Exploring Malta & Gozo | Notes from the Archive

a trip with UCD Archaeology Society

Apr 12, 2026

*SHARED TO THE BLOG IN APRIL 2026.

ARCHIVE / aar•kive / (noun): a collection of historical documents or records providing information about a place, institution, or group of people.

Welcome to a new Notes from the Archive post, a series in which I am sharing some of my old & well documented travel notes to the blog. I’ve been keeping detailed notes and journals from my travels abroad long before I ever started sharing that content to this little corner of the internet. For some reason, it only dawned on me recently that, although not as thorough as my note-taking and journaling of today, this information could a. be useful to someone out there planning a trip, b. offer a glimpse into my travel days of yore, or c. just be fun for me to relive briefly under the pretense of being useful — so I figured why not share them here!

If you have stumbled across this post on a deep-dive through the blog archives, hello! I have done my darndest to make sure every piece of information shared here is just as relevant today as it was the day it was scrawled in my journal. I would also like to take a moment here to apologise in advance for any poor-quality photographs. You have been warned.

Today’s Notes from the Archive post — Exploring Malta & Gozo — is all about my 2013 trip to the tiny Mediterranean country with UCD Archaeology Society. There were a whole bunch of us on the trip, and we spent the guts of four days exploring the archaeological highlights on the mainland. We also had one free day in our schedule, so my closest archaeology buddies and I opted to take the ferry to Gozo for the day, which was a surprising highlight!

Listed below is all the legible information I could garner from my trusty ole journal, broken down into the following categories: getting there / where we stayed / where we ate / and where we tourist-ed.

Enjoy, friends!

getting there

Here’s how we made the journey to Malta:

from Dublin Airport, we flew direct into Malta International Airport with Ryanair. The travel time was 3-hours and 30-minutes.
from Malta International Airport, we were collected by private bus transfer and driven to our hotel in St Paul’s Bay, which took around 30-minutes.
this website seems to have good information about public transport in Malta, if you are so inclined.

where we stayed

ice cream at the promenade outside our hotel

Xemxija Bay Hotel // literally nothing of note stands out in my memory about this hotel — other than the fact that it had a tiny mini market on the ground floor where you could buy snacks etc., and one evening in the bar they were doing two glasses of prosecco for €5. Bargain! Address: Ridott Street, St Paul’s Bay SPB 4042

where we touristed

In a slight detour from the norm, rather than dividing up our tourist-ing spots by free attractions / paid attractions, I’ve divided the below list up instead by different areas: Rabat / Valletta / Qrendi / and Gozo.

Also, because the organizers of the trip planned on taking us to a lot of museums, we all were told to purchase a Malta City Card. According to my journal, these were €27 for students at the time of our visit, and they included free entry at all of the paid attractions listed below. I can’t seem to find the exact card we got online, but I’d recommend asking at the tourist information office if you’re interested.

Anyway, here’s everywhere we hit on our Malta trip:

rabat

St. Paul’s Catacombs // the first tourist attraction we did in Malta — and not one for any claustrophobics out there! We had a tour guide lead us around all the different graves sites — although, there are no actual bodies in the catacombs today, thank goodness — and it was quite fascinating to learn about the country’s early Christian history. Please note: this is a paid attraction. Would recommend. Address: Hal-Bajjada, Ir-Rabat

valletta

upper barrakka gardens // grand master's palace

Upper Barrakka Gardens // a really nice garden/small park. We wandered around here as the day turned to dusk, admiring the view of Valletta Harbour below, it was so peaceful and serene. Would recommend. Address: VGV6+WMH, 292 Triq Sant’ Orsla, Il-Belt Valletta

National Museum of Archaeology // according to my journal, this museum was “actually pretty good — perfectly sized, as museums go, and it didn’t attack us with heaps of information”. Aside from admiring the museum’s plentiful fat lady statues — some of the earliest representations of the human figure ever! — we also got to gawp at Malta’s #1 archaeological find of all time: the sleeping lady. Estimated to have been carved around 2500BC(!!), the sleeping lady is a tiny statue portraying a curvy reclining woman, supposedly a fertility goddess, and it is totally amazing to see with your own two eyes. Would recommend. Please note: this is a paid attraction. Address: Republic St, Valletta

St. John’s Co-Cathedral // a delightfully fantastic over-the-top church. Adorned with an unnatural amount of gold on every conceivable surface, there’s also a plethora of flower carvings, marble tombstones, ceiling frescoes, and Maltese Crosses everywhere you look — it’s almost overwhelming. That’s all before you get into the oratory to see the Co-Cathedral’s prized possession: Caravaggio’s The Beheading of John the Baptist. Sadly there were no photos allowed in the oratory, but you’ll just have to take my word for it, this is an absolute must visit. Please note: this is a paid attraction. Address: Triq San Gwann, Il-Belt Valletta

Grand Master’s Palace // as in, the palace of the head of the Knights of Malta — although the grandmaster hasn’t actually lived in the country since the 1820s. We toured the state rooms and the armory; both of which were as fantastically over the top as you’d imagine. Ridiculously fancy and overdone décor, corridors lined with knight armor, elaborate carpeting, chandeliers, etc. Please note: this is a paid attraction. Address: Grand Master’s Palace, Valletta

qrendi

tal-ħamrija coastal tower // the view from the tower

Ħaġar Qim & Mnajdra Archaeological Site // two beautiful temples — and I’m not just saying that from an archaeology student standpoint. Ħaġar Qim, the smaller of the sites, is made up of one temple, while Mnajdra is comprised of three large temples; and all of them are surrounded with huge megaliths, not too dissimilar to our very own Newgrange, which the site is often compared to! Would recommend. Please note: this is a paid attraction. Address: Triq Ħaġar Qim, Il-Qrendi QRD 2501

Tal-Ħamrija Coastal Tower // the Knights of Malta built a series of these towers along the coast of the country for protection, but this was the only one we saw during our trip. Located right on the edge of a cliff overlooking the stormy waves below, if there was ever an enemy ship approaching, the tower watchman would light a fire on its roof, which the next nearest tower watchman would be able to see and alert others, etc. and so forth. Pretty cool! Would recommend. Address: RCFQ+RX2, Qrendi

gozo

Daytrip to Gozo // for our one unscheduled day, we decided to set off and explore the island of Gozo! We took the ferry from the Grand Harbour in Valletta to Mgarr in Gozo — with a journey time of about 1-hour, but much more on the way back because of turbulent waters(!) — and had such a lovely day! Because we didn’t have too long to explore, we decided to do a hop on/hop off tour of the island; I think we went with City Sightseeing, but I remember there being a bunch of different companies to choose from. Highlights from the tour include: seeing the famous Azure Window, which has since sadly collapsed, and wandering around the beautiful Cittadella in the capital city, Victoria. Please note: this is a paid attraction. Would recommend.

And there we have it: Exploring Malta & Gozo! I hope you enjoyed this entry into the Notes from the Archive series! Let me know any thoughts or recommendations etc. by using the comment box below — I love hearing from you!

Chat soon,

Vicki xo

*Dates of trip: January 2013*