Valletta Christmas

Egads time gets away from me! Better late than never? Something like that, right?

The Christmas lights in Valletta began to go up mid November so we had a clue that we were going to be in another gorgeous location (see last year in Dinan, France). Lucky, lucky us! Unfortunately we left before all of the lights were up, which is really too bad. Saint George’s Square looked really bare – it didn’t make sense to us that there were no lights in that area. Now I’m seeing photos on Instagram of it….oh, so sad to have missed that!

Normally Valletta hosts Christmas markets, outdoor stage productions and many other events – not this year. Since none of the other events were happening, the city council put up extra lights – which was nice. We really loved walking around in the evening with the lights on. There’s even Christmas music playing through speakers on Republic Street (the main street through Valletta). We would often get a good laugh at the songs – snow, sledding, cold. Granted it was cold by Malta standards!

One of the very few times we ate inside we had this cute table on a Maltese balcony

This beautiful, nearly life sized nativity scene was set up right at the entrance to Valletta

This beautiful tree was outside the Auberge du Castille (the home of the Knights of St John from Castille – Spain- between 1740 – 1798). The building is now the Prime Minister’s offices. The bare spot on the tree has since been fixed 😎

And because I’m me, I took a photo of the PM’s car 😋

This adorable tree was outside a restaurant

Merchant Street – this street has a lot of restaurants on it – eeet well was a favorite of ours

A little farther up Merchant Street was this pretty tree

Lower Merchant Street – down near the Casa Rocca Piccola

Up at the main part of Republic Street. This was taken late one evening when we almost had the street to ourselves!

We had some rain earlier this day and the Husband took this very artistic reflection photo

Republic Square with the National Library of Malta.

Just a few pretty lights on one of the most Instagrammed streets in Valletta

This is just a little street between Republic and Merchant Streets

I love this little street. So much history and character.

Another adorable side street. I’ve never mentioned the rolled ice cream!! I will go into that on the next post.

All the streets seemed to have some lights

No idea what the fireworks were for, no idea that they were happening – we had gone up on the wall to take a good night photo of the Triton fountain.

Not Christmas lights, but I realized I hadn’t really shown the Opera House. It was not rebuilt after the war as other places were deemed more important – like houses. So it sat in ruins until 2013! It was then turned into an open air theatre within the ruins. It’s really quite stunning.

The other side of the opera house with more ruined facade

The Opera House prior to WWII
http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/ppmsca.52657

Our last night in Malta we were treated to this sight

We elected to stay at the Casa Rocca Piccola again for our final days in Malta. We really love the house and the de Piro family are wonderful. The bed and breakfast allows you to feel like you live in this incredible place. We can’t say enough good things about the house and the family. On one of our last days in Malta we received an extra special treat…Clem de Piro took us for a ride in the Bentley💖💖Be still my little gear head heart!

Parked out front of the Excelsior Hotel where we went for coffee (okay, tea for me. I was born without the coffee or beer gene)

Even prior to our arrival in Malta I wanted to see the gun salute that takes place most days. We always seemed to be somewhere else, or doing something else when it was time for the salute! Finally, in the last week that we were there, our timing was right.

Solider marching out to the saluting battery. This dates back to the early days of the British presence on Malta (early 1800s)

Only one cannon is fired for the salute. Below the saluting battery you can see an old gun emplacement from WWII.

Ah, Malta. What a fabulous, enchanting place!

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