Is Casa Rocca Piccola Worth Visiting in Malta?

I love a fancy historical home. While it’s not exactly an ego boost where lifestyle comparisons are concerned, I find that visiting these kinds of historic sites is a good way to understand the roots of a place, even if they’re not relatable.

When we were visiting Malta, I learned that there are quite a few noble homes still inhabited by families connected to them. Casa Rocca Piccola caught my attention. 

It’s conveniently located on Valletta’s main street, but more than that, it’s the only privately owned palace in the city open to the public. The family still lives there. That detail alone made me curious.

So is it worth visiting? It turned out to be one of the more surprising stops on our Malta trip.

Is Casa Rocca Piccola worth visiting?

Casa Rocca Piccola is worth it if you’re interested in history, architecture, or getting a more personal look at Maltese life beyond the usual landmarks. The guided tour is great, the WW2 bomb shelters are moving, and there’s nothing else quite like it in Valletta.

If you’re short on time or prefer big, visually impressive sights, you might want to prioritize spots like St John’s Co-Cathedral first. But I’d give Casa Rocca Piccola its due even if I just had one day in Valletta.

What is Casa Rocca Piccola?

Casa Rocca Piccola is a palazzo on Republic Street that’s been home to the de Piro family for nearly 350 years. What makes it unusual is that it’s still lived in. 

This isn’t your typical historic house-museum. It’s a private family home that happens to open its doors to visitors curious about the place daily. Instead of curated exhibits, you’re walking through real rooms filled with family belongings and personal histories.

Fun fact: We actually saw one of the owners standing next to his literal portrait on the way out. It was one of the most meta moments of my life, and I’m still ticked off that we didn’t take a photo of it.

While you can book a self-guided tour with audio narration of the history of the house, a guided tour with one of the on-site guides allows for a more in-depth visit.

Ours was super patient with our question-heavy group, and had lots of fun facts to share with us that you know I love.

READ MORE: Valletta is easy to get around, but exploring elsewhere requires some planning. Check out this guide to navigating Malta!

What to See Inside Casa Rocca Piccola

The 45-minute guided tour covers the main rooms of the house, with interesting stories and historical facts peppered throughout about Casa Rocca Piccola and Malta. Before you get started, you’ll be asked to wait in the garden.

Spend some time with Kiku, the home’s resident macaw, who seems to know “hello” and “goodbye,” and that’s about all. Don’t touch the bird. Signage warns that he bites, so those friendly waves of his may be a ruse for fingers.

Once inside, highlights include the state rooms, filled with family heirlooms and personal knick-knacks, collections of furniture and decorative items, and the bomb shelters.

Yep. I’ll get into the bomb shelters in a bit.

In the home itself, the combination of historical objects and personal stories makes the visit more intriguing. You’ll see photos of creepy kids, paintings of creepy babies, and a beautiful collection of old books.

The two dining rooms inside the home speak to how seasonal life worked for the nobility. One was used in summer, the other in winter. 

I like the Blue Room best, if only because you could see some 18th-century silver surgical instruments alongside antique Maltese silverware. I like dark tourism.

Fun fact: The fact that there is any antique silver left in Malta is impressive, too. When Napoleon seized Malta in 1798, he took the majority of the country’s silver, gold, and tapestries. What remained was melted down as currency. 

Throughout our tour, our guide filled in details we wouldn’t have gotten if we were just reading signage at a more typical historic home. That included weird art featuring Prince Philip and wall clocks that were mainly decorative.

He pointed out his favorite things, like a set of glass tumblers used to hold ice that had been rowed across from Mount Etna in Sicily.

They’re not like us.

Casa Rocca Piccola also holds an archive room with original documents dating back to the 17th century. They’ve been used in research projects at the University of Malta and Oxford. 

I wouldn’t have even known about the space if I hadn’t asked our guide about the books of records on a shelf in a random hallway. There is a lot to look at here.

Underneath Casa Rocca Piccola: The Bomb Shelters

These are saved for the end of the tour, and rightly so. The shelters were cut from the solid rock foundation of Valletta, the same quarry used to build the house 400 years ago. What began as water cisterns was expanded into a full network of tunnels and rooms.

As you walk down, the scale of what people endured here becomes real in a way that reading about it never quite does.

Note: The shelters involve a narrow entrance and about 100 steps down. It’s not suitable for visitors with limited mobility. They’re also mildly claustrophobic.

I found myself thinking about the class dynamics of all this. The de Piro family did something genuinely generous, opening their home and private shelter to over a 100 strangers. But Malta’s population during the war was around 270,000. 

In June 1941, with frequent air raids a reality, thousands of people had no shelter at all, left at the mercy of fate. The noble families did what they could in their communities, but what about everyone else?

It turns out, ordinary Maltese people largely dug their own way out, and I mean that literally.

The British had concentrated on protecting military targets, leaving civilians largely to fend for themselves. Teams of volunteers carved shelters by hand out of Malta’s limestone. 

By mid-1941, there were over 400 public shelters across the island, but even that wasn’t enough. Shelters built for 150 routinely held 300, with more waiting outside. It’s a lot to take in.

What Makes Casa Rocca Piccola Unique

Most historic homes or palaces open to the public share the fact that the family is no longer running things. Perhaps the state stepped in, the furniture was catalogued, and the rooms repurposed into something else altogether.

Casa Rocca Piccola is different. Nicholas and Frances de Piro were the first members of the Maltese aristocracy to open their home to the public, and they still live there. Their son and daughter-in-law run the day-to-day operations. 

This isn’t a museum that was once a home, but a home that happens to allow tours where you’re able to “ooh” and “aah” over its valuables. 

The stuff inside isn’t just stuff, though. It’s the accumulated evidence of a family that has occupied the same house for nearly 350 years. We’ve been to a lot of palaces and mansions, and that’s rarely the case anymore.

READ MORE: Want a whole weekend full of fancy home tours? Consider Newport, Rhode Island, and its Gilded Age mansions.

Visiting Casa Rocca Piccola: Hours, Tickets & Tips

If I’ve convinced you to visit Casa Rocca Piccola, here is some quick info to help you plan:

• Address: 74 Republic Street, right on Valletta’s main thoroughfare
• Hours: The house is open 10am-4pm, Monday-Saturday. Guided tours run on the hour. It’s closed on Sundays, and hours may vary on public holidays.
• Tickets: Admission is priced per adult, and prices are the same for self-guided and guided visits. Students get a discount; children under 14 get in free. Book online in advance, especially if you want a guided tour.
• Tour options: You can do a live guided tour in English or use an app-based audio guide. The audio guide is available in several languages. I’d still recommend the guided tour because you get context you wouldn’t get through your headphones.  

Note: If you’d like to relax after your tour, have a coffee or tea at Cafe Effervescence. It’s right off the courtyard, so if it’s nice out, you can spend more time with Kiku while you sip and snack. Again, keep those fingers out of reach of his beak.

Casa Rocca Piccola FAQs

Casa Rocca Piccola is a unique stop in Valletta.

Casa Rocca Piccola doesn’t try to be the most dramatic stop in Valletta, but it doesn’t need to be. If you’re with a guide, something I’d highly recommend, the more questions you ask, the more you get back. 

Maybe you’ll see one of the owners on your visit, too, and be less of a weirdo about greeting them. The bomb shelters stuck with me, too, long after I moved on to the next thing on our Malta trip.

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