Where was Gladiator II filmed?

Gladiator II sends you not to Rome but to Malta and Morocco, exactly as the first film did. Ridley Scott built almost his entire ancient Rome inside Fort Ricasoli, the huge seventeenth-century fortress guarding the mouth of Valletta's Grand Harbour, where a third of the Colosseum was raised in plaster and plywood over nineteen weeks of shooting.

Two more of Malta's forts complete the picture. Fort Manoel, the star-shaped island fort in Marsamxett Harbour, became the gladiator training school, while the dark tunnels beneath the arena were filmed in Fort Delimara, out on a lonely headland past the fishing village of Marsaxlokk. All three sit within a short drive of each other, so a fort-hopping day out of Valletta is easy to plan, best finished with a Grand Harbour boat trip that slides right under Ricasoli's walls.

For the desert combat the production crossed to Ouarzazate in Morocco, the Atlas Studios town that has doubled for the ancient world since Lawrence of Arabia, and where the first Gladiator also filmed at nearby Ait Benhaddou. Base yourself in Valletta for the Maltese half and in Ouarzazate for the Moroccan one; both are compact, walkable and full of honey-coloured stone that needs no set dressing to feel two thousand years old.