Bread ovens, BBQ area, rock-cut tombs? No, Roman beehives in Malta

Almost every guide book on the Malta makes reference to the Islands’ name as deriving from the Greek word for honey – meli – or land of honey, melitos, or even their later Roman name ‘Melita’, also meaning honey. It’s just as likely the name came from the Phoenician Semitic verb form malata, meaning ‘one takes refuge.’ All these etmyological threads are possible, but the idea of the Maltese Islands as isles of honey is a connection that we love. Certainly, guide book prose always says Malta is honey coloured, from its warm, yellow limestone and sun. The Maltese word for honey by the way is Ghasel.

But it took an early January walk in fantastically warm weather, high up on the ridge near St Agatha’s Tower (Red Fort) beyond Mellieha, to drive home the millennia-old link between Malta and honey. The garrigue landscape up there is covered in wild thyme; the hardy weathered variety that survives downpours, gales and drought. These bushes rarely get trodden under foot so grow into bushy mounds. Rub them and savour a heady scent that is to die for, and many a lamb has.

Roman Beehives
Now, bees loves thyme when it flowers deep purple-blue in early summer (end May to early July). So it stands to reason that where there’s an abundance of thyme, beekeepers follow. I’d heard about some Roman beehives near Mellieha, but wasn’t at all sure where they were or what on earth they’d look like. They turned out to be a stone’s throw from the road that runs the length of the ridge, but they are easy to miss.

Thanks to a helpful walking guide of the area I’d picked up for €2.50 from Din l-Art Helwa (Malta’s National Trust) which runs the tower, I did an hour-long, circular route passing by the beehives. They lie nestled in a sheltered spot at the mouth of a cave just below the ridge top. If you didn’t know they were an early form of hive, you’d mistake them for bread ovens or perhaps a dovecote of some sort. Sadly, it did look like some people had used the spot as a kind of BBQ area. But in essence, this cave apiary is how it would have looked in Roman times, when Malta’s golden nectar was highly prized. It’s likely that clay pipes with one end closed, but for some small holes, were placed in the alcoves. The door cut in the side allows access to the back of the hollows for comb collecting. Clay pipes hives were in use until relatively recent times in Malta.

Malta’s honey zones
Mellieha is renown even today as a main honey producing zone, and early in the walk, you pass around 40 modern hives. Other zones include most of Gozo, the isle of Comino, and Fawwara, just below Dingli Cliffs in the West. Today, there are only around five, full-time beekeepers on the Islands who manage an income from this ancient livelihood.

Beekeeping here today
But, things are changing, and several, like Nicholas Zammit in Fawwara, are very enterprising, bottling around 500 kilo a year, in nice packaging, and with new lines, such as honey and pistacchios. Honey hand creams and beeswax products like ornamental candles are now regular sidelines too. Nicholas travels widely to beekeeping industry seminars and fairs, in the UK and Italy, for information on how to broaden his scope here. He dreams of an eco-tourism centre near his small-holding to introduce people to Malta’s heritage in honey, as well as a small museum with ancient tools and details of those Roman hives.

Honey types
There are around 20 kinds of honey in Malta attributed to various plants and trees including clover, eucalyptus, orange blossom, carob and thyme of course. If you buy fresh extracted honey and direct from a beekeeper, you’ll know which flowers dominate its taste. Spring is for clover and wayside flower honey; end May to early July is thyme season; and early autumn is for carob honey with its dark colour and distinct aroma.

Where to buy
Some places for starters:
Airport deli shops (but try to buy direct from keepers)
Jubilee Foods
Nicholas Zammit, Fawwara, tel: 21 465750 / 9946 7712
Any local grocer, but it might not be the best
Road side stalls – watch out for honey for sale signs!

Useful Links
For a short background on beekeeping in Malta and those clay pipes, see beesfordevelopment.org

Share this

Kiosk Kitsch - American diner style. Just one of the wonders of this walk.

If you mention Qawra, Bugibba and St Paul’s Bay all in the same breath to a local, it’s likely to trigger the same emotions as mentioning ‘Bognor’ to someone from Britain. That is, images of a slightly tawdry traditional seaside town that’s seen better days.

These northern resort towns in Malta are largely the domain of British tourists, and the Maltese traders here – from hoteliers to street hawkers – tend to offer up goods and services that will look very familiar to any British person. One hoarding today advertising a snack bar had the words ‘chip butty’ on it. I am not sure continental visitors – and there were some Germans and Italians walking the front today – would know what that is.

