Everyone books the Blue Lagoon first. Then they find the rest.
Which Comino boat actually stops at the caves. What a Gozo day costs once the ferry is in it. Whether Valletta needs a guide or just decent shoes. Reviews of every tour you can book in Malta.
A week in Malta hangs off four bookings.
The lagoon, the capital, the walled city inland and the crossing to Gozo. What each one costs, and how much of a day it takes.
01The lagoon dayGozo & Comino Islands, Blue Lagoon & Seacaves TourGozo, Comino and the sea caves in one crossing. The most popular day on the island by a distance, and the cheapest way to see all three.
02The capital on footThe Original Valletta Walking TourValletta is small enough to cross in twenty minutes and dense enough to walk straight past everything in it. This is the walk that fixes that.
03The day inlandHighlights of Malta & Mdina Full Day Tour with LunchThe gate at Mdina, the lanes behind it and lunch, with the high points of the island either side of it.
04The second islandGozo Day Trip Including Ggantija TemplesGozo at its own speed, built around the Ggantija temples, which went up before the pyramids at Giza did.
Comino has no roads, so the only way in is on somebody else’s boat.
Comino has no hotels, no cars and the clearest water in the country, so almost everything worth doing here floats. Four kinds of day on the water, and what it costs to get on each one.
Six towns, and the best day out from each one.
Malta is thirty kilometres end to end, so where you sleep decides very little and the harbour you sail from decides quite a lot. The capital, the second island, the resort strip, the walled city, the two seafronts.
Valletta: a capital you can cross on foot in twenty minutes.
Everything in Valletta →
The whole city is a grid on a peninsula, built by knights who had just survived a siege and wanted walls to prove it. Start at the gate, drop through the streets to the harbour, and take the lift back up. These three carry more travellers than anything else in the city.
- 1Full-Day Gozo UTV Tour with Lunch and Boat Ridefrom $94
- 2The Original Valletta Walking Tourfrom $26
- 33-Hour Walking Tourfrom $25
The walk that starts at the city gate
The grid, the auberges, the Upper Barrakka and the gun battery under it. Worth the guide: half of what you are looking at is a plaque you would never read on your own.
The Grand Harbour and the creeks
Valletta was built to be seen from a deck. The harbour cruise runs into both harbours and the creeks between the Three Cities, which is the only way to see the fortifications properly.
Pastizzi, rabbit and a bar with no sign
Maltese food is closer to Sicily than anything British, and the good places in Valletta are small, unmarked and full by eight. A guide gets you through the door.
The days out most people in Malta end up booking.
Every Maltese tour we have reviewed →The tours more travellers take than anything else on the islands, and what earns each of them the slot.
1
Gozo & Comino Islands, Blue Lagoon & Seacaves Tour
Review of Malta’s $28 boat trip to Gozo and Comino, with Blue Lagoon swimming, sea caves, Victoria, waterslides, and practical tips.
From · $28
Read our review →
2
Blue Lagoon, Crystal Lagoon, and Seacaves Tour
from $35
3
Blue Lagoon, Beaches & Bays Trip by Catamaran
from $62
4
Gozo, Comino, Blue & Crystal Lagoon, & Caves Cruise
from $34
5
Full-Day Gozo UTV Tour with Lunch and Boat Ride
from $94
6
Comino, Crystal Lagoon, and Blue Lagoon Cruise
from $40
7
Gozo, Comino and Blue Lagoon Cruise
from $41
8
Comino, Blue Lagoon, Crystal Lagoon & Caves Cruise
from $34
The Blue Lagoon is a channel between two rocks, and it earns the queue.
The colour comes from white sand over a limestone shelf in about three metres of water, which is why photographs of it look edited and are not. Boats leave from Sliema, Bugibba and Mellieha; the small ones stop at the caves on the way, the big ones stay longer at the lagoon.
Gozo runs a day behind Malta, and knows it.
A twenty-five minute ferry from Cirkewwa and the traffic stops, the fields start and the towns go quiet at lunch. The citadel at Victoria sits in the middle where you can see the whole island from the walls, and the temples at Ggantija predate every pyramid in Egypt.
Every Gozo day out →
The walled towns, and what people eat in them.
Malta ashore is three walled cities, a set of catacombs and a food culture that owes more to Sicily than to anywhere else. Book the walk for the morning and the food for after dark, when the pastizzerija are still open and the heat has gone.
