fortress city, and it costs €3.

What the Saluting Battery is

It’s the gun battery on the lower terrace of Upper Barrakka, on Battery Street. It’s looked after by the Fondazzjoni Wirt Artna, a volunteer outfit that says it couldn’t operate without the people who visit. The same foundation looks after the Lascaris War Rooms in Valletta, the Malta at War Museum in Birgu and Fort Rinella in Kalkara.

The battery fires what its website calls the daily time-gun, and it asks you to turn up about 15 minutes before 12:00 or 16:00. That isn’t fussiness; it gives you time to get in, pay and find a decent spot before things start.

Why a gun goes off at noon

The firing has more history behind it than you’d guess. VisitMalta’s listing explains that for almost 500 years these guns protected the harbour against attack from the sea, and that their position made this the island’s main saluting platform. Salutes were fired from here on state occasions, for anniversaries and religious feasts, and to greet visiting dignitaries and ships.

The noon gun dates from the 1820s. It signalled the exact time so ships’ masters could set their chronometers, which were used to work out longitude at sea until the early 20th century. Those signals ended up setting the pace of life in the city too. Then came almost half a century of silence, until Wirt Artna restored the battery with the Malta Tourism Authority. VisitMalta goes as far as calling it perhaps the oldest saluting battery still in use anywhere in the world, and while I can’t check that “perhaps”, I like that the gun still does the same job.

Getting in and what it costs

You go in through the gardens. The Lascaris website spells it out, the battery is reached through the Upper Barrakka Gardens, where you buy your ticket. Adults aged 16 and over pay €3 and children from 5 to 15 pay €1. Opening hours are 09:30 to 17:30, Monday to Saturday (last admission 17:00), and it closes for Christmas Eve and Day, New Year’s Eve and Day, Good Friday and Easter.

One thing to sort before you arrive. The desk takes cards only, because the battery is cashless, and that applies across all the Wirt Artna sites. Turn up with nothing but coins and you won’t get in.

With children, I think it’s one of Valletta’s best-value visits. It’s €1 per child, the main event happens at a fixed time you can build up to, and nobody has to shuffle quietly through galleries. Two adults and two children come to €8 all in, less than a single adult ticket for the Grandmaster’s Palace (€12).

The headquarters tunnels

A guided tour of the War H.Q. Tunnels sets off from the battery. These tunnels were opened in 1940 as a combined wartime headquarters and NATO kept using them up to 1977. It’s €17 for adults and €7 for children. The tour times on the battery’s website don’t match those on the Lascaris site, so I’d confirm them on the day before planning around one.

For me this is the obvious follow-on from the gun if the war interests you, and it pairs neatly with Lascaris underneath. The full story of Malta’s second siege is told in Malta’s Second World War.

The pass that pays for itself

If you’ll visit several Wirt Artna sites, look at its Heritage Pass. It costs €50 per person or €95 for a family, lasts a week from first use and gives you one entry to each of eight places, namely the battery itself, Lascaris and the headquarters tunnels, plus Fort Rinella, the Malta at War Museum and the Malta Time Gun Museum, with St Thomas Tower and St Peter’s Galleries rounding off the list.

The maths is simple. Lascaris (€20), the tunnels (€17) and the Malta at War Museum (€14) already add up to €51, so with those three the pass has paid off and the rest is extra. Don’t mix it up with Heritage Malta’s Multisite Pass, which is a separate product and isn’t valid here. I compare the two on Malta’s sightseeing passes.

Fitting it into your day

I’d use the 12:00 gun as the hinge of a Valletta morning. Before it, the Co-Cathedral and the Palace; after it, Lascaris or Fort St Elmo. If you miss it, the 16:00 firing works just as well.

Getting here is easy from anywhere in the city. From Castille Place you’re a couple of minutes from the gardens, and the Battery Street steps continue down towards Lascaris if you want to go straight on underground. Coming from the bus terminus, the Lascaris website suggests walking through the Ganado Gardens, which is the route it recommends from there to the war rooms below. Either way, allow a few minutes more than you think, because you still need to buy the ticket before the gun goes. The views from above and the lift down to the ferry are covered on my page about the Upper Barrakka Gardens.