Located in Valletta, Malta’s capital city, St. Johns Co-Cathedral was built by the Order of the Knights Hospitaller of St John (known as the Knights of Malta) between 1573 and 1578. Upon claiming victory over the Turks in 1565, The Knights decided to move their headquarters from Birgu (Vittoriosa) to the Sciberras peninsula where they built the city of Valletta – named after the Grand Master during the victory, Jean de la Valette.
Commissioned in 1572 by Grand Master , Jean de la Cassière, as the conventual church of the Knights, the church was designed by the Maltese architect Glormu Cassar.
Malta has a typically Mediterranean climate, with hot, dry summers and cool, wetter winters. In comparison to northern Europe, the climate is much milder in Winter, and December in Malta can be quite pleasant averaging 5 hours of sunshine per day.
Maltese wines have improved substantially over recent years, and this has led to a good number of wine bars opening across the island in order to satisfy the demand from both tourists and locals alike. Here we take a trip to few and tell you a bit about each.
The game of il-Passju was popular in bygone times here in Malta, along with other games such as ballun stop and bocci.
As there are two official languages in Malta, there are a variety of newspapers; some in English, others in Maltese. These are mainly printed daily with a mixture of news, opinion pieces, readers’ letters and classifieds. Sunday editions are generally bigger with more features and are sometimes distributed with free magazines.