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10 Reasons Valletta, Malta Deserves Its Title as Europe’s Best City

Europe's Best City

10 Reasons Valletta, Malta Deserves Its Title as Europe’s Best City

Malta Deserves Its Title

During the 2026 Readers’ Choice Awards, Valletta, Malta’s small and charming capital, was named Europe’s best city. With just 6,000 inhabitants, it is one of the smallest capitals, but despite its small size, it is a concentration of history, art, architecture, and Mediterranean culture. Its streets, bastions, and sea views tell the story of centuries of battles, trade, and rebirth.

Below are 10 reasons why it’s definitely worth a visit.

Valletta Europe’s Best City: 10 Reasons It Earned the Title

Valletta has been named Europe’s best city for a variety of reasons, including beauty, history, and quality of life. Here are ten interesting facts about the splendid Maltese capital.

  1. A masterpiece of urban planning: Founded in 1566, Valletta began as a fully planned city, designed with great precision after the Ottoman siege. The Knights of Malta sought to create an impregnable fortress, and in just a few decades, they created a true Renaissance urban jewel: perfectly straight streets, bastions arranged with military logic, and ventilation corridors designed to mitigate the summer heat.
  2. The name: it is dedicated to Jean Parisot de La Valette, Grand Master of the Order of Malta, who in 1565 successfully repelled the Ottoman invasion, saving the island from an uncertain fate.
  3. UNESCO World Heritage Site: Since 1980, the city has been recognized as one of the best-preserved Baroque cityscapes in Europe, a true open-air museum.
  4. It houses a Caravaggio: the Co-Cathedral of St. John houses one of the painter’s masterpieces, The Beheading of St. John the Baptist (1608), the only work signed by the artist.
  5. The smallest capital in the EU: with just 6,000 inhabitants, Valletta is the smallest capital in the European Union, but it offers a unique concentration of attractions: a twenty-minute walk will take you past charming palaces, churches, parks, museums, and fortresses.
  6. The port: the natural port of Valletta is among the most beautiful and ancient in Europe, a crossroads of trade, ships and cultures for centuries.
  7. World War II: the city was heavily bombed and almost destroyed, but was able to rise from the rubble, becoming a symbol of resilience and national pride.
  8. European Capital of Culture: In 2018, it was the European Capital of Culture. Today, it hosts dozens of events every year, from the Valletta Film Festival to the Baroque Music Festival, to art exhibitions in the bastions and restored casemates.
  9. Sunrise over the Three Cities: From the Upper Barrakka Gardens, you can admire one of the most evocative views of the Mediterranean. From here, you can watch the sunrise illuminate Vittoriosa, Senglea, and Cospicua, accompanied every day by the salute of the historic cannons that echo at midday.
  10. A city without skyscrapers: Valletta is deliberately built low to maintain harmony with the fortress walls, preserving its architectural identity and the visual balance of its unique skyline.

The Full 2026 Readers‘ Choice Rankings for Best Cities in Europe

Below is the full ranking of the 2025 Readers’ Choice Awards for the best cities in Europe:

  1. Prague 19) Budapest 18) Venice 17) Porto 16) Reykjavik 15) Marseille 14) Paris 13) Rome 12) Athens 11) Florence 10) Palma 9) San Sebastian 8) Stockholm 7) Lisbon 6) Munich 5) Madrid 4) Copenhagen 3) Vienna 2) Oslo 1) Valletta

Valletta Europe’s Best City: What It Actually Feels Like to Walk Its Streets

Valletta Europe's Best City

The award makes sense the moment you arrive. Valletta does not announce itself loudly. There are no towering glass buildings, no overwhelming noise, no sense that the city is trying to impress you. It just exists, quietly and completely, in a way that very few places still manage to do.

You step off the bus at the city gate and the streets open up in front of you — straight, golden, lined with buildings that have been standing for four hundred years and look entirely comfortable with that fact. The scale of everything is human. You can see from one end of a street to the other. You can walk the entire city in under an hour and still feel like you have not rushed anything.

What gets people is the detail. Every doorway has something worth stopping for. The carved stone balconies, the faded frescoes above archways, the small chapels tucked between houses that you almost walk past before something makes you look twice. The Co-Cathedral of St. John stops most visitors completely still. You walk in expecting a church and find yourself inside something closer to a painting — every surface covered, every corner considered, Caravaggio watching from the wall.

The Upper Barrakka Gardens at sunrise is the moment that stays with you longest. The cannon fires at noon every day, the harbour stretches out below, and the Three Cities sit across the water in the early light looking exactly as they have for centuries. It is one of those views that makes you understand, without needing it explained, why a city this small won an award this big.

Valletta rewards slowness. Go without a packed itinerary, walk without a map, and let it show you what it wants to.