The Best Hotels in St. Julian's

Balluta Bay frames every window here, and the architects of a hefty renovation clearly decided to get out of its way. The Malta Marriott is a 301-room resort in St. Julian's where the Mediterranean view does most of the heavy lifting, backed up by a spa, an indoor pool, three outdoor pools, four restaurants, and golf access at Royal Malta Golf Club. Locally made cement tiles and hand-blown glass keep things grounded in something more interesting than generic luxury.

The Boathouse Lounge occupies a converted old boathouse right at the water's edge, which gives you a sense of the peninsula's geography: the Westin Dragonara sits on its own private spit of land jutting into the Mediterranean. It's a full-scale resort, with five restaurants, a casino, a beach lido, and suites that come with freestanding tubs and their own terraces directly above the sea. The kind of place where you can genuinely not leave for three days and feel no guilt about it.