Malta by Catherine Cooper

The lack of traffic makes for a relaxed place to stroll around its quirky steeply-stepped stone streets, browsing the shops and stopping for drinks at its pavement cafes such as Caffé Cordina in Piazza Regina – the oldest café in Valletta with an impressive vaulted ceiling decorated with paintings and undoubtedly the best place in the city for sitting outside and people watching.

Juxtaposed against the Italian-feel of the city is the staunch Britishness of some of its shops – Marks and Spencer, Mothercare, Next and many other familiar names are scattered around Valletta and the shopping and hotel Mecca of Sliema just across the bay. These shops are almost indistinguishable from their UK counterparts and seem just as popular with the locals as with the holidaymakers.

For me the familiarity of the shop fronts jarred somewhat with the delicate Italianate buildings but then again, 150 years of British rule are bound to have left their mark – even on the Maltese themselves. As my guide Anna put it: “We have Arab blood and Sicilian blood which would make us very fiery but then the British came along, calmed us down and taught us queuing. So now we are very disciplined, hard workers.” The mix of climate, history and beaches combined with familiar shops and English spoken everywhere – even street signs are written in English - has made Malta a favoured British holiday destination for many years.

At Valletta’s centre is St John’s Co-Cathedral - one of the two most important churches in Malta. As well as being a very glitzy and colourful church with vaulted ceilings covered in paintings by Maltese artist Mattia Preti, it famously houses two paintings by Caravaggio – the Meditation of St Jerome and the enormous Beheading of St John the Baptist – the latter believed to be the only painting which carries Caravaggio’s signature.

Around the edge of the co-cathedral are 12 chapels – one of which is closed off with solid silver gates, which, according to Anna, were once painted black by the guardians of the church so they wouldn’t be spotted by Napoleon’s armies and stolen. The floor of the co-cathedral is covered with the ornate tombstones of over 500 Knights of St John, the founders of the church, buried beneath.

The nearby Grand Master’s Palace – the seat of Malta’s parliament – has a different feel again with the entrance being through a Spanish-style courtyard. The section of state apartments open to the public includes several huge frescoed rooms, the slightly claustrophobia-inducing tapestry room, which was used at the parliament’s council chamber until 1976 and a portrait of a young Queen Elizabeth II who stayed here during the war. The armoury is a huge collection of crossbows, pistols; swords and armour, most of which is not labelled but free automated audio guides are available.

Mdina - Malta’s original capital around 20 minutes drive from Valletta (there are also regular buses) contrasts greatly with Valletta and feels much more North African. It dates back to Roman times and was refortified by Arabs arriving in the 9th-century whose influence can still be seen in names such as Triq Mesquita – Mosque Street – and its Moroccan Medina-like feel architecturally. But even here other cultural influences are evident - some of the buildings are Italian palazzos while others are Spanish casas. Mdina is surrounded by a dry moat - never filled with water as no-one ever worked out a way to get it there – which is today planted with Seville orange trees. “See we are very British,” Anna pointed out. “We love our marmalade.”

Mdina’s network of pedestrianised narrow streets is flanked by sandstone buildings, most of which are private residences owned by Malta’s gentry. Its lofty position close to the coast gives the air a different quality to outside the city walls and in previous centuries invalids who couldn’t afford to get to Switzerland would come to “take the air”. Its more recent claim to fame is that some of Gladiator was filmed here – with few shops and little to position it in the present day beyond the tourists - it does somehow feel like it still belongs to a different era.

There are several historic sites and St Paul’s Cathedral to visit within Mdina but the best view to be had is from Fontanella’s Tea Gardens - on a clear day you can see Sicily. However the tea gardens are packed with tourists and the service isn’t brilliant - the waiter managed to spill a huge - and admittedly delicious - chocolate milkshake over us.

On the way back to Valletta Anna took me to Mosta – quite an ordinary town except for its church with its impressive dome. It was built between 1833 and 1860 by the local people – they were given special dispensation by the Pope to be allowed to build on holy days as they were, in effect, building in their spare time. It is an imposing church with Pantheon-style columns on the outside and an interior which, with its blue painted walls and many pictures almost feels like a grand English country house but the most interesting thing about it is the so-called “Miracle of Mosta.”

In 1942 a bomb fell through the dome into a church packed with around 400 parishioners. The bomb didn’t explode and not a single person was injured. Today the “miracle” is remembered by a panel in the repaired dome which has been left ungilded and a replica of the bomb on display within the church.

On the one hand Valletta and its surrounding towns and cities are fascinating because there is such a mix of cultural influences there – Arab, Sicilian, Norman, Spanish and even some Roman – but somehow its Britishness manages to override everything else. At least if your luggage gets lost on the plane, you'll be able to pop into M&S for replacements.