Last weekend falls into the category of EPIC🤩 Seriously. We spent it in Valletta – finally taking the opportunity to really walk the streets, see a few of the sites we hadn’t been to yet, and just take it all in. It’s such a beautiful place. It’s very small too, which makes it easy to explore! It’s not even a full kilometer long and think the population is around 6,000 people.
I put a lot of thought into where we stay when we go on these weekend trips. I try to find somewhere historic, or just really interesting in some way. Sometimes I want a little luxury. Sometimes I find a place that encompasses all of those and then some. In the course of preparing to come to Malta I read several guide books and most of them mentioned that touring Casa Rocca Piccola was on the must do list. It sounded interesting so I filed it away under things to do. But one of the books mentioned that they had guest rooms. Okay, now I’m pretty interested😁 One look at their website (www.casaroccapiccola.com) and I knew this was the place we HAD to stay! It did not disappoint. In fact it met and surpassed all of our expectations.
The Casa is owned by the de Piro family. They came to Malta in 1530 with the Knights of St John. Yeah, I think it’s pretty amazing to have such detail on your ancestors. And they don’t just have details, they have documents and possessions that date back to the 1500s. Incredible.
The B & B part of the Casa is five gorgeous rooms. We suspected that we were in for a treat when we were asked what firmness we wished our mattress to be. Fabulous! We were in the Clock Room, with a lovely balcony on the front of the house. The bed was something out of a dream – I never wanted to get up! Of course then I would have missed out on Amelia’s wonderful breakfast. I shall dream of that orange cake. The attention to detail, the service, the feeling of being somewhere unique and wonderful – all in all a wonderful place to stay!
After we were settled, Clement de Piro, son of the Marquis de Piro, took us on a tour of the house. Me, being me, asked him what the oldest item in the house was. His response was this chest:
The chest came with the de Piro family from Rhodes in 1530. Which means it’s older than that. Best part is that I got to touch it! Yes, I asked permission first. And this was just the beginning of our tour. It is obvious that Clement loves this house. It’s been in his family a long time and is filled with their history. What a gift.
I am so grateful that we had the opportunity to stay at the Casa Rocca Piccola💕 and I can’t recommend it enough! No, they didn’t give me anything to say that. Really, honestly, truly, this is an incredible place. What a memory.
Now, we did see some other places while we were in Valletta. We also had a couple of memorable meals! And drank an awful lot of wine. Or a goodly amount of wine. Depends on how you look at it I guess.
The items on my list were the archeological museum, Fort St Elmo and St Paul’s Shipwreck Church. The Husband wanted to go to the Palace Armoury. Saturday and Sunday were gorgeous days, without being overly warm – perfect for being tourists! The archeological museum was the first one we went to.
After our time at the museum we wandered about town. Valletta is so compact, it doesn’t take long to get anywhere. It is built on top of a rock though, so there are some pretty steep hills. Defensible position, you know?
The next day was also planned out. First thing in the morning, after our wonderful breakfast at Casa Rocco Piccola, We walked up to the Grandmaster (of Knights of St John)’s Palace. Unfortunately most of the palace is undergoing restoration. But the Armoury was open, and this is what the Husband wanted to see. Can you imagine wearing any of this in the heat of the summer???????????
After the Armoury we walked down to Fort St Elmo. In the late 1400s the Aragonese (later part of Spain) erected a watchtower out at the point of what would later become Valletta. When the Knights of St John arrived in 1530 they dramatically added to it. Which was a good thing as Fort St Elmo played a major part in the defense of Malta!
Monday morning we had one final place to stop. While I was never able to get into the Victory chapel, I was hopeful that the doors to St Paul’s Shipwreck Church would be open – Finally. And they were!! And it was worth the wait and numerous hikes down and back up that hill! The church was built in the late 1570s, with substantial renovations in 1639 (probably due to the big earthquake that struck Malta in 1638). It’s beautiful. It’s not stylishly fancy, or even a cohesive design, but that’s okay. It reflects centuries of people that have come through there. It also has a couple of seriously important and impressive relics. Malta being the island that St Paul shipwrecked on means that there is a close tie between the two. It is lost to history how the church came to be in possession of it, but they have a piece of St Paul’s right wrist bone.
Wow. I was so glad we were finally able to get inside this church. I have dozens of photos of it, but I figured this post was long enough! We have one more weekend excursion planned before we have to begin making our preparations for moving to Gozo!
Beautiful photos and wonderful review of the history of the places you show! Good job bfff!
Thank you so much for writing about us at Casa Rocca Piccola. It was a pleasure having you to stay and when reading your blog I learnt a thing or 2 about Malta too.