Valletta and the Great Siege of Malta with Dan Snow

In 1565, this tiny Mediterranean island became the site of one of the Renaissance world's most desperate battles. On this walking tour with historian Dan Snow, you'll find out how 600 Knights of Saint John and a Maltese militia held off a 40,000-strong Ottoman invasion force. You'll also hear how that four-month siege gave birth to the fortress city of Valletta itself.

The tour starts at Triton's Fountain, just outside Valletta's City Gate, and leads through streets built over the siege's bloodiest ground. You'll pass the Auberge de Castille, former headquarters of the Knights' Spanish and Portuguese contingents, and stand before St John's Co-Cathedral, whose grim limestone exterior conceals a gold-leafed interior. Along the way, you'll hear how Grand Master Jean de Valette turned near-certain defeat into a defining victory for Christian Europe.

You'll learn how Fort Saint Elmo's defenders bought crucial time with a month-long last stand, and how brutal reprisals, including severed heads fired from cannons, marked the siege's darkest turn. At the Grand Master's Palace, you'll picture the armour-clad knights who fought in suffocating summer heat, and on the Knight's Staircase, you'll walk the same stone steps engineered for soldiers to move swiftly between bastions and harbour. The tour ends overlooking the Grand Harbour, facing Fort Saint Angelo, where the Ottoman retreat marked the end of the siege.

On this 60-minute tour, you'll have a chance to:

• Hear how divided Ottoman leadership between Mustafa Pasha and Piali Pasha cost them crucial time
• Stand before the bronze statue of Jean de Valette, the Grand Master who refused to surrender
• Visit the Church of Our Lady of Victory, built on the very spot where Valletta's foundation stone was laid
• Spot the gallarija balconies that Maltese resistance fighters later used to spy on French occupiers
• See the Archangel Michael statue carved directly from a building's corner stone
• Pass Strait Street, once Valletta's notorious red-light district known as 'The Gut'
• Explore Republic Street's café-lined squares, including the former treasury of the Order of Saint John

By the time you reach the harbour, you'll understand exactly how a doomed defence reshaped the Mediterranean and built the city around you.

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