Malta Uncovered

This seven-night tour with Riviera Travel unfolds across Malta's most compelling sites, beginning in Valletta. The 16th-century city is a rare example of early urban planning, with the Cathedral of Saint John revealing an interior decorated in gold leaf and housing Caravaggio's rather somber "The Beheading of John the Baptist." After a free afternoon to wander, the journey moves to the island of Gozo, where Victoria's Citadel overlooks a landscape of low hills and terraced fields. Nearby is the Ggantija temple complex, a prehistoric site older than the pyramids, featuring stones so large local legend assigns their transport to a giant.

A free day allows time in Mellieha or St Julian’s, before visits to Rabat and Mdina note early Christianity’s roots in Malta at St Paul’s Catacombs and wander Mdina’s medieval streets. A local winery tucked below Mdina offers some of Malta’s quietest wine tastings. Another day focuses on the island's limestone heritage with a visit to a former quarry reimagined as a craft centre, where visitors can sample olive oil and limoncello and try their hand at carving. The tour concludes with a day covering prehistoric temples at Hagar Qim, the fishing village of Marsaxlokk, and fortified Vittoriosa, ending with Mosta’s remarkable church dome that once survived an unexploded wartime bomb.