Opposite Valletta, on the other side of the Grand Harbour, three fortified peninsulas hold the oldest memory of the knights' Malta: these are the Three Cities, Vittoriosa, Senglea and Cospicua. It was here, and not in today's capital, that the Order of St John landed in 1530 and set up its first home; here the Maltese people withstood the worst onslaughts of the Great Siege of 1565; and from here, centuries later, the British Empire's dockyards turned this corner into one of the most important naval ports in the Mediterranean. This is Malta at its most authentic and least touristy, lived at the water's edge.
Vittoriosa (Birgu to the Maltese) is the most visitable of the three: a maze of medieval lanes, palaces of the Order and the imposing Fort St Angelo at its tip, crowning the Grand Harbour. In the streets of the Collachio, where the knights lived, time seems to stand still; on its waterfront, by contrast, the Order's old warehouses have become restaurants and a luxury yacht marina. From its tip, Senglea offers the Gardjola lookout, carved with an eye and an ear that symbolise vigilance. And Cospicua, the largest, holds dockyards and the memory of the bombing raids.
This guide covers the Three Cities with a practical, warm eye: how to cross by ferry from Valletta, which museums not to miss, where to wander on foot among walls and balconies, where to eat by the water and how to make sense of the history you feel in every bastion. Five minutes from the capital but a world away in pace and atmosphere, the Three Cities reward the curious traveller who wants to see the Malta of old, the Malta of the sea, the dockyards and the knights.
The Three Cities are the cradle of the knights' Malta. When the Order of St John arrived on the island in 1530, it did not settle on the site of today's Valletta —then a rocky wasteland— but in Birgu, a small town by the Grand Harbour, which it fortified and where it built its first convent, churches and the castle of St Angelo. During the Great Siege of 1565, Birgu and neighbouring Senglea (founded by Grand Master Claude de la Sengle) were the scene of the fiercest fighting against the Ottoman army, and they held out house by house until victory. In memory of that feat, Birgu was given the title of Città Vittoriosa ('victorious city') and Senglea that of Città Invicta ('unconquered city'). Cospicua (Bormla), the third, was protected by the great walls of the Cottonera Lines and the Firenzuola Lines, built in the 17th century. After Valletta was founded, the Order moved its capital there, but the Three Cities remained a key port. Under British rule they housed the Royal Navy's great dockyards, which made them a priority target for Axis bombing in the Second World War, leaving them badly damaged. Rebuilt and revitalised today, they keep their historic character intact. The full story is on our history page.
Read the full history ↓The fortified heart of Malta: the Baroque capital built after the Great Siege and the Three Cities of the knights, all looking out over the Grand Harbour.
Read the history of Valletta and the Grand Harbour →A local guide tells you in half an hour what no sign at the site will ever explain. We look ours up on Civitatis: guided in Spanish and booked online with no fuss. They have 10 activities in La Valeta. And there are free tours here: you book without paying and tip the guide whatever you think at the end, so trying one costs you nothing. Have a look below: tap any of them to see them all.
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Origins, formation and what the sources say.
Before Valletta existed, the Malta of the knights had its heart here, on the south shore of the Grand Harbour. When the Order of St John reached the island in 1530, after eight years without a homeland following its expulsion from Rhodes, there was no great city waiting for it. It chose Birgu, a modest fishing town beside a rocky headland that was already crowned by a medieval castle, the future Fort St Angelo. That corner of the island had what the Order needed: a deep, sheltered harbour where its galleys could anchor and a position that could be defended from the sea.
The knights started fortifying Birgu straight away. They built or strengthened the castle of St Angelo as their headquarters and the residence of the Grand Master, and put up their first auberges for the Order's different 'langues', or nations. They also built a conventual church, St Lawrence, and a hospital. Within a few years little Birgu had become a lively, cosmopolitan capital of knights from all over Europe, sailors, merchants and slaves. Across the water, on the neighbouring spit of land, Grand Master Claude de la Sengle founded and fortified a second town around the middle of the 16th century, and it took his name: Senglea.
This area was the cradle of Hospitaller Malta. Birgu's Collachio quarter, where the knights lived, still keeps its 16th-century layout of narrow lanes and stone palaces. When the Order built Valletta a few decades later and moved its capital there, Birgu and Senglea lost their political weight. They kept their importance as ports, though, and their pride at having been the Order's first stronghold on the island.
In 1565, when the Ottoman Empire launched its great offensive against Malta, Birgu and Senglea became the centre of the battle. After Fort St Elmo fell on the other side of the harbour, Suleiman the Magnificent's army turned its full strength on these two fortified towns. Most of the Order and of the Maltese population were sheltering there, and Grand Master Jean de Valette led the defence from Fort St Angelo.
