Summer festivals across the islands
From village festa fireworks to Isle of MTV and Gozo's opera nights, how to plan a summer of festivals across Malta and Gozo.
Every summer weekend in Malta, at least one village is on fire, on purpose. The festa season runs from June to September: brass bands, streets dressed in damask and light bulbs, and firework duels that go on past midnight. Pick any Saturday, find the nearest festa and follow the noise; visitors are not just tolerated but fed.
The big-ticket events stack up in late June and July. Isle of MTV fills the Granaries in Floriana with a free headline concert, the Malta Jazz Festival takes over the Valletta waterfront under the bastions, and Earth Garden turns the national park at Ta' Qali into a long weekend of world music and food stalls.
Gozo does things its own way. The two opera houses on Victoria's main street, improbably grand for an island of thirty thousand people, stage full productions in the cooler months, while summer brings Festa San Gorg and wine festivals in the citadel ditch. Time a visit around mid-August and you will catch Santa Marija, the islands' biggest feast, when half of Malta crosses the channel.