Explore Paola

Fort Rinella is a Victorian coastal battery built by the British in 1878–1886 to house a single 100-ton Armstrong gun, one of only two such guns surviving in the world. The battery keeps the gun in its emplacement along with magazines, barracks and the steam machinery that loaded it, and is run as a museum with costumed guides.

Fort St Elmo is a star-shaped fort built in 1552 at the tip of the Sciberras peninsula, before Valletta existed. It fell after a month of bombardment in the Great Siege of 1565 and was rebuilt and enlarged by the Knights. Today it houses the National War Museum, whose exhibits run from prehistory to the Second World War, including the George Cross awarded to Malta in 1942.

The Blue Grotto is a natural sea arch and a set of caves in the limestone cliffs of Malta's south coast, below the cliffs of Qrendi. Small boats leave the inlet of Wied iż-Żurrieq for the caves, where sunlight reflected from the white sandy bottom turns the water a deep blue, strongest in the morning. The arch can also be seen from a viewpoint on the coast road.

Ħaġar Qim is a megalithic temple built between about 3600 and 3200 BC on a ridge above the southern coast of Malta and part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Its facade and chambers use some of the largest stones of the Maltese temples, one about seven metres long. The Venus of Malta and seated 'fat figures' found here are in the National Museum of Archaeology.

Mnajdra is a group of three megalithic temples built between about 3600 and 2500 BC in a hollow above the sea, 500 metres below Ħaġar Qim, and part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The lower temple is aligned with the sun: at the equinoxes the first light passes straight through its main doorway, and at the solstices it falls on the edges of stone slabs inside.

The Rotunda of Mosta, the parish church of the Assumption, was built in 1833–1860 by the villagers themselves to a design by Giorgio Grognet de Vassé modelled on the Pantheon in Rome. Its unsupported dome is among the largest in Europe. On 9 April 1942 a German bomb pierced the dome during Mass and failed to explode; a replica is shown in the sacristy.

The National Museum of Natural History is housed in Palazzo Vilhena, a French Baroque palace built in 1726–1728 for Grand Master António Manoel de Vilhena to designs by Charles François de Mondion. Opened in 1973, it displays rocks, minerals and fossils, shells, insects, and the birds, mammals and marine life of the Maltese islands.

Mdina Cathedral, dedicated to St Paul, was rebuilt in 1697–1702 to designs by Lorenzo Gafà after an earthquake destroyed the medieval church in 1693. Tradition places it where the Roman governor Publius met the apostle Paul. Inside are a floor of marble tombstones, a dome painted with scenes from Paul's life and Mattia Preti's Conversion of St Paul in the apse.

Mdina Gate is the Baroque main entrance to the walled city, built in 1724 under Grand Master António Manoel de Vilhena to designs by the French engineer Charles François de Mondion. A stone bridge crosses the dry ditch to the gate, whose outer face bears the arms of Vilhena and whose inner face shows reliefs of the saints Paul, Publius and Agatha.

The Ta' Bistra Catacombs are a late Roman and Byzantine burial complex of the 4th to 6th centuries AD on the outskirts of Mosta, cut into the rock in a row of separate tombs. Rediscovered in 1891 and restored by Heritage Malta, they include window tombs, canopied tombs and agape tables for funeral meals, now seen along a walkway with lighting.

Palazzo Falson is a medieval palace in Mdina, built in the 13th century and enlarged in the 15th, with Gothic doorways and windows around a small courtyard. From 1927 to 1962 it was the home of the collector Olof Gollcher, and his collection of paintings, silver, arms and armour, furniture, carpets and books is shown in the rooms as a house museum.

The Carmelite Priory in Mdina joins the Baroque church of the Annunciation, built between 1660 and 1675 to designs by Francesco Sammut, to a priory where Carmelite friars still live. Visitors see the church, the cloister, the refectory, the kitchen and the friars' cells. The Maltese uprising against French rule began outside it on 2 September 1798.

The Mdina Cathedral Museum occupies the former diocesan seminary, a Baroque building of 1733–1742 by Andrea Belli facing the cathedral. Its collections include woodcuts and engravings by Albrecht Dürer, coins from antiquity to the Knights, church silver, vestments, manuscripts and paintings by Maltese and Italian artists.

The Domvs Romana preserves the remains of a wealthy Roman town house of the 1st century BC, found in 1881 just outside the walls of Mdina. Its polychrome mosaic floors, among them a scene of doves drinking from a bowl, are shown in situ, with marble statues of the imperial family and everyday objects, in a neoclassical museum building of 1882.

The Basilica of St Paul in Rabat was built between 1653 and 1683, to a design attributed to Francesco Buonamici and completed by Lorenzo Gafà, above the grotto where tradition says the apostle Paul stayed after his shipwreck in AD 60. The chapel of St Publius beside it is older, and the grotto below holds a marble statue of the saint.

The Wignacourt Museum occupies the Baroque residence of the chaplains of the Knights of St John in Rabat, founded under Grand Master Alof de Wignacourt in the early 17th century. It is linked to St Paul's Grotto, where tradition says the apostle lived on Malta, and shows paintings by Mattia Preti and Antoine Favray, catacombs and Second World War shelters.

St Paul's Catacombs are a group of underground cemeteries cut into the rock outside the walls of the Roman town of Melite, used from the 3rd century AD for pagan, Jewish and Christian burials. More than 20 of the tombs can be entered; the largest has two round agape tables carved from the rock, where funeral meals were held.