On the 15th of February FAA members were privileged to make up the first tour to walk through
Valletta's underground passages, from the Auberge d'Italie, crossing under Merchants' Street to
the St. Paul's Street side of the Auberge de Castille.
Perit Edward Said gave us a fascinating insight into the Knights' lieterally ground-breaking
engineering that created the sewers and passages of Valletta - and the later British-period
additions and shelters. This intricate web of subterranean tunnels, wells and reservoirs, sewers
and war shelters was the lifeline of Valletta.
We descended the stairway in Auberge d’Italie and entered one of the vast vaults built by the
Knights. When Grand Master La Valette started building the capital, he planned an underground
water system in case of a siege. The talk had given us an idea of the layout and depth of the
underground spaces but to actually be in such a beautifully built cavern was quite a surprise. We
walked through the precision-hewn tunnels quickly built in the Second World War period, saw
the cramped spaces shared by the general public and the private spaces paid for by those who
could afford a couple of square meters of privacy dug out at great cost by a hired hand, and got a
sense of how hard life was when the sirens went off and everyone rushed underground to safety.
We were reminded that during the war Malta became the most bombed place on earth when
6,700 tons of bombs fell in just 6 weeks in April1942. For one or two of our members this tour
brought back vivid memories of when they had to shelter in such passages during the war.
Followed passages what were well-lit but glistening with percolating water that formed ministatactites overhead, we entered another vast vault under Castille and again listened to how the
air-raid shelters were carved out to provide sanctuary for the 'Beltin'. From here we climbed the
stairs to daylight in the magnificent courtyard of the Auberge de Castille et Leon, exiting into St
Paul’s Street, where we strugged to work out how we had zig-zagged underground in traversing
Merchant Street from our starting point.
Walking to Casa Rocca Piccola, Astrid Vella pointed out architectural and historic features,
including the 'Victory Kitchen' sign in St. Paul's Street, the shrapnel damage on buildings and the
pillory pedestal on the corner of the Castellania, the Knights' courts of justice on the corner of
Merchants' and St. John's Streets. Tour members leaned that Valletta was the first city to enforce
town planning regulations, established by the Knights' Ufficio delle Case, which included the
law that every house had to have a well.
This theme continued at Casa Rocca Piccola where Perit Edward Said's illustrated presentation
provided background information regarding the underground passages of Valletta, including the
fact each house constucted had to be connected to the sewer system, which mean that Valletta
had an underground sewer system before London, Paris or any other city! On the other hand,
under the Knights, the sewage was simply poured into the harbour. On bad days, when the wind
blew inland, the stench of sewage was so bad that Valletta residents went round with
handkerchiefs over their noses. The British recognised that this was a serious threat to public
health, with urban residents vulnerable to periodic epidemics of the plague and cholera, and
eventually re-engineered the system, locating the sewage outfall beyond the harbour, at Wied
Qammieq (Xajghra).
FAA members were then taken around Casa Rocca Piccola’s shelter by Marquis Nicholas de
Piro who explained that, being built in 1935, it is Malta’s earliest private wartime shelter. We
descended from the garden and zigzagged our way through the tunnels, built in this way to
minimize blast damage. One of them took us into a huge well that was used during WW2 to
shelter over 150 people from enemy bombs. The crosses carved into the rock for protection and
the dark stains of the kerosene lamps are evidence of how people coped in the hours spent down
there. A couple of our more curious members had a go at winding up the old siren that signaled
danger on the horizon! Again the depth and size of the spaces, especially the enormous bellshaped well, reminded us of how much of Valletta is hidden underground.
The tour was concluded by the usual delicious high tea, in the setting of Casa Rocca's lovely
walled garden filled with citrus trees.
If you are interested in joining our next tour of Underground Valletta, join FAA
at http://faa.org.mt/membership/
Many thanks to Perit Edward Said, to all our FAA volunteers who made this tour and tea such a
success as well as to the officials at both Auberges and to the de Piro family at Casa Rocca
Piccola who made the tour possible.