Day 12 Optional Hagar Qim & the Three Cities tour

$145.00/person

A minimum of 9 travelers is required to operate this optional tour. 

Optional Tour: Set out for a tour of one of Malta’s best-known prehistoric temples, Hagar Qim, which means “free-standing boulders.” This megalithic temple complex was constructed more than 5,200 years ago. The large stone complex contains rooms formerly devoted to animal sacrifices, burnt offerings, and ritual oracles, making it one of the oldest religious sites on Earth. Next, explore the area Napoleon dubbed “The Three Cities,” settled as early as the time of the Phoenicians. A trio of historic fortified towns—Cospicua, Senglea, and Vittoriosa—ring the Grand Harbor. Vittoriosa, also known as Birgu, was settled by the Knights of St. John in 1530 when King Charles V of Spain granted them the territory of Malta. After resisting an Ottoman siege in 1565, in which a force of 700 knights overcame 40,000 Turkish soldiers, the knights ushered in Malta’s Golden Age. Cospicua, the largest 43of the three, is a double-fortified harbor city known for its majestic bastions, built by the Knights of Malta. Today the city is also dominated by its old dockyard, one of the features that endured the terrible bombing campaigns of World War II. And Senglea, set atop a narrow promontory extending into the Grand Harbor with an area of just over half a square mile, is Malta’s smallest locality but also its most densely populated.

After lunch at a local restaurant (included in the cost of the optional tour), you’ll have some free time for independent discovery in Vittoriosa before returning to the ship in the mid-afternoon.

Lunch: Lunch at a local restaurant in Vittoriosa.

10/20/25