Walking. Gossip. Travel.

Category: Malta (Southern Region)

  • Malta – Southern Region – Ħamrija Tower

    This tower was built in 1659 and was one of a series of watchtowers located around Malta. There were thirteen of these towers built under the instruction of Martin de Redin, the Grandmaster of the Knights of the Order of St. John. The towers aren’t doing too badly, as eight of them are still intact, two are partly intact and only three have been lost to history.

    Bits of the tower started to fall off recently, but it has been repaired internally and a new staircase added. The entrance is visible above and access would have been gained via a retractable ladder. To my knowledge there’s no way of visiting the inside of the tower.

  • Malta (Southern Region) – Birżebbuġa – Borġ in-Nadur

    Borġ in-Nadur is a temple arrangement dating back to 2,500BC located near to the town of  Birżebbuġa. The site was then turned from a religious site into a Bronze Age village and numerous buildings were constructed around it. I thought it was interesting that they also fortified their settlement, a forerunner to the later efforts of the Knights of St. John which were on a much larger scale.

    The villagers were concerned about an attack from the land, rather than the sea, and this site is the oldest fortification in Malta. The complex was discovered again in the sixteenth century, with numerous digs taking place in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

    I didn’t expect this site to be open, but was I told at another Heritage Malta site that they were opening it up for the day, so I trekked off down here. There was a lady at the entrance who was friendly and gave me an A4 laminated sheet to help me understand the site. I was the only person at the site and she did say that it hadn’t been very busy.

    This is the A4 sheet explaining the site. I didn’t understand any of it as I couldn’t work out what rocks on the ground related to this plan. I think I vaguely worked it out towards the end, after tramping about the publicly accessible part of the site, but I didn’t exactly feel like I knew what I was doing.

    Entrance was free with the Malta Heritage Pass and although I didn’t really understand the site in its entirety, it was pleasant to see something which was so old and was still standing.