The North West of Malta

SEPTEMBER 2019

Leaving lovely Valletta behind, we collected a hire car, and headed north for the whopping fifteen mile drive to Mellieha. Bereft of built-in SatNav I actually splashed out €3 on an old-fashioned printed map but then defaulted almost immediately to Google Maps. And although some of the roads Google Maps took us down appeared to be little more than country lanes barely wide enough for two cars to pass, it did get us the Maritim Antonine Hotel & Spa in Mellieha in reasonable time. 

And upon first inspection, the booking agent (i.e. me) appeared to have made a grave error. It’s not the self-catering suite or AirBnB rental Sue would have preferred, and is not even the boutique hotel I thought it was. It’s much larger, much more corporate and much more uniform than we’d have hoped. But it does have a rooftop pool, a spa and a Thai restaurant, so after a little consideration was given to changing rooms we settled for what we had and went to the bar. Lager and prosecco are the balm for any ailment.

After a day on the rather underwhelming Ghadira Bay beach – it may be ‘one of the largest and most beautiful sandy beaches in Malta’, but I think we’ve been spoiled by pristine Asian beaches for too many years – it was time to put the hire car to use with a day-long itinerary that will take in Rabat-Mdina, Dingli Cliffs and Ghajn Tuffieha Bay. 

It’s an epic twenty minute drive to Rabat-Mdina. At only 27km long and 15km wide, the concept of distance is barely relevant here in Malta. The concept of car size is however. Minor roads are narrow, passing places limited, and delays frequent. Even the corkscrew entrance to the hotel car park, five stories down into the bowels of the earth, will accommodate only a wee motor. So tip number one for travelling in Malta – hire a small car. 

Rabat and Mdina, are two towns immediately adjacent to another; the latter of which is an ancient walled city, and the former of which isn’t. Once the capital of Malta and now known as the ‘silent city’, presumably due to the lack of motorised vehicles, Mdina is a sprawling labyrinth of narrow lanes and pretty squares and a mix of medieval and baroque architecture. 

If there is a ‘best’ way of exploring the city it remained beyond us as we simply ambled aimlessly, sat drinking coffee in sun-dappled squares, poked our noses down tiny lanes and alleyways, and took countless photographs of the honey-coloured sandstone buildings and brightly-coloured doorways. It was all very ancient and very lovely. Back across the moat to Rabat, where there are a number of other sites to see in and around the town, none of which we bothered to visit, opting instead to meander around a few lanes and side-streets – again all rather lovely and very photogenic.

Back into the wee car to drive on to Dingli Cliffs, apparently Malta’s highest point, although the optimal viewing spot takes a bit of finding. The highest point, where there is a café and a tiny chapel, and where most tourists seem to congregate, has no view at all. We ended up driving another mile or so south where a virtually unmarked path leads to a rocky outcrop which provides views looking back onto the cliffs themselves. Worth the visit once we found that spot but if we’d not kept searching it would have been a bit of a damp squib.

And then on to the final spot of the day, Ghajn Tuffieha Bay, invariably described as one of Malta’s finest, although again it left us a little underwhelmed. We stayed just long enough for a quick dip, an hour in the sun, and then back to Mellieha and the hotel. 

No trip to Malta would be complete without a trip to the Blue Lagoon on Comino. After a little research we’d opted against the Supreme Cruises who are based in the office next door to the hotel, and whose online reviews are pretty shite; and opted instead for English Rose cruises, not least because their online reviews are overwhelmingly (even suspiciously) excellent. And at a mere €13 – when the passenger ferry is €10 – you can’t go wrong can you? Can you?

In this case, no. It’s a no-frills, get-what-you-pay-for cruise. There were about forty people on the relatively small boat, which is a blessing compared to some of the 300+ passenger boats we’d see throughout the day, there’s tea/coffee and various drinks and snacks for sale, and that’s about it really.

The boat cruised out of Mellieha Bay and along the northern-most coastline of Malta, dipping in and out of numerous caves the sea has carved into the limestone cliffs, before crossing over to Comino and heading to Malta’s number one tourist destination, the Blue Lagoon. Some websites had suggested that by coming after the high season of July-August, and coming midweek, would lessen the crowds. In which case I’d hate to see it on a Saturday in August. The tiny strip of flat rock that constitutes a beach is invisible beneath the bronzing bodies; the jetty and paved areas host cheek-by-jowl deckchairs; and even the dusty slopes are crowded with penguin-like visitors jostling for space in their colony.