Malta stays cheap right up until you charter your own boat.
Grouped by what you actually pay. Shared boats and walking tours sit at the bottom, a skipper of your own sits at the top, and the middle is where most of the island lives.
Walking tours, entry tickets, the harbour cruise and the shared boats out of Sliema.
The full-day standards: Comino and Gozo by boat, the island highlights runs, the food walks.
Private skippers, jeep days on Gozo and the small-group boats that carry a dozen people instead of a hundred.
Three things the rest of the Mediterranean cannot offer you.
Clear water and old stone are Mediterranean staples. An uninhabited island with a lagoon on it, a harbour with three fortified cities in it, and a cartoon village left standing for forty years are not.
The Blue Lagoon
Comino is three square kilometres with no cars, no hotels open in winter and a permanent population you could seat at one table. The lagoon is the channel between it and Cominotto, floored with white sand that throws the light back up through three metres of water. Boats arrive from mid-morning; the hour before they do is the one worth paying for.
- 1Gozo & Comino Islands, Blue Lagoon & Seacaves Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 15,672 reviews
- 2Blue Lagoon, Crystal Lagoon, and Seacaves Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 5,673 reviews
- 3Blue Lagoon, Beaches & Bays Trip by Catamaran★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 5,496 reviews
The Three Cities
Birgu, Senglea and Cospicua sit on the far side of the Grand Harbour and are older than Valletta, which was built afterwards on the ridge opposite. The knights lived here first, and the streets still run at the width of a cart. A ferry crosses in a few minutes and almost nobody on a coach tour takes it.
- 1Valletta and the Three Cities Scenic Cruise★★★★★★★★★★ 4.3 · 763 reviews
- 2Valletta & Three Cities Harbour Cruise★★★★★★★★★★ 4.0 · 239 reviews
- 3Senglea, Bormla, and Birgu Walking Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 138 reviews
Popeye Village
A film crew built a whole timber village on the rocks at Anchor Bay in 1979, shot one musical in it, and left. Malta kept it, painted it and started selling tickets. It is the most photographed thing in the north of the island and it exists entirely by accident.
- 1Popeye Village Entry Ticket★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 2,070 reviews
- 2Popeye Village Malta Filmset Entry Ticket★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 1,802 reviews
- 3Comino & Gozo: Blue & Crystal Lagoons Cruise with Sea Caves★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 1,536 reviews
Four Maltese bookings that run on somebody else’s timetable.
Most of this island can be sorted the night before over a beer. These four cannot, because a boat, a ferry or a market day decides when they happen.
- 01Gozo & Comino Islands, Blue Lagoon & Seacaves TourComino is uninhabited and reached only by boat, so the whole day runs on the operator’s crossing times rather than yours.
- 02Blue Grotto & Sunday Market at Marsaxlokk Fishing VillageThe big market at Marsaxlokk is a Sunday morning. Turn up on a Tuesday and it is a quiet fishing village with a nice view.
- 03Popeye Village Entry TicketThe film set at Anchor Bay is a ticketed attraction with fixed gate hours, and it sits at the far north end of the island.
- 04Gozo, Comino, Blue & Crystal Lagoon, & Caves CruiseEverything on Gozo hangs off the Cirkewwa ferry, so a Gozo day is really a ferry timetable with a tour attached to it.
Nothing sails to Comino in a gregale.
The north-easterly can shut the lagoon crossings for a day at a time, mostly in winter and the shoulder months, and no operator argues with it. Malta has an unusually good answer: almost everything else here is walled, indoors or underground.
By place: the towns and the two islands
By kind of day: deck, wall, table or road
Valletta, the harbour, Mdina, Comino, Gozo: the week almost everybody ends up doing.
MarsaxlokkThe reviews that went up most recently.
The rest of the new ones →
GOZO All Inclusive Self Drive 4×4 Jeep Day or Sunset tour
Read our review →
Private Boat charter to Crystal & Blue Lagoon, Caves & Comino
Read our review →
Maltese Tile – Souvenir painting workshop with local
Read our review →
Gozo and Comino Sunset Tour w/ Blue Lagoon & Transfer
Read our review →
Valletta Half Day inc St. John’s Cathedral, Malta Experience
Read our review →