Stop 07 of 11

Victory Square

The town’s living room

Narration · 2 min

Have it read to you while you look at the thing itself, hands in pockets.

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Guide to Victory Square

Birgu's main square is named, like the town, for the lifting of the siege in 1565. It is also where the town's two band clubs conduct their rivalry, and where Birgu turns off its street lighting one weekend each October and lights itself with candles instead.

The monument and the clubs

The column and statue at the centre commemorate the end of the Great Siege.

Around the square, look for the two band clubs. Nearly every Maltese town has a pair, in permanent and enthusiastic competition — social club, brass band and rival faction in one, each attached to a patron saint. During the summer festa the rivalry is expressed in fireworks, processions and sheer volume, and this square is where it happens.

Birgufest

In the second week of October the square fills with candles instead. The town cuts its street lighting for a weekend and lights the whole of Birgu with thousands of candles and oil lamps.

In lanes this narrow and this old, the effect is genuinely remarkable.

Not a museum

Around eleven thousand people live across the three towns. Washing hangs over the streets on this route and the shops serve residents rather than visitors.

The reason it feels unlike Valletta is straightforward: Valletta is a capital and this is a neighbourhood, and the neighbourhood was here first.

What to look at

  • The Victory Monument and its 1565 inscriptions
  • Two band clubs facing each other across the square, flags out
  • Niches with statues on street corners — most streets here have one

Practical

Festa
Birgu’s festa is in June; Birgufest, the candlelit weekend, is in October.
Cafés
Several around the square, and cheaper than the waterfront.

Walk to stop 08

Leave the square by the road heading inland, away from the fort, towards the land walls. In three or four minutes you reach a complex of gates and a ditch.

About 4 min · 280 m