Museums are a great place for adults and children alike, and they make a fantastic weekend or summer holiday experience with a difference.

One such museum experience are the Lascaris War Rooms in Valletta, an underground series of tunnels that were first built by the Knights Of St John in 1566, after the Great Siege of Malta, and extended by the British in the beginning of the Second World War, in which Malta played a huge role! 

The War Rooms, which were used as the Headquarters for the Army and Navy, have been restored by the Wirt Artna Foundation and are now open to the public for guided tours which make for a fantastic day out! There’s loads to see and discover, and the War Rooms are set up exactly as they would have been all the way back in the 1940s. The guided experience is much more than an exhibition of relics, but a real-life look inside the very same underground rooms built into the cool limestone barracks that were used as the central command base of the Mediterranean! 

There are clunky old telephones on dark wooden desks, which would have been used for phone communications from overseas, and you can just imagine the rooms busting with old servicemen and women who were there to take in information about air raid threats and plot defence fighter plane attacks. Information would be received by watchmen looking out for attacks on their way to bomb small but strong Malta, and passed on over radio headsets.

There are table and wall maps that fill up whole rooms, on which markers would be put down to represent the locations of ships and planes. As well as this, there are glass cabinets full of war memorabilia, from army and navy jackets to satchels, ammunition, flags and measuring devices that remind you how basic but effective the technology was back in wartime!

The Lascaris War Rooms have only been open as a museum since 2009, after they were abandoned by the British Empire in 1979. They then fell into disarray for thirty years until they were spruced up to their current state, completely in-keeping with when they were used at the height of their importance. The War Rooms were completely hidden from the enemy, and they were a place of secrecy until very recently. It is amazing to be able to step inside the nerve centre - where it all went down! Every mission, defence and attack operation surrounding Malta was planned from those very rooms. Malta had to remain strong as its strategic location meant it was of immeasurable importance for the allies.

When visiting the War Rooms, you’ll be immersed into the history that so directly influenced our ancestors less than 100 years ago, although it feels like worlds apart! The information shared by the friendly and insightful tour guide will fill your mind with detailed snippets and stories of important missions such as Operation Husky and Operation Mincemeat, just two of the missions plotted from the Valletta Headquarters. We are left with a sense of excitement and awe after visiting this mind-blowing landmark that should be a must-visit for all this summer. With a national history as interesting as Malta’s, we think museum visits should be a regular occurrence!