Colonized for commercial purposes by the Phoenicians around 1000 BC, the Maltese Islands were inhabited since the Neolithic. During their millenary history they were occupied by numerous peoples: from the Greeks (who called it Melita ) to the Carthaginians, from the Ostrogoths to the Byzantines, from the Arabs to the Normans. Without forgetting, of course, the Swabians, the Angevins and the Aragonese.
However, the name of Malta is inextricably linked to the Hospitaller Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, a chivalric religious order better known as the Knights of Malta. The latter, on the island since 1530, resisted the siege by the Ottoman troops in 1565 and started the process of fortification of Valletta.
Occupied by the French under Napoleon Bonaparte and subsequently passed under British rule, Malta has been a parliamentary republic since 13 December 1974. It joined the European Union on 1 May 2004 (since January 2008 the official currency is the Euro).
The archipelago of the Maltese Islands is very rich both from a historical-cultural point of view and from a landscape point of view. On the two major islands (Malta and Gozo) there are three world heritage sites: the city of Valletta, the Hypogeum of Hal-Saflieni and the megalithic temples (among these, the Temples of the Ggantija deserve a special mention ).
Furthermore, during your stay in Malta, you cannot miss a visit to the medieval citadel of Mdina (known as the "Silent City"), to the fish market in the village of Marsaxlokk and to the Popeye village.
As previously mentioned, Malta is also known for its naturalistic beauties. Making a detailed list of the many beaches and bays is a very difficult task. Among the most famous are Ghadira Bay, Exiles Beach, Bugibba, Qawra, San Pawl Bay and Xemxija (in Malta), Blue Lagoon and Santa Marija Bay (in Comino), Ramla Bay , Hondoq ir-Rummien and Wied il-Ghasri (in Gozo).
According to the myth, the nymph Calypso held Ulysses prisoner for seven years in a cave located near the beach of Ramla.