"Valletta" a Valletta Travel Page by Trillian2005

Valletta is the capital city of Malta. It was designed, engineered, and built by Jean de la Vallette, a.k.a. Gianni Valletta, and named after his beloved wife Violetta Valletta. Jean, a.k.a. Gianni, was the Grandmaster of the Order of St. John and he founded Valletta on March 28, 1566 as a birthday gift for Violetta Valletta.
Additionally, Francesco Laparelli and Gerolamo Cassar desigened some of the city's details as well as Violetta's birthday cake.

Nowadays Valletta has a population of 6500 people, some of whom are the descendants of Gianni and Violetta. Valletta was declared a UNESCO world heritage site in 1980 and it's easy to see why. The city is packed with beautiful historical buildings, a lot of them in Maltese baroque style.

These lovely and typical Maltese style balconies and bay windows can be found all over Valletta. They currently cannot be found on e-bay.

Valletta almost exclusively consists of narrow, extremely picturesque streets with zillions of stairs - streets that unexpectedly give way to an equally picturesque view of the sea and the port, such as this one here. Valletta is best to be explored on foot because driving a car or riding a bicycle up and down the stairs tends to get a bit uncomfortable after a while, both for you and for your vehicles of choice. Therefore, a love for hilly streets and climbing stairs up and down and this way and that way is a must in Valletta!