Mdina is one of Europe’s finest examples of an ancient walled city and extraordinary in its mix of medieval and baroque architecture. We spent a few hours in Mdina and then visited the St Paul’s Catacombs in Rabat – you can walk between the two.

I booked an eCabs taxi via their iPhone app and the cost from Hilton Malta in St. Julian’s to Mdina was €18. I also purchased a Mdina and Rabat combined cultural experience ticket for €15 per person online in advance. This was mostly because I thought that the sightseeing train took you from Mdina to the St Paul’s Catacombs in Rabat.  Once there, we found that the sightseeing train was comically bad and that you can walk from Mdina to the Catacombs. So I wouldn’t bother with this ticket as the Catacombs is only €6.

We entered Mdina via a bridge, apparently used in many movie and TV productions including Game of Thrones.

I should say that we’ve never watched Game of Thrones, so just enjoyed the bridge for what it was.

Not far from the bridge we found the entrance to the Natural History Museum – admission included in our €15 cultural experience ticket.

The museum seemed to contain only geology and entomology exhibits – rocks and bugs. Imagine your most boring school trip ever multiplied by ten.

The narrow streets of Mdina are very picturesque. I realise that people actually live there, but the parked cars spoil many of the views. There are plenty of restaurants and they don’t seem over-priced – I wish we’d visited one rather than try and be smart and find the nearby Adelina restaurant.

Some of the churches charge a fee for entry and there doesn’t seem to be a combined Mdina ticket that covers everything within the city. There’s also a movie called the Mdina Experience for €6. I’ve no idea if this is any good, but have my suspicions that it isn’t – since confirmed by the hilarious reviews on TripAdvisor.

So please visit Mdina. Walk the streets, ignore the cars, avoid the museum, horse-drawn carriages and Mdina Experience. Here are our pictures.