Footsteps of WWII · Malta & Crete
Malta at War Museum, Birgu
Museum · 1940–1942
The story
Birgu faces Valletta across Grand Harbour, beside the dockyard that was a prime target throughout the siege. The museum occupies the Couvre Porte, a 17th-century counterguard whose 18th-century casemates became barracks. During the war they served as a police headquarters and then a civil defence centre. In 1940 the police began digging an air-raid shelter into the rock below, which grew into a small underground village where the town's people slept, gave birth and sheltered from raids. The Luftwaffe's arrival in Sicily in January 1941, when Ju 87s bombed HMS Illustrious in the harbour, brought the war to Birgu's doorstep. The museum is run by Fondazzjoni Wirt Artna.
What to look for
Above ground, nine galleries of wartime memorabilia and the wartime documentary 'Malta G.C.'. Below, a rock-cut shelter with dormitories, a surgery, a birth room, family cubicles and long tunnels. Allow time for the hourly English guided tour.
Plan your visit
Mon–Sat 9:30–17:30 (last entry 17:00); closed Sundays and 24, 25, 31 Dec, 1 Jan, Good Friday and Easter. Adult €14, child €7; guided tour and audio guide included, English tours hourly 10:00–14:00. Check the website before you go.
Things change, so check opening times before you travel.
Nearby sites
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Footsteps of WWII: Europe 1939–1945
A free field guide for your phone: the route, the maps and the stories built in, even with no signal. The whole Second World War in Europe, from the first shots at Westerplatte on 1 September 1939 to the German surrender in May 1945: Dunkirk, the Battle of Britain, Normandy, Arnhem, Bastogne, Stalingrad, Berlin and the camps, in 15 areas from Britain to Russia.
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