But in winter, the couple of kms walk are largely reclaimed by the Maltese – you’ll see sporty, Lycra-clad power walkers, joggers, and lots of families with pull-along sit-on toys, bikes with outriders and buggies just about making it to McDonald’s. Here, an outdoor play area can work out any extra energy the kids have left (though the Golden Arches has removed the much-loved castle replacing it with a ‘gym’ that seems only open when animation is on hand).

There are plenty of things to amuse you (and any kids) on the way. Kiosks take pride of place, underlying the Maltese propensity to never be far away from refreshments.  Many of them are open on a Sunday walk, serving anything from hot and cold drinks to meals.  They also provide shelter from the wind, and rest for tired legs. Here are some other highlights en route:

1. Planets for the kids
The Malta Astronomical Society has devised a ‘planet walk’ with scale models of our solar system along the Qawra to Bugibba stretch. Kids love rotating the planets and reading the info on them, and racing to find the next one!

2. Views of St Paul’s islands
Don’t look landward (at the architectural mishaps dating from the ’60s – ’80s), look seaward. This front has some of the most interesting views of any paved stretch of coastline. Natural, rugged parts, St Paul’s Island with its statue, Selmum palace on the ridge across the bay, and so on. Just before the Wignacourt Tower are mounted binoculars (50c to view) with narration (choose from around five languages) about St Paul’s Island. It’s called, apparently, ‘religious tourism’ by the Malta Tourism Authority.

3. Spray & Wind
This side of Malta tends to get the prevailing winds in winter, so even when you’re well back from the sea, the wind blasts the spray your way. As you round the Bugibba bay area, expect to get wet if the wind is very strong! It’s exhilerating though, and a great New Year’s walk.

4. Name & Sign spotting
In the built-up stretch in Bugibba, enjoy spotting weird shop names on establishments, open all hours and days, selling various souvenirs, jewellery, papers and unclassifiable goods. Bars, kiosks and restaurants have great names too. A particularly amusing sign post indicates that ‘horse bathing’ is not permissible here. Anyone seen this road sign in another country, I wonder?

5. Wacky street furniture & public loos
As you round corner on the last part towards Wignacourt Tower, the seafront takes on a more contemporary feel in its lighting and in the ship’s bow design of the concrete stairway to the higher road. We’ve changed local council district here, and it shows! In the same style is the latest in public toilets right by Sirens’ Waterpolo pitch and restaurant-bar. These have to be the ultimate in public conveniences in Malta, so use them before the graffiti takes hold.

6. Wignacourt Tower
A perfect end to the walk, this stocky watch tower was built by order of Grand Master Olof de Wignacourt in 1610 and is the oldest surviving one in Malta. It is run by Malta’s National Trust, Din l- Art-Helwa (this fair land, in literal translation). Trust volunteers open it most days, but do check the website for full details of opening times. The Sunday we were there, the man in charge was exceptionally knowledgeable and gave our group a comprehensive guided tour of this small, but charming heritage site. His talk covered the entire history of the Knights in Malta plus copious details about their fortifications and defences.

Photo: Alex Grech

Share this

Il-Mizieb: 20th century and man-made maybe, but worthy of its name as a wood

One of the most common observations made by foreigners visiting Malta concerns the island’s lack of trees when compared to their countries. To the outside observer, Malta appears as a treeless, arid landscape where even the few trees around seem short, stunted and windswept.

It was not always like this of course. Before the advent of prehistoric man, Malta possessed a rich tree cover, which was slowly but steadily cut down and cleared either for use as fuel or to create agricultural land. Today, very few remnants of the original Maltese forest survive, foremost amongst which there is the small oak grove known as Il-Ballut tal-Wardija which contains a handful of one thousand year old oak trees which provide direct continuity with their prehistoric predecessors.

Over the centuries, there have been some attempts to reintroduce woodland to Malta, with the most famous being that of Buskett, where the Knights of St. John designed and created a small wood in which they could hunt imported deer and boar. Buskett is today Malta’s foremost woodland and is capable of self regeneration, implying that nature has taken over from what was originally a man-made environment.

Mizieb: Malta’s northern woodland
A more recent woodland creation took place in the 1970s on what used to be an exposed ridge in the northern part of Malta, specifically Mizieb, lying between St Paul’s Bay, Manikata and Mellieha.

