Fodor's Expert Review Maritime Museum

Housed in what used to be the British Navy's bakery, this comprehensive museum views the history of the islands through a nautical gaze, from its first settlers up to the British handover. It's particularly good on the history of the Knights of St. John, who legitimized "piracy" upon their arrival by enabling corsairs to sail under the Spanish flag—and taking a hefty cut of their booty. Tales of feared ships like the Santa Maria—which carried the Knight's treasures to Malta when they were ousted from Rhodes and which met its end when an errant ship-hand mishandled some gunpowder—refreshingly reveal both calamities and heroics. A vast, almost overwhelming, collection includes models of a caracca (galleon), prostitute licenses, Roman amphoras hauled up from shipwrecks, cannons, and all variety of maritime ephemera.