Best hotels in Malta: nine places from Valletta to Gozo

Gardens and a pool just outside the city gate

The Phoenicia stands just outside Valletta's city gate, with the bus terminus on one side and a large terraced garden falling towards Marsamxett Harbour on the other. The pool sits at the bottom of the garden looking across the water to Sliema, and it is the only place in Valletta where you get both the old city and a proper hotel garden.

It feels like a colonial hotel from another era, with high ceilings, palms and a lobby people actually sit in. It works best for anyone who wants Valletta on foot and a pool to come home to, which is most people on a first visit. Look elsewhere if you want to sleep in the old streets themselves, since you do walk through the gate every time.

A palazzo on Merchants Street with a rooftop pool

The hotel occupies a restored palazzo on Merchants Street, one of the two main streets running the length of Valletta, a few minutes from St John's Co-Cathedral and the Upper Barrakka Gardens. On the roof there is a small pool with a view over the domes and bell towers, and inside it is dark stone, contemporary design and very few rooms.

Staying here means seeing Valletta as it is once the day trippers have gone back to their cruise ships: quiet streets, lit windows, restaurants filling with Maltese. It is made for couples who want design and the centre in one building. The caveat is scale: the pool is for cooling off rather than swimming, and there is no garden.

Art and harbour views on the bastion

Iniala sits on St Barbara Bastion, the wall facing the Grand Harbour and the Three Cities across the water. The hotel is made from several old townhouses joined together, and every room is decorated differently, with art and furniture that stop any of them looking like a hotel room. The rooftop restaurant faces straight out over the harbour.

This is our design choice in Malta, for anyone who wants something they have not seen before and who likes a hotel to be a talking point in itself. The view from the bastion is the best in Valletta. Skip it if you want a pool, family rooms and predictable chain standards, because it is anything but.

Its own headland with its own swimming spot

The Dragonara occupies a headland of its own at St George's Bay, with sea on three sides and an old casino in a palazzo on the grounds. The hotel has several pools, a private lido on the rocks with ladders straight into the sea, and enough garden to forget that Paceville is just behind the wall.

It is our family choice in Malta: large rooms, a kids' club, pools for every age and sea swimming without crossing a road. It feels like a big international resort, because it is one. The wrong choice if you want something Maltese or small, nor for anyone who wants to walk to Valletta, which means a ferry or a bus.

The Maltese grand hotel on the bay

Corinthia is a Maltese company, and this is its flagship at home: a large hotel on the rocks at St George's Bay with pools stepping down in terraces towards the sea, its own swimming area and a long list of restaurants. From the sea-facing rooms you look straight out into the Mediterranean with nothing in between.

It is ideal for anyone who wants a full resort with a spa and plenty of choice, but with local ownership and staff who have been here for years. It feels more like a hotel for adults than the Dragonara, though children are welcome. Not for anyone who wants cafés and shops on the doorstep, since the hotel sits on its own out on the rocks.

A rooftop pool in the middle of town for less

The Palace sits a few blocks up from the Sliema seafront, on an ordinary town street with a bakery and a pharmacy. What you get for walking those minutes is a rooftop pool with a view over the whole of Sliema to Valletta, and a modern hotel with a good breakfast at a lower price than the hotels down by the water.

It is right for anyone who wants a solid, modern base for seeing the island, with the Valletta ferry and the buses close at hand. It feels efficient rather than romantic. The caveat is the position: there is no sea view from the room, and the street outside is busy during the day.

The sandy beach directly below

The hotel stands on the cliff above Golden Bay, one of the few proper sandy beaches in Malta, with its own path down to the sand and a wide bay facing west where the sun sets into the sea. Several pools, a large spa and rooms with terraces over the bay make it the island's most complete beach hotel.

It is a strong pick for anyone who is in Malta to swim and switch off, and who treats Valletta as a day trip. It feels like a classic beach resort, with everything that implies in sunloungers and buffets. Less suited if you want a city, a choice of restaurants in the evening or something small and personal.

The only hotel inside Mdina's walls

The Xara Palace is inside Mdina, the fortified old capital on the hill in the middle of the island, in a palazzo built into the city wall itself. From the rooms on the bastion you look across the eastern half of Malta to the sea, and once the day visitors have left, Mdina's streets are nearly empty and as quiet as a cloister.

This is our romance choice in Malta, for anyone who wants calm, history and dinner on a terrace above the walls. It is a small hotel with few rooms, antique furniture and personal service. Look elsewhere if you want a pool, a beach or something to do in the evening beyond the hotel, because Mdina has none of those.

Gardens and a spa in Gozo's quiet corner

The hotel sits on the edge of the village of San Lawrenz in the north-west of Gozo, a couple of kilometres from Dwejra and the cliff coast. It is built low in local limestone around large gardens, with pools indoors and out and a spa that is the reason many people come outside summer.

It appeals to anyone who wants calm and space, with Gozo's villages and coastal walks as the daytime programme and the hotel as the evening one. It feels like a country resort rather than a beach hotel, since the sea is a short drive away. Skip it if you want to walk to a beach or choose between restaurants at night.