Shitty Shopping And Flawed Food? Valletta Voted One Of Europe’s Worst Cities By Nearly 5,000 British Tourists
Scraping the bottom is not something Valletta is used to doing. Last year’s European Capital of Culture has been the continent’s architectural and historical sweetheart for nearly five centuries… but even its citywide status as a UNESCO World Heritage centre couldn’t help it from dropping to the bottom of the list when it comes to a quick holiday in 2019.
For this year’s Which? survey, 4,704 British members voted Krakow as the best European city to visit for a short break with an astonishing score of 93%. This also means the second-largest city in Poland has successfully topped the list for three consecutive years, with respondents praising it on its perfect accommodation, cultural attractions, value for money as well as food and drink.
Hot on the tail of European leader Krakow were two Spanish cities, Seville and Valencia, followed by continental favourites Berlin and Amsterdam
Valletta, on the other hand, featured in the bottom half of the list, kicking off the 10 worst cities with a score of 78%.
Joining the Maltese capital at the bottom of the barrel are cities like Dublin, Naples, Brussels, Milan and Iceland’s Reykjavik… which all actually ended up with a lower rating than Valletta.
Just barely making it past 70%, the port-city of Alicante on Spain’s Costa Blanca was voted as this year’s absolute worst European city to visit.
Valetta (me neither) kicks off the Top 10 Worst Cities list
So how did this happen?
The survey looked at seven different factors, asking people what they made of everything from each city’s prevalence of cultural attractions to the ease of getting around. And while Krakow got a full five stars in four of those seven categories, Valletta didn’t fare so well.
Malta’s capital scored a measly one star for shopping and an only-marginally-better two stars for food and drink (harsh much?!).
In fact, the only stand-out rating, four stars, was for the first category, accommodation. And with all the boutique hotels dotting our tiny capital’s streets, we’d hope Valletta would at least do a fine job in that field.
The survey made for results that (Maltese) people are calling questionable at best… including evergreen favourites like Paris and Rome only featuring a couple of spots higher than Valletta towards the bottom of the list.
It’s also worth noting that Which? actually misspelt Valletta’s name, so what do they really know, right?
Featured Image Original Photo by Konstantin Malanchev
Do you think this rating is well-deserved?
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