Malta Day 2 - Siggiwie and Dingli Look Off

Today we had a lovely walk on the west side of the island. After the usual harrowing drive out of densely populated Saint Julians, we reached the coast for a quick stop to view the cliffs by the Blue Grotto and then parked in the town of Siggiwie.

Maltese falcon - a falconer was demonstrating near the Blue Grotto

Tour boat near the Blue Grotto

Siggiwie has a lovely church - or rather three of them surrounding the main square. We tried to follow a walking route described in the tourist literature using a PDF we had downloaded to our cellphone. This worked for about 1/2 a mile before I got us lost. We then resorted to following our noses and consulting Google Maps to give us the gist of where things are.

Church of Saint Nicholas in Siggiewi

Rani at the Church of Saint Nicholas

Hiking out of Siggiewi - note the dense urban area behind us.

There are so many tiny lanes and the landscape is divided into literally tens of thousands of stone lined fields with irregular geometry. This makes it quite fun to poke around and as long as the sun is in the sky and you have an overview map, it is hard to get lost for long.

Rani opened up a fruit of an Opuntia cactus, suffering itchy hands from the fine spines.

This statue marks the route to the Laferla Cross

Climbing the road to the Laferla Cross

We followed farm lanes heading for a prominent cross (The Laferla cross) on a nearby hill. This is apparently a place of pilgrimage during holy week. Malta is mostly flat so that even a 200 foot hill gives you a great view of much of maybe 1/4 of the island. The cross was not accessible to the public probably due to the chapel being unsafe. So far we have found that none of the churches or chapels we have passed by could be visited by casual visitors.

Laferla Cross and Chapel

Our Lady of Mount Carmel Chapel - as viewed from the cliffs

From the cross we found a ridge walk that took us past herds of goats and sheep as we traversed rock lined lanes and pathways, trying to stay on public right of ways. This route brought us somewhat circuitously to the southern end of the Dingli cliffs, where we had a late lunch. From there we walked back through the Il Fawarra district passing stopping to examine the remains of a bronze age grain silos built into the cliffs and vineyard workers pruning grapes in the warm late afternoon sun. The drive home was against the rush hour traffic but exciting nonetheless.

View back from the Dingli Cliffs look off showing our lunch spot above the grain silos

One of the Dingli Cliffs lookoff points

Dingli Cliffs

Door knocker

Lovely late afternoon light on a gate into a yard

Dry stone walls - the workmanship varies widely with some extremely finely built walls and others like these that are rougher

Terraced fields with Filfa Islet in the distance

These tiny hedgehogs seem quite unafraid. Sadly, we saw several of these little guys flattened on the roads.