Valletta at First Light

Renzo Piano's 2014 gate is the fifth attempt at a front door on this spot, and Valletta argued about it the way Valletta argues about everything. Cross the bridge slowly and look down: the ditch below is storeys of rock cut by hand in the 1560s. Through the gate, Piano's Parliament sits on stilts to your right, and behind it are the ruins of the Royal Opera House, roofless since 1942 and now an open-air theatre. At 6:30 the only traffic is delivery vans, and Republic Street runs ahead of you, empty, all the way to the sea.

Cut up to the Upper Barrakka, the arcaded garden on top of the bastions, for the best view in Malta: the whole Grand Harbour, the Three Cities lined up opposite and Fort St Angelo dead centre. At seven in the morning it belongs to joggers, pigeons and men quietly arguing about politics. Below the terrace sits the Saluting Battery, which fires at noon and again at 16:00. From the corner of the garden the Barrakka Lift drops to the waterfront (free on the way down, €1 back up).

From the outside, St John's could pass for a barracks: Cassar built it plain-faced a few years after the siege, when the Order still expected the Turks back. Inside is one of the most overwhelming baroque interiors in Europe, but it doesn't open until nine, which suits us: photograph the facade in the early light, wander, and be at the door for opening. You walk on close to 400 knights, each under his own inlaid marble slab, skulls and trumpets underfoot. Then the Oratory, and the Caravaggio, and you stop talking.

One block seaward of Republic Street runs Strada Stretta, the Gut: narrow enough to nearly touch both walls, and for a century the most notorious street in the Mediterranean. Every door was a bar, a music hall or worse, and every navy in the world knew the address. At this hour it's shuttered fronts, hanging laundry and cats, and you can still read ghost signs over the doorways; look for the old bar lettering between Old Theatre Street and the lower end. Come back after dark; this street has always worked two shifts.

Republic Street runs out of city at the tip of the peninsula, and there sits St Elmo, the star fort that bought Malta four weeks in 1565 at the cost of everyone inside it. Time your walk to arrive for the 9:00 opening, ahead of the groups. The National War Museum inside holds the actual George Cross awarded to the island in 1942, and Faith, the last of the Gladiator biplanes that were briefly Malta's entire air force. From the upper batteries you get both harbours at once, which is the whole point of the place.

Loop back along the seaward walls to the Lower Barrakka, the Upper's quieter sibling: same arcades, same harbour, a tenth of the visitors. In the middle stands a small Greek temple to Alexander Ball, the British captain the Maltese actually liked. Below the garden, on its own platform above the harbour mouth, hangs the Siege Bell. If your timing is right it will catch you at noon. It is the loudest thing in Valletta and has entirely earned the right.

By half nine the city is properly awake and so is your appetite. Is-Suq tal-Belt, the Victorian covered market on Merchants Street, does a decent coffee under restored ironwork, with a supermarket in the basement if you need picnic supplies for later. Purists will tell you Caffe Cordina, in business since 1837, is the more correct choice: stand at the marble counter with the lawyers and clerks, where it's cheaper than the terrace and twice as entertaining. Either way, add a pastizz, pea or ricotta, for well under a euro.