Mdina’s Silent Cry: How Malta’s ‘Silent City’ Is Losing Its Voice

Mdina’s Silent Cry
By Luke Caruana, Hot Malta

The sun is already low over Dingli when the last tourist bus coughs its way out of Mdina’s Greek Gate, leaving behind a hush that feels older than the limestone itself. Inside the narrow lanes, the only sound is the soft slap of a housekeeper’s sandals as she closes a Baroque balcony—quickly, as though afraid to disturb something. For centuries Maltese have boasted that their “Silent City” simply likes its peace; lately, however, residents confess the silence has turned eerie. Empty palazzi, shuttered gift shops and “For Rent” signs etched into honey-coloured facades tell a quieter, more troubling story: Mdina is slipping into a beautiful coma.

Locals call it “the whispering death”—a slow economic drain that began long before COVID but was turbo-charged by the pandemic and, ironically, by Malta’s broader tourism boom. While Valletta, Sliema and St Julian’s sucked in budget airlines and remote workers, Mdina, hampered by strict heritage rules and vehicle restrictions, watched visitor numbers plateau. Day-trippers arrive at 11 a.m., buy a glass of pomegranate juice, snap a selfie on the bastions and leave by 3 p.m. They rarely stay for dinner, let alone sleep over. The result: only 220 people now live within the walls, down from 350 a decade ago. The average age is 67.

“It’s becoming a museum, not a neighbourhood,” says 28-year-old Rebecca Vassallo, locking up her grandmother’s 16th-century townhouse on Triq Villegaignon. She moved back from London last year hoping to open a niche book-café, but planning chiefs refused an external menu board, citing “visual pollution”. “You can’t even hang a plant without a permit,” she laughs, half-angry, half-resigned. Heritage NGOs counter that Mdina’s UNESCO-grade fabric is irreplaceable; one misplaced air-conditioning unit could erode a medieval wall. Yet the rigid regime is suffocating the very community that gives the site soul.

Business owners feel it too. In 2019 nine restaurants operated inside the walls; today four remain. The iconic Fontanella Tea Garden, famous for its chocolate cake and panoramic terrace, still draws queues, but proprietor Francis Darmanin admits winter trade has halved. “Coach operators used to include Mdina in evening itineraries. Now they head straight to the ferry for Gozo or to Valletta’s wine bars. We close at 6 p.m. because the streets are dead,” he says. Darmanin tried proposing late-night jazz evenings, but noise curfews kick in at 10 p.m.—a necessity, say residents fed up with clattering suitcases on cobbles.

The exodus ripples beyond commerce. St Paul’s parish, where Malta’s Christian roots were reputedly planted in 60 A.D., now shares a priest with three neighbouring villages; weekday Mass is celebrated in an echoing side-chapel for a congregation of eight. The scout troop that once paraded through the Main Gate every Carnival has relocated to Rabat. Even the cats—those feline sentinels every Instagrammer adores—look thinner since the butcher closed.

Can anything rouse the Silent City? Mayor Charles Azzopina, whose Rabat local council also administers Mdina, points to a €8 million EU-funded restoration programme finishing in 2025: seismic retrofitting, drainage upgrades, LED street-lighting that respects nocturnal wildlife. “The infrastructure will entice boutique hotels,” he argues. Two convents have already been approved for conversion into five-star guesthouses, promising 60 beds and, crucially, 70 jobs. But heritage lobbyists warn of “Dubrovnik-isation”—a prettified stage set swamped by cruisers. They want a daily visitor cap, similar to Italy’s Cinque Terre, and incentives for young families to move in: reduced utility tariffs, pop-up rents for artisan workshops, even a micro-nursery.

Some grassroots ideas are sprouting. Rebecca Vassallo and friends organise “Moonlit Mdina”, free monthly tours where actors re-enact episodes from the city’s Norman and medieval past. The July edition lured 400 Maltese—an unprecedented turnout. “Narrative is our oxygen,” Vassallo insists. “If locals rediscover the stories, tourists will follow.” Meanwhile, farmers’ market cooperatives are negotiating to occupy the abandoned stable beneath Bastion Square, hoping the smell of fresh ġbejnija will drift upwards instead of diesel fumes.

Yet the clock ticks. Every empty evening means another family debate about selling the ancestral palazzo to yet another foreign investor who will turn it into a private, darkened second home. The limestone keeps its secrets, but its pores absorb neglect. If Mdina becomes merely a postcard backdrop, Malta will have lost more than a tourist icon; we will have severed a living artery to our island’s identity.

Still, as the swallows wheel above the battlements at dusk, one senses the city listening, waiting. Silence can be a cry for help—or a space in which to reply. The next move is ours.