The waters are a stunning azure colour but it takes some work to find a photo with as few people and boats in as possible. Beautiful as it is, we could have done without it to be honest, and we’re glad our boat stayed for only three hours compared to the six hours that others offer.

As we drifted around in the lovely warm water, some young feller started shouting for help. At first I thought he was messing around, but it soon became clear that he wasn’t and he seemed to be in a spot of bother. So I swam over, calmed him down, got him to lie on his back so I could get my body under his, and then led him back into shallow water. Turned out he had a spot of cramp, and being out of his depth, panicked a little. No harm done and given the amount of people around, I don’t think he was in serious danger. But that was my good deed for the day.

But “no matter where I roam, I will return to my English Rose” and back on board we tootled over to Mgarr harbour on Gozo for a nanosecond before turning tail and heading back to Comino and the Crystal Lagoon, a horseshoe-shaped bay of pristine waters backed by sheer limestone cliffs. Being deeper and therefore less pretty than the Blue Lagoon, it’s far less populated, and altogether a much nicer experience. We stayed for an hour or so after which it was all aboard the Skylark and back to Mellieha.

At some stage during the boat trip to Comino we’d noticed a number of people wandering around an otherwise unremarkable stretch of coastline and wondered what they were doing. A little Google search revealed that they were visiting the Coral Lagoon, a remarkable spot which somehow seems to slip under the radar of most Malta-related websites. From Mellieha it’s a short drive to the Chapel of Immaculate Conception, which is itself a picturesque spot atop the cliffs. But a hundred yards before the chapel, a little track off to the left winds down to Ahrax Tower and Coral Beach. Another ten minute walk across some otherwise unremarkable volcanic rocks and the Coral Lagoon suddenly appears. The ground quite literally opens up before you in an oval-shaped lagoon, and drops thirty feet into crystal clear blue water. Resembling a Mexican cenote, or sinkhole, and obviously a collapsed cave, it is, quite literally, a whopping great hole in the rocks. Absolutely breathtaking.

And there is of course the massive temptation to jump in. Had the kids (well, young adults) been here I suspect they would have jumped, and then of course I would have been obliged to assert my masculinity by following them. So I’m actually quite relieved they aren’t here, as aside from the terror/fun of the thirty foot plunge, there is no easy way out. There is no option of climbing back up the walls, so the only way out is through an arch which leads out to the sea, and then a long swim around the headland to Coral Bay. On some days that swim will be quite easy, but on this day the sea was kicking up a little and it was not a swim I would fancy. 

Some Korean feller, who clearly didn’t think that far ahead, did jump in and promptly found himself stuck on the rocks in the archway unable to get out into the open water. And indeed, the Malta Independent Online reports that as recently as Thursday, 12 September 2019 – less than one week earlier – a 25-year-old Colombian man tragically lost his life after he found himself in serious difficulty among strong waves while swimming in Coral Lagoon. Perhaps that is why it is not so widely promoted for the stunning natural wonder that it is. (We didn’t wholly abandon the Korean by the way. Although we didn’t hang around long enough to find out there were a couple in the lagoon in a kayak whom we assume helped him to safety.)

Aside from a number of lovely restaurants Mellieha offers little in the way of nightlife, so the sound of live music drew us over to the Church Square where there seemed to be some kind of event going on. In addition to the covers band killing some Pink Floyd and Guns N Roses, there was a meeting of the Classic Ford Club of Malta, with some gorgeous old Escorts and Cortinas (and less gorgeous Fiestas) on display. It’s a sobering thought when the car you learnt to drive in (me Mam’s Ford Fiesta) is now considered a classic. What the connection between old Fords and the dodgy cover bands is will remain a mystery – we had one beer in a square-side bar and left them to it.

And that is it for Malta. Upon learning we were going to Malta, most people’s response was a flat and quizzical ‘Oh’ (quizzical emoji), rather than a chirpy and knowing ‘Oh lovely’ (smiley emoji), and it doesn’t appear to be on many people’s holiday-destination lists. Perhaps for good reason. The beaches are few and far between and not great; the interior of the island is a little scrubby and scruffy; but the gorgeous old town of Valletta alone is worth the visit. Will we go again, probably not. Are we glad we went, absolutely. Should we have brought an inflatable yellow dinghy, definitely.