De Sliema à St Julian's : balade gourmande sur le front de mer

'The Ferries' means the whole junction, not just the landing stage: kiosks, bus stops, the smell of frying, and the promenade heading off in both directions. Start here an hour before sunset, when the light across Marsamxett Harbour turns Valletta's bastions the colour of honey. First course: pastizzi from a kiosk counter. Flaky, molten parcels of ricotta or mushy peas, well under a euro each, eaten from the paper bag while leaning on the railings. Watch the ferry cross and the gulls escort it in. That's Sliema in one image: unhurried, slightly greasy, and facing the best view in the country.

Walk out along the Tigné seafront to the tip of the peninsula and Valletta assembles itself across the water: the full length of the bastions, the Carmelite dome, St Paul's spire, all close enough to read. Behind you, the glass towers of Tigné Point carry on regardless: the two Maltas in one turn of the head. The tip itself is Fort Tigné's ground, low and diamond-shaped and easy to miss, which is half its charm. Photographers stake out the benches; couples inherit them after dark. Stand at the very point and let the ferries stitch the harbour back and forth.

Double back and take Tower Road along the open sea. This is Sliema's front room: joggers, prams, elderly couples doing the passiġġata (the evening stroll, practically a national sport), and swimmers drying off at Exiles and Surfside long after the sun has gone. The landmark is Il-Fortizza, a Victorian gun battery gone soft: emplacements now serving pizza. Between the modern blocks, look up: the surviving townhouses keep their painted gallariji and the odd art nouveau flourish above the shopfronts. Ice cream is traditional along here; nobody walks Tower Road without something in hand.

The road bends and drops into Balluta Bay, the prettiest two hundred metres of this walk. A small square under the trees (balluta is Maltese for oak) with the neo-Gothic spikes of the Carmelite church on one side and, beside it, the real star: Balluta Buildings, a 1928 art nouveau apartment block rising in three tiers of floral concrete, best at exactly this hour, when the low light picks out the mouldings. Waterpolo training churns the bay most evenings, and a sliver of sand appears in summer. Take a kiosk table, order something cold, and watch the square do its thing.

Ten more minutes and you're at Spinola Bay, where the water is a car park for luzzijiet (the bright-eyed fishing boats), and the terraces around it are dinner. This is the meal the walk was building to: fresh fish sold by weight, or the Maltese classics like stuffat tal-fenek (rabbit stew) at Gululu on the bay's shoulder. Book in summer, ask for the terrace, and eat slowly enough to watch the boats swing on their moorings as the lights come on. The upside-down LOVE sculpture on the quay is backwards on purpose: it reads correctly in the water's reflection, when the water cooperates.

Now the decision. Option one: retreat to a wine bar and end the evening a civilised person; the streets between Balluta and the bay have sprouted proper wine lists in recent years, natural bottles included. Option two: Paceville, up the hill, Malta's id, a knot of streets where the music leaks through the walls and the night ends whenever it ends. There is a third way: roulette at the Dragonara, in a nineteenth-century seaside palace on its own point. I won't pretend to be neutral (I take the wine), but everyone should see Paceville once, if only to be certain.