Queen Elizabeth II paid an emotional farewell to Malta when she left here at the end of a highly successful (bar one or two minor administrative glitches) Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting organised by Malta for the second time in ten years. She was in Malta as the head of the Commonwealth, not as monarch and Malta’s Head of State, which she had been up to 1974. Together with thirty other Commonwealth countries, Malta is a republic.

In a speech before the start of her visit, the Queen said: “Visiting Malta is always very special for me. I remember happy days here with Prince Philip when we were first married.” At the age of 89, and at the end of a nostalgic three-day visit, she and her 94-year-old husband were able to retrace the dramatic visit made by her father, King George VI, in 1943 during the height of the World War II when he came ashore at the Customs House in Valletta.

The Queen and Prince Philip took a boat trip across the Grand Harbour in a beautifully turned out red and white Maltese luzzu, berthing where her father had landed more than 70 years earlier, and was given a rousing three cheers from the Royal Marines on HMS Bulwark and a 21-gun salute from the saluting battery at Upper Barrakka Gardens.

At the Customs House, she unveiled a simple bronze marker set deep into the Maltese stone and walked past a newly-restored plaque marking the exact spot where her father had set foot on the island in 1943.

The bronze marker the Queen unveiled is the first of what is to be known as the “Valletta Commonwealth Walkway”.

The Commonwealth Walkways are the inspiration of the Outdoor Trust, a UK charity whose energetic team - led by their chairman, Hugo Vickers, a leading royal biographer, and ably assisted by Jim Walker, a respected walking expert - has the exciting ambition to create 100 walkways in over 70 Commonwealth nations and territories.

Plans are currently in hand for introducing them in capital cities and elsewhere in Australia, New Zealand, Samoa, the Cook Islands, Canada and the Falklands.

Malta has had the honour, and the initiative, to be the first country in the Commonwealth whose capital city will have a walkway. It is planned and hoped that, inspired by what has been done by Malta, all the other 52 capitals throughout the Commonwealth will follow suit. I dare say that once the various declarations and resolutions made by the heads of government have long been over-taken by events or forgotten, the Queen’s Commonwealth Walkway in Valletta will endure as a physical legacy of what happened here in 2015.

The concept of the Commonwealth Walkways perfectly encapsulates the modern spirit of the Commonwealth

The Valletta Commonwealth Walkway consists of 21 bronze markers, distinctively inscribed with the Queen’s cypher – EIIR – starting at the Valletta City Gate and leading the visitor on a trail through some of Valletta’s main historic sites. There is a bronze panoramic interpretive panel on the bridge leading into Valletta from Floriana which highlights the 21 sites to be seen.

Apart from the goal of inspiring people to learn more about the diversity, history and richness of the Commonwealth, as well as the subtle celebration of the Queen as its head, the Valletta Commonwealth Walkway also provides an additional source of information for the thousands of tourists visiting this World Heritage City for the first time.

Malta’s energetic Minister for Tourism was quick to spot the Commonwealth Walkway’s potential for enhancing the enjoyment of Valletta for tourists by this means.

The route marked by each bronze marker will also be interpreted by a free App to guide walkers along it and to highlight historic, cultural or architectural points of interest. It is backed up by a very well presented brochure that is produced by the Ministry for Tourism.

The walkway takes the visitor all round Valletta from City Gate and the new Parliament building, to St John’s Cavalier, Hastings Garden, the Fortifications Interpretation Centre, St Paul’s Anglican Cathedral, the Manoel Theatre, the Auberge d’Aragon, Fort St Elmo, the Siege Bell War Memorial, Lower and Upper Barrakka Gardens, Victoria Gate and Auberge de Castille.

It then cuts back into the centre again via the Collegiate parish church of St Paul’s Shipwreck, the National Museum of Archaeology, the Grand Master’s Palace and Casa Rocca Piccola.

At each point along the way, the visitor is invited to learn a little about the history of what they are seeing and to admire the architecture and setting.

This is a wonderful tour of Valletta which can be completed by the fit, enthusiastic walking tourist in the space of a few hours. Or by those who prefer to take their culture in carefully measured steps – all the better to absorb the impressive history and buildings around them – over a few days. Either way, the Valletta Commonwealth Walkway is a positive addition to the tourism experience and to the City’s preparations for Valletta Capital of Culture, 2018.

The Outdoor Trust plans that “the global network of Commonwealth Walkways [of which Valletta now forms an important part] will thread together 10,000 of the main sites and points of significance in all 71 Commonwealth nations and territories for the lasting enjoyment of its 2.3 billion residents, a third of the world’s population”.

In its own modest way, the concept of the Commonwealth Walkways perfectly encapsulates the modern spirit of the Commonwealth: 53 sovereign nations with over two billion inhabitants bound by a common language, with shared legal structures and deep historical, trading and political ties, all united in celebrating the diversity of their history and culture.

When, in 1949 the founding eight prime ministers then gathered together in London issued the declaration that created the Commonwealth, they were clear about what they were doing. Quite simply, out of the ashes of the old British Empire, the new assembly would bind nations “freely cooperating in the pursuit of peace, liberty and progress”. Despite its obvious imperfections, the Commonwealth – of which Malta has been a steadfast member for over 50 years - remains a force for good in world affairs.

At the very same time as the inception of the Commonwealth, the Queen was then enjoying probably the freest days of her life as Princess Elizabeth, newly married to a naval officer and living an ordinary life in Villa Guardamangia in Malta between 1949 and 1951.

How appropriate then that 63 years after she acceded to the throne and became the first Head of the Commonwealth, 100 walkways are being created in celebration of the unfailing service she rendered to the organisation for over six decades.

And, moreover, that she should inaugurate the first ever Commonwealth Walkway in Valletta, the first capital city in today’s Commonwealth to have one.