The annual Birgufest activity has as a primary aim to promote the City of Birgu and culture in general. Several activities and live entertainment are organised to cover the taste of schoolchildren, youngsters, adults and senior citizens. Band parades, guided tours, live holy music and films are concentrated on one evening. The following day focuses on exhibitions and the Candle lit evening of all the streets in the City core which gives the visitor a flashback when electricity was unknown in the streets and hence the vistiors gets to relive the days of the forefathers when their town was bathed by a suffused glow throughout the night.

Places of interest which will be open for free to the general public and tourists alike include churches, convents, their museums, the auberges (residences) used by the Knights of St. John during the occupation of Malta and in particular during their stay in Birgu, the Norman House, the War and Maritime Museums and the newly restored Fort St. Angelo which dominates the entrance of the main harbour of the Island.

Of particular interest to the visitor will be a visit to the Inquisitor’s Palace where some of the Inquisitors resided during their tenure of Office and where several court cases related to blasphemy or immoral cases where decided and those sentenced sent to prison cells which one can still visit to witness the unhygenic stay prisoners where confined to during their sentence.

 A wide selection of local food and delicacies will be available in the main square of the City..

Animation and street shows are abundunt and the highlight will be reached when the street lights are switched off, the candle lights dominate the night whilst historical re-enactments commence and the atmosphere suddenly changes from modern times to mediavial. Coupled with this, in street corners, ladies in period costume will be engaged in lace making on their door step as it was traditionally done; folk singing to the sound of the traditional Maltese guitar and one is set to a night out to remember.

The festival has been ongoing for over thirteen years and has been proved a success by the ever greater participation of the local population and the number of tours organised by the tourism commercial segment on the Island as the organisers have managed to foster an awareness, for many years unknown or unpublicised, of Vittoriosa, the cradle of culture in Malta.

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