The Three Cities: The Tour That Only Stops in Two

Three fortified towns sit on two fingers of land opposite Valletta, and each carries two names. Birgu is also Vittoriosa, Senglea is also Isla, Cospicua is also Bormla. They are older than the capital, they were the Knights’ first base, and they take the worst of the Grand Harbour’s traffic noise and none of its coach parties.

They also produce one of the more instructive lines on GetYourGuide, which we will get to.

What the guided tour actually contains

The main product is a 4-hour trip at €40, 4.5 stars from 3,010 reviews. The booking page lists what is in the price: pick-up and drop-off transfers, an air-conditioned coach, a licensed guide, a walking tour of Vittoriosa and Senglea, and a boat trip on a traditional Maltese frejgatina. Food, drinks and tips are not included.

And then, in its own Know-before-you-go section, this:

“The visit to Cospicua is a panoramic drive-by; we will not be stopping there.”

A tour named for three cities stops in two. That is not a scandal – Cospicua is the working town of the three, with less to walk around than its neighbours – but it is the kind of thing worth knowing before you get on the coach rather than after.

Two more lines from the same page are worth the thirty seconds it takes to read them:

• The start time on your ticket is not your pick-up time. Pick-up runs anywhere between 08:15 and 09:15 depending on where you are staying, and the operator asks you to contact them a few days ahead to confirm.
• The boat trip depends on the weather. If it cannot run, the tour spends longer in the towns instead.

The page also states the tour is not suitable for people with mobility impairments, for wheelchair users, or for people prone to seasickness.

The cheaper way in, and the ticket nobody mentions

You do not need a coach. Malta Public Transport runs a ferry between Valletta and Cospicua, leaving Cospicua every half hour from 06:30 to 19:00. An adult day fare is €3.00 single and €5.00 return, children €1.00 and €1.50. The night service starts at 19:30 and costs more: €3.50 single, €5.20 return. Our own stock sells the return crossing as a ticket at €5 – the same money as the kiosk, so there is nothing to gain by booking it ahead.

The detail that makes this the best-value thing in the harbour is on the operator’s own page: passengers from Cospicua receive a ticket for the Upper Barrakka lift, which carries you from the quayside up the full height of Valletta’s bastions into the city centre. If you have stood at the bottom of those walls in August, you will understand what that is worth.

So: ferry across in the morning – which puts you ashore in Cospicua, the one town the coach only drives past – walk up through Bormla, then Birgu and Senglea at your own pace, ferry back in the late afternoon and ride the lift up into Valletta as the light goes. That is the same geography as the €40 tour, minus the guide, plus the town it skips, plus the freedom to stay for dinner.

There is also a 90-minute scenic cruise from Sliema past Valletta and the Three Cities at €20, 4.3 stars from 1,073 reviews. It is a boat trip, not a visit – you see the bastions from the water and land nowhere.

Fort St Angelo

The one ticketed site, on the tip of Birgu, and the reason to take the guided version if forts are your thing. Heritage Malta prices it at €10.00 for adults, €6.00 for 12- to 17-year-olds, over-60s, students and concessions, and €4.00 for children from 6 to 11.

Heritage Malta rates the site as partial accessibility and gives the nearest bus stop as 10 minutes on foot. It is a fort on a promontory; the climb is the point and also the obstacle.

Which version fits you

Take the guided tour if you want the history joined up, if you want the boat on the harbour included without arranging it yourself, and if being collected from your hotel matters more than the hour your pick-up time can slide across.

Take the ferry if you would rather spend four hours in the towns than four hours on a schedule, if anyone in the group is unsteady on their feet – the ferry and the lift do the climbing for you – or if the budget is going on something else.

Take the €20 walking tour from Cospicua if you want a guide but not a coach. Our stock holds a 2.5-hour guided walk that starts in Cospicua and covers Senglea, Bormla and Birgu – all three, on foot – at 4.9 stars from 175 reviews. It is the direct answer to the complaint this article opens with, and it is half the price of the coach.

Take the cruise from Sliema only if you have already walked the towns. From the water they are a skyline, and a very good one, but you will not have set foot in any of them.

Birgu is the one to walk if you only walk one. The lanes behind the marina are residential, the doorways are numbered in stone, and nobody is selling you anything – which after a morning in Valletta is a genuine change of temperature.

Our Valletta and Mdina walking tours category holds 122 offers from €5, median €50, and most of the Three Cities products sit inside it; the harbour trips are in boat trips on Malta, 162 offers from €5, median €40. The same warning applies to both, and it is the one this whole article is about: read what the tour says it does not do. On a Gozo day trip that line is about a temple ticket. Here it is about a whole town.