Ride a karozzin

This is possible thanks to the widespread use, for tourists, of the traditional Maltese horsedrawn carriage – the karozzin. This form of transport was hugely popular with British servicemen in the hay days of the British Empire. This was a time when soldiers and sailors needed to get quick access into the shopping areas of the city and, well, yes, sometimes straight to Strait Street, the red light district which was then better known as ‘The Gut’.

In this day and age, however, a ride on a karozzin around the city of Valletta has less sinister connotations and provokes much more mundane thoughts.

Valletta sits on a peninsula, so almost everywhere you go allows you to see the Mediterranean popping up from different angles. Then there are also the peripheral roads, which provide spectacular panorama after spectacular panorama as the old horse and its cheerful driver take you along the shore and past Grand Harbour and Marxsamxett Harbour.

Neither will object if you want to stop them to take pictures, but beware of the impromptu commentary that you get about places and views that you ride past. Unlike official tourist guides, cabbies tend to add colour and a little individual flavour to stories and legends that may have no historical substance, but what the hey, they’re still interesting to listen to!


If there’s one drawback to this form of transport, it’s the strange odour that sometimes follows you around on the ride. Horses have natural needs too and, though well-intentioned efforts have been made to solve the problem of on-road deposits, there still has been no agreement between the authorities and the cabbies' union.


Whereas once catching a ride on a horse and cart was as easy as catching a taxi in London, that is obviously no longer the case in modern Malta. However, you can still find ‘karozzin stands’ in Valletta, Mdina and in Victoria on Gozo. Rides aren’t cheap, but there are few nicer ways to spend a couple of hours seeing the sights of Malta.