Malta's three sites on the UNESCO World Heritage List

For a country of 316 km², three entries on the UNESCO list is a lot. What I find striking is how little they have in common. One is an entire 16th-century city, another is a cemetery beneath a street in Paola, and the third is a group of temples raised in the fourth and third millennia BC. If I had to explain Malta through three places, I’d choose exactly these.

Valletta, a whole city on the list

UNESCO inscribed the City of Valletta in 1980. The Order of St John founded it in 1566, straight after the Great Siege, and ran it for two and a half centuries. UNESCO calls it a single, holistic creation of the late Renaissance, with a grid plan ringed by bastions, and stresses that its 320 monuments fit into 55 hectares. Among them it names St John’s, the Grandmaster’s Palace, the auberges of the Order’s langues and, from the 18th century, the Library and the Manoel Theatre.

What I value most is that it’s still a working city where people live, with the President’s Office in the Grandmaster’s Palace. It isn’t a film set.

The Hypogeum, the smallest site and the hardest to get into

The Ħal Saflieni Hypogeum covers 0.13 hectares and is, for me, the most extraordinary visit in the country. A stonemason stumbled on it in 1902, and it turned out to be three levels cut into the rock, the deepest chamber 10.6 m below the street. UNESCO estimates it held the remains of around 7,000 people, and its red ochre spirals are the only prehistoric wall paintings found in the islands.

The visit comes with conditions. Ten people go in at a time to protect the air inside, photography isn’t allowed and children aged one to five can’t enter. Tickets are €35 and pre-booking is compulsory. I go into the details in the Ħal Saflieni Hypogeum.

How many megalithic temples are on the list?

There’s a small numbers trap here. UNESCO sums the site up as seven megalithic temples, but its statement of value lists six complexes, Ġgantija, Ħaġar Qim, Mnajdra, Skorba, Ta’ Ħaġrat and Tarxien, because Ġgantija is two temples within one wall. Heritage Malta, which runs them, speaks of seven sites. The inscription began in 1980 with Ġgantija, and in 1992 it was extended to the other complexes on the island of Malta, including Ħaġar Qim, Mnajdra, Skorba and Ta’ Ħaġrat.

What ties them together is age. UNESCO places them among the earliest free-standing stone buildings in the world. The order I’d see them in, and why, is in the megalithic temples of Malta. My favourite is Ħaġar Qim and Mnajdra, two complexes 500 m apart above the southern sea, sheltered under canopies since 2008.

The seven on the Tentative List

In 1998 Malta submitted a Tentative List of seven places hoping to join. They are the Coastal Cliffs, Qawra and Dwejra on Gozo, the Citadel in Victoria, the Knights’ fortifications around the harbours, Mdina, the catacomb complexes and the Victoria Lines fortifications. None has been inscribed, but several are among the best things to see in Malta. Mdina and Dwejra both sit high in my ranking of things to do in Malta.

Seeing all three without losing your mind

Valletta is seen on foot and is the obvious base. The Hypogeum is close by in Paola, and if you show its ticket at the Tarxien Temples ticket desk nearby, they’re half price. Ħaġar Qim and Mnajdra need half a day in the south, between an hour and a half and three hours on site according to Heritage Malta, and pair well with the Blue Grotto. Ġgantija fits into your Gozo day. Skorba and Ta’ Ħaġrat, in Mġarr, are the most modest, and I’d leave them for a second trip.

Heritage Malta’s Multisite Pass, €60 and valid for 30 days, covers every temple and Valletta’s museums, but not the Hypogeum. Run the numbers across all three sites and it nearly always comes out ahead.

One last tip on timing. Heritage Malta’s summer timetable runs from 1 March to 31 October, with Ħaġar Qim and Mnajdra open until 19:00, and from 1 November everything moves to 09:00-17:00. In winter I’d do the temples in the morning, because the south coast loses the light early and the site is far more rewarding with the sun on the stone.