The ridge was extensively landscaped even through the use of explosives to blast the solid rocky surface so as to enable the newly planted trees to dig their roots deep and thus find sustenance and water especially during the parched summer months.

What trees you’ll find there
Over the past thirty five years Mizieb has thrived and matured and has today grown to constitute one of Malta’s finest stretches of woodland; well worth a visit and a walk in an unusual Maltese habitat. The site consists almost exclusively of Aleppo Pine trees, the Maltese znuber although one also finds other varieties of trees including olive and carob. The predominance of pine means that the ground is littered with a fragrant layer of pine needles.

Who maintains the woodland?
In the late 1980s, Mizieb was granted to the Hunters’ Federation as a location for bird hunting and remains to this very day under the Federation’s management. One positive outcome of this is that the place is generally well maintained and free of litter, although the signs of hunting activity are there for all to see: ranging from hides to spent cartridges. This arrangement with the hunters means that the place is to be avoided during the open season as there is active shooting taking place. Outside the season, however, it is open and safe. During the cooler months the place is also popular with picnickers, especially during the weekends.

How to get to Mizieb
The best way to reach Mizieb is through the road which bisects it, and which runs perpendicular with and links the Mellieha bypass with the Xemxija-Ghajn Tuffieha road. Where this road reaches Mizieb, there is space for parking with the opportunity of taking either the east or west entrance to the wood.

The east entrance leads all the way to Xemxija. You can either take the middle pathway and walk through the tree cover or alternatively walk around the path ringing the site. Both offer interesting experiences, with the former giving the sensation of walking through a wood and the latter offering beautiful vistas of Wardija Ridge, St. Paul’s Bay, Mistra, Selmun and Mellieha.

The west entrance similarly contains a number of pathways which either take you though the trees or else afford beautiful vistas of the Pwales and Mizieb valleys until the woodland ends in the outskirts of Manikata.

When to visit
I prefer visiting Mizieb between December and April as it is at its most verdant. The light of the low sun penetrating the dense tree cover, the seasonal flora (ranging from various mushroom types after a wet spell to beautiful spring flowers) and the sweet smell of pine resin are all experiences which one does not commonly encounter in Malta.

Share this

A beach. To clear the cobwebs of the windmills in your mind.

A penny for your thoughts.

Where do you escape to, on a crowded island?

Sometimes, in winter, you can find your space in what are usually the most crowded of places. The sandy beaches are deserted. Go to Ghajn Tuffieha, Golden Bay or Gnejna, and you are likely to meet no more than the lone walker and a dog. And if you’re into cloud-busting, this is the best time of the year to admire the cumulus, altostratus, cirrus and cumulonimbus.

My favourite escape? Go down the set of steps next to the Tower built by Grand Master de Redin at Tower Road Sliema, to the rocky beach known as Exiles. In summer, the place is mainly home to the young and beautiful, eyeing each other basting in suntail oil. In winter, you often have the place to yourself. Find yourself some shelter from the wind in a crater, battered to smoothness by generations of waves and wind erosion. Get a book. Or just watch the canopy of clouds above your head, the interplay of long shadows and light and blues and greens of the water.

In winter, Exiles is the place for restless souls, walks to lick one’s wounds, regenerate one’s soul, watch a child grow up in front of your eyes. And prepare for a new year.

Photo: Therese Debono

Share this

The right place, wrong direction! Upper Barrakka Gardens, Valletta

If you’re out walking Malta or Gozo’s coastline, you’re spoiled for choice when it comes to views. But, some are ‘must-sees’ if you’re on holiday here. However many times I go to Upper Barrakka Gardens, near Castile in Valletta, the view across Grand Harbour never fails to impress. The beauty of coastal scenery is the ever-changing play of light on the water, and the myriad cloud formations. The same view is never quite the same view, one day to the next. Below, we’ve picked our choices, and mapped them for you. Do comment to add your own favourites.

1. The Islands from the sea
This is the ultimate way to experience the islands’ coastline. Nothing comes close to seeing it all from the waves – the cliffs loom larger, the sun setting on Valletta’s bastions from afar is all the more spectacular. Cruise liner passengers often have the best views on arrival and departure – into Grand Harbour at sunrise and sunset. If you can’t beat them, try to join them in a smaller craft – pleasure boat trip, private yacht or simple pedalo!

