Valletta - Auberges

This auberge was built in 1629 as a private house, the Palazzo Carnerio, and subsequently purchased for the newly instituted Anglo-Bavarian langue in 1784. It has been an army officers' mess, a school and it is now the government housing ministry.

Opposite the Jews' Sally Port in Valletta is the Auberge de Bavière (1696), originally built as a private palace, which from 1784 was used for the accommodation of Bavarian and English knights.

From here the English Curtain can be followed east to St Nicholas Street, which runs into Republic Street. Turning right along this, we return by way of Palace Square and Queen's Square to Great Siege Square.

The Auberge de Provence on Republic Street was the third of the French auberges and was designed by Cassar in 1571. The size of the building is deceptive, subtly hidden in the decoration of the facade; it actually spans from the heavy rusticated quoins, through four shops on either side of the portico, beneath the alternating triangular and segmental pediments.

From the mid-1820s to 1954 the auberge housed the Union Club of the British armed forces.