The fighting was extremely violent. The Ottomans bombarded the walls without pause and attacked by land and by sea. They even dragged ships overland so they could attack Senglea from inside the harbour, and they managed to break through the defences in places. In Senglea and Birgu the fighting went street by street, and everyone joined in out of desperation: knights, soldiers, Maltese militiamen, and women, old people and children who repaired walls, tended the wounded and fought. Both sides committed atrocities, including using the heads and bodies of prisoners to terrify the enemy. More than once the towns seemed about to fall.
The defenders held out for months. In September the Great Relief, a force of reinforcements, arrived from Sicily. The Ottomans, exhausted and thinned out by casualties and disease, were pushed into lifting the siege. The victory was celebrated all over Europe. To honour their heroism, the Order gave Birgu the title Città Vittoriosa ('victorious city') and Senglea the title Città Invicta ('unconquered city'), and both towns still carry these names of honour. Those bloodstained walls had saved more than Malta. They had kept the gateway to the western Mediterranean.
After the trauma of the Great Siege, the Order decided the Grand Harbour area would never be left exposed again. The new capital had moved to Valletta, but Birgu, Senglea and the growing town of Cospicua (Bormla) between them stayed vital for their shipyards and arsenals. To protect them, in the 17th century the Order took on one of the largest fortification projects in its history: a huge ring of walls and bastions that wrapped around the Three Cities on the landward side.
This is how the Firenzuola Lines (or Santa Margherita Lines) came about, followed by the imposing Cottonera Lines. Grand Master Nicolas Cotoner pushed the Cottonera Lines forward around 1670, as a circuit of bastions and curtain walls meant to shelter the entire population if there was another siege. Much of these fortifications still stands. They made Cospicua, the third and most sheltered of the cities, a town protected by a double line of walls. The Order also gave the area new shipyards and arsenals to maintain its fleet of galleys.
For more than two centuries, Birgu was also home to a singular and feared power: the Inquisition. The Inquisitor's Palace, right in the old centre of Vittoriosa, housed the representative of the Catholic Church's Holy Office, whose job was to pursue heresy, witchcraft and blasphemy. The inquisitor had his own tribunal, luxurious apartments and prison cells, and rivalled both the Grand Master and the bishop in authority. The palace is one of the few Inquisition palaces in the world that are still standing and open to the public. Today it is a unique record of how religious and social control worked in the Order's Malta.
When Malta passed into British hands in the early 19th century, the Three Cities found a new role, and once again it was tied to the sea and to war. The Grand Harbour became one of the British Empire's main naval bases in the Mediterranean. On its south shore, around Cospicua and Senglea, the Royal Navy built up its great shipyards: the Malta Dockyards, which repaired and maintained the ships of the British fleet for more than a century. Thousands of Maltese found work in the docks, workshops and foundries, and the area grew into a thriving working-class and industrial centre. The British put up buildings such as the Naval Bakery, now the Maritime Museum, to supply the fleet.
That same strategic importance would be the area's undoing in the Second World War. The Grand Harbour dockyards were a top target for Axis aircraft, which subjected Malta to devastating bombing between 1940 and 1942. Birgu, Senglea and Cospicua, packed tightly around the docks, were among the hardest-hit places on the whole island. Entire neighbourhoods were flattened and historic churches destroyed. Much of the population had to evacuate or take shelter in air-raid tunnels cut into the rock, like the one the Malta at War Museum preserves today. Senglea lost most of its houses and its main church.
Despite the destruction, the people held on. In 1942 the courage of the Maltese under fire was recognised when the whole island was awarded the George Cross. Once the war was over, the Three Cities were slowly rebuilt along their historic street plan. The dockyards kept working for decades, under Maltese control after independence, although their activity declined over time.
For much of the 20th century, the Three Cities were seen as a working-class port district, scarred by the war and largely ignored by tourism, which focused on Valletta, Sliema and the beaches in the north. Over the last two decades, though, Vittoriosa, Senglea and Cospicua have gone through a remarkable revival that has put them back on the map.
The turning point was the restoration of the waterfront. The Order's old warehouses and galley stores on the Birgu shore were restored to create the Vittoriosa Waterfront, with a marina for luxury yachts and a row of restaurants and bars by the water, looking across to Valletta lit up at night. The stone palaces and houses of the Collachio began attracting buyers and boutique hotel projects, and cultural life gradually returned to all three cities. Heritage Malta opened Fort St Angelo to the public and renovated the Inquisitor's Palace and the Maritime Museum, while foundations such as Wirt Artna restored the wartime shelters.
Today the Three Cities offer the best of both worlds. You get the authenticity of everyday Malta, with laundry hanging over the streets, neighbourhood churches and families who have lived here for generations, alongside a food and nightlife scene by the marina. Festivals such as 'Birgufest', when the streets are lit by thousands of candles every October, and the traditional Grand Harbour regattas draw both Maltese and visitors. Five minutes by ferry from Valletta, the place where the story of the knights' Malta began is shining again, and it has kept the spirit that carried it through 1565 and 1942.
