Mdina

Mdina is a city that keeps its voice down. Malta's old capital sits on a plateau in the middle of the island behind bastions the Knights thickened, and behind them live some three hundred people, a cathedral with a dome by Lorenzo Gafà, a dozen palaces of the old nobility with their doors closed, and streets that curve on purpose so an arrow could not fly down them. Cars are nearly banned; the horse-carriages wait at the gate; and after dark, when the coaches have gone back to the coast, the lamps come on and the Silent City earns the name the Maltese gave it. At the gate, Rabat — the suburb that grew outside the walls — keeps the grotto where St. Paul is said to have preached and the catacombs where the first Christians lay.

The traveller comes through the main gate of 1724 (a certain television series filmed King's Landing here) and lets the streets decide; visits the cathedral and its museum; walks the bastion walk to the square at the north wall for the view over half the island, the Mosta dome and the sea; eats the chocolate cake at Fontanella on the ramparts, because everyone does and everyone is right; crosses to Rabat for the grotto and the catacombs of St. Paul; drives or takes the bus to the Dingli Cliffs at the island's edge for the sunset; and — this is the whole point — comes back after dinner, when Mdina is empty, lit and entirely hers.

The Guide's honesty: by day Mdina is small and full — the coaches from the cruise port arrive at ten and leave at four, and in between the lanes are a procession — so give the daylight to Rabat and the cliffs and keep Mdina for the evening; the horse-carriages charge a fixed price that is worth confirming before you sit; the Mdina glass and the silver filigree sold at the gate are real crafts and fair prices — buy them here rather than in Valletta; the buses are cheap and slow, and the taxi apps work; and Malta drives on the left, hard, and the roads to Dingli are narrow. The cake, again, is worth it.