Malta shopping guide – where to shop and what to buy

Malta offers a unique shopping experience, particularly for visitors from large, metropolitan cities. As well as shopping malls filled with high-end stores, Malta has a tempting mix of retail outlets and high street shops, craft boutiques and markets. Malta’s craft scene has cultural and historical roots. Keep your eyes peeled for handmade soaps, lace, baskets, and knitwear and of course the local produced foodstuffs such as honey, jams, olive oil and wines.

Malta – shopping centers and high street stores

 

St. Julian’s and Sliema

 

If you are looking for somewhere to shop in St. Julian’s, Bay Street Complex is a shopping mall that offers high-end shopping by the sea, where there is the usual choice of fashion, food, and electronics as well as high-end and independent stores. Neighboring Sliema is a more popular shopping hotspot, home to the largest shopping mall in Malta – The Point. This impressive shopping center is part of Tigne Point residential and business area and covers no less than twenty-eight thousand square meters.

 

Valletta

 

As the main street of the Maltese capital, you can expect to find some of the better shops of the island on Republic Street. This is definitely where you’ll need to come for souvenirs as well as bookshops and also for shops selling local crafts and produce. Check out its daily market on Triq il-Merkanti, which runs parallel to Republic Street and sells mainly clothing. If books are what you’re after then Agenda Bookshop is your best bet.

 

Malta - Markets

 

Birkirkara Market

 

Birkirkara Market is open on Wednesday and Friday mornings on Tumas French Street by St. Helen’s Basilica. This open-air market is one of the best places to come to sample Malta’s fresh vegetables and fresh fruit. There are also stalls that sell clothes and other accessories such as handicrafts and necklaces. The main shopping done here, however, is food; Malta takes full advantage of its position by the sea and provides a high number of fresh fish, which can be bought at the Birkirkara Market.

 

Marsaxlokk Market

 

Marsaxlokk is a traditional fishing village in the south of Malta and on Sunday’s is home to the island’s most renowned fresh fish market. Popular with locals from all across Malta people come to get the freshest seafood and fish as well as a range of other locally produced products like honey, jam, vegetables and wine. Worth a visit if not for browsing the stalls and picking up some tasty souvenirs but also to try the local restaurants – seafood is a speciality of course.

 

Gozo

 

Upon entry at Victoria on Gozo, you’ll notice the Arkadia Commercial Centre. As its name suggests, this is main area for shopping in Gozo, and you’ll find fashion outlets, stores for the house, and a food store with a butcher, delicatessen, fishmonger, as a well as a fresh fruit and vegetable section. The Duke Shopping Mall is another shopping complex that is also found in Rabat (the local’s name for their capital). As well as branded fashion stores there are also cafes, a wellness center and wine bar found here. For market-lovers there is a morning open-air market in the Pjazza Indipendenza in the capital, Victoria.