2. Grand Harbour from Upper and Lower Barrakka Gardens, Valletta
Classic views, the stuff of picture postcards, but hard to do justice to if you don’t have the right lens and weather! But memorable to the eye. The upper gardens give you the history – views across the Three Cities, Fort St Angelo, and to the dockyards; the lower gardens give you the harbour breakwater, and the endless horizon. Great here for cruise liner spotting! Try Wednesdays early evening as they exit harbour.

3. Dingli Cliffs
This stretch of coastline is where often sheer cliff meets sea. A drop of some 300 metres in parts. Tourist excursions stop at the little chapel of St Magdalen almost mid-way along the cliffs, but try to walk the stretch if you’ve time. Early evening in summer (mid afternoon winter) give you wonderful sunsets and light. Glimpse little Filfa, a rocky islet jst off shore, that’s a nature reserve.

4. Mgarr Harbour- Gozo
Walk up past the Grand Hotel and along the road to Nadur/Qala, and look out and over both Comino and Malta, tracking with your eye the route the ferry takes. Again, sunset is the time to see it at its best. The landscape blurs a bit, and somehow you get a sense of vastness and distance – a rare feeling on these small islands.

5. Dwerja Bay & The Azure Window
All Gozo is view upon view, but this is one not to miss. Again, early and later in the day make for more interesting photography. It’s fun to zoom in and snap pictures of people walking up and over the window itself! They put the rock arch’s size into perspective.

6. Ghajn Tuffieha Bay across to Gnejna Bay
Walk the bay and climb up on the bony, eroded ridge that juts out between the two bays. The views either way are spectacular, and all the more so for the weird, lunar-like, golden landscape of the peninsula itself. Again, a good sunset spot, that makes for amazing photos.

7. Tigne’ Point, Sliema
The place for that classic photo view of Valletta, with the Catholic and Anglican Cathedrals vying for attention on the city skyline. The area is still under development but you can walk far enough on the new walkways to take that photo!

8. St Agatha’s Tower (the Red Tower), Mellieha
You’ll see this landmark standing proud on the Marfa Ridge as you head North and to catch the Gozo ferry. Built by the Knights in 1649, it has open views over Mellieħa Bay and across to Comino and Gozo. It is a robust, large structure designed to hold a garrison of 30 men and to enough ammunition and supplies to withstand a 40-day siege. The tower is run by Malta’s National Trust, Din-l’Art Helwa, and is open to the public Monday-Sunday from 10.00 to 13.00 hrs. Tuesdays open from 10.00 to 16.00 hrs.

9. Bugibba / Qawra Seafront
A touristy walk if ever there was one as you’ll pass lots of holiday makers getting some air. Not strenuous to walk and refreshment bars and kiosk aplenty. The attraction here is the open view across St Paul’s Bay, and to St Paul’s Island – a tiny rock really, with a statue on it. Said to be where St Paul was shipwrecked in A.D.60, so legend has it. The seafront has lots of seating so you can simply sit, read, sunbathe and enjoy the views!

10. Walled Cities – Mdina (Malta) & Cittadella (Gozo)
Last but not least, come the two walled, medieval cities that dominate the centres of Malta and Gozo, respectively. They both have spectacular views and walkways on the bastion walls, though at Cittadella you have 360 degree views. Mdina’s perspective gives you most major landmarks – the Portomaso Tower at St Julian’s, Valletta’s skyline, the Mosta dome and so on.

View Panoramic Views, Malta in a larger map

Share this

Malta in autumn means that you can wake up to a sparkling blue Saturday. This morning, the Malta Book Fair was the trigger for a walk with my seven year old along Grand Harbour. I wanted to make the most of the sun, and the water. We often go to Valletta on Saturdays, sticking to the shops and cafes. But today warranted a deviation from the norm, and our usual parking spot along Marsamxett Harbour, the other side of the peninsula.

I park on Crucifix Street. A cruise liner was doing a 180 degree turn in the harbour, so to get a closer look we walked into Pinto Wharf below. It’s a real grandstand view of the fortifications of the Three Cities across the water: St Michael at the tip of Senglea, St Angelo dominating Birgu, and a very 21st century cruise liner almost as high as the bastions. You feel like you’re on a film set. And yet, it’s intimate.

Then we walk on towards the elegant Customs House, built in 1774. On a Saturday it’s closed but on weekdays it’s teeming with people queuing at the Department of Customs.

We walk past a row of men and their children with fishing rods. The smell of fish lingers in the air; not from their catch but from the fish market next to them. On weekdays, it’s Malta’s version of London’s Billingsgate. Here, the area is known as Ta’ Liesse. While just an oil-smeared wide patch of tarmac today, for three nights in July it becomes the magical setting for the harbour-side Malta Jazz Festival.

My son wants to go to the Great Siege Bell, the memorial to the fallen of World War II. So we climb up the steps to the ten tonne bronze bell. The sea below us twinkles, the Lower Barrakka Gardens and its arches behind us. Sometimes it feels like there are more cameras than people.

We walk up Triq il-Mediterran to the old “Sacra Infermeria” of the Order of St John of Jerusalem, now just known as MCC or Mediterranean Conference Centre. It doesn’t quite have the same ring to it. The place is teeming with stalls, bookworms, their parents and their children. We buy the token book, but we’re both itching to go back to the sun and the blue.

We take the higher road so we can get to Lower Barrakka Gardens. But kids love pit stops, so we decide to get a snack at the QE2 kiosk, one of those hole in the wall bars with chairs and umbrellas outside, cheek by jowl with the gardens. They make wonderful ftiras with tuna, capers, olives and tomato paste at QE2. We wash it down with Kinnie, another perennial favourite.

The Lower Barrakka Gardens are dominated by the monument in honour of the first British governor of Malta, Sir Alexander Ball. It’s a very peaceful place, less busy than its counterpart at Upper Barrakka, but equally impressive for views of the memorial bell and the harbour. Definitely not one for people who have fear of heights.

We walk down Triq Lvant. A great selection of balconies with washing lines, old ladies, sculptures and statues to our right, the Bridge Bar above us. Then down through the Victoria Gate, Ta’ Liesse. It was opened to the public in 1885 during the Governorship of Sir Arthur Borton (1884-1888) and is now gettting a much-needed facelift.

As we double back, walking up Xatt il-Barriera, the sun has climbed higher and it feels like a spring day. My son’s had a good dose of history, pleasantly encountered and related as we walked. I think we chatted through some 500 years in the life of Grand Harbour – perhaps even of Europe.

View Malta Grand Harbour Walk in a larger map

Share this

Nature's harvest and a field of gold

Following a few weeks of generous rainfall, the transformation of the Maltese countryside is now almost complete. A carpet of green covers the open ground as memories of the scorching summer fade and cooler temperatures set in.

The Maltese countryside is awakening and over the coming months will be rewarding us with wave after wave of plants which follow each other with clockwork precision. Each plant becomes the dominant species for a predetermined time, until it fades and is replaced by the next in line.

Considering the relative ease with which most Maltese can enjoy the Islands’ countryside, it’s incredible how ignorant we are about the main plant species that dominate our landscape, many of which we disparagingly group under the horrible Maltese phrase, haxix hazin or weeds. Close observation will reward the keener eyes among us with the rich variety of our nature. A Finnish friend of mine finds it amazing that the exotic herbs which he buys in the shops back home grow wild and ignored on Maltese country lanes and even pavements!

One such plants is wild rucola, rendered popular by the world’s love affair with Italian cuisine. Many of us purchase the plant’s leaves, duly imported from Italy, from the supermarkets and are little aware that our countryside is literally teeming with this plant for most of the year from October onwards.

The proper nomenclature of wild rucola is Perennial Wall-Rocket and it is known in Maltese as Gargir isfar. It is an erect mustard-like plant with many branching stems that may exceed half a metre. It grows in clumps on the ground in a variety of habitats and is very commonly found on roadsides and disturbed fields. It has long leaves as described by its Latin name Diplotaxis tenuifolia where the latter term literally translates into “slender leaf”. The foliage of the wild rucola is aromatic when crushed. On top of the branches of the stem are bright yellow flowers with four rounded petals each about one centimetre long.

The leaves of the plant are often are used as an ingredient for salads, although they are considered too strong to be consumed on their own, and are generally tossed with other leaves. It seems to be very well adapted to harsh and poor soils, hence its prevalence all over the Maltese countryside. This species has succulent leaves and is much appreciated in cuisine.

In some areas in Italy, the plant is also cultivated, but it is mostly collected from the wild and sold in small bunches in local markets. The only health warning I have ever encountered with regard to this plant is that it is not to be consumed in large quantities because of a presumably high concentration of nitrates. The most brilliant fact about this plant is that it remains present in the wild between October and the advent of summer, so there is always a fresh supply of its leaves available.

Look for it when you’re walking in the countryside and when you see how much of it there is around, you’ll wonder how you’ve managed to miss it all these years.

Share this