Coastal Drama on Gozo

Walking down towards the Azure Window we were in awe of the scenery - and the crowds. It's amazing that people take bus tours in such a small country, especially on Gozo. But they do. Even though you can walk across the island in about two and a half hours, or take a public bus anywhere in about fifteen minutes. They're carted from place to place, let off to take some pictures, then herded back together and driven somewhere else. Unwilling to go more than a few yards from his bus, one American man whistled at another tourist who was in front of him. When the tourist didn't move, the man snorted. "Now I won't get a good picture," he said.

The Azure Window is probably the most visited natural feature of this green little isle, and for good reason. Notice the scale - there's a person on top, there in the picture - and the setting. But it's hardly the only beautiful, interesting bit of coast.

Near Xlendi and its perfect natural harbor, the coastline takes on a strange, rough/smooth mix. Gozo - like the rest of Malta - is mostly limestone, and the softer varieties of the stone are carved and rubbed smooth by the waves. Here, in a cupped hollow of rock, someone had cut a door.

On the opposite side of Gozo, at the base of a long valley, Ramla Bay's red sands stretch in a perfect crescent. The sand is as soft and fine as down, the color is beautiful in the late afternoon sunlight - though, admittedly, more deep orange than red.

This was, according to tradition, Odysseus' view for seven years as a prisoner of the nymph Calypso. Her cave is supposedly tucked into the cliffs that rise to the west of the beach. When we were there, few people were in their swimsuits. A cold wind was coming in off the sea to the north, and the water was frigid.
Near Dwejra, the fishermen earn extra money by taking tourists on short boat rides into the caves that dot the cliffs there. The ride begins in a sort of small, pondlike lagoon that the locals call the "Inland Sea." Between the lagoon and the real sea, a high cliff runs - there's a narrow passageway, though, just wide and high enough for a small boat to pass through. On the other side are a few other grottos, mostly uninteresting other than being watery.
Fungus Rock, a high-sided bump of land near St. Lawrenz, is one of the only known places in the world where a type of rare plant grows - not actually a fungus, but somewhat resembling a black mushroom. The Knights of Saint John jealously protected the rock during their control of the archipelago, and thought that the plant (which they named "Maltese Mushroom," and is now called Cynomorium) had powerful medicinal qualities. They built a rickety cable car basket from the nearby cliffs to the top of the islet, and smoothed the sides of the rock to discourage thieves of the plant - it was thought, at the time, to be unique to Fungus Rock, and the Knights treated it like a treasure.
On a walk, also near Xlendi, we found these old salt trays. At least, we think that's what they are. Among them, cut into the rock, was an open cistern that drained a cupped slope of limestone into a shallow pool. The water there was sweet, but these square, dry indentations had a thin powder of salt at the bottom.

Malta is beautiful, but much of the main island is clogged with buildings and motorways. Escaping across the channel to Gozo feels like going to the country, even if it's only a relative sense of calm.

If you go to the Azure Window, make sure to clamber around the rocks, down to the shore and along a narrow path towards the arch. There's a hidden, small cave there, where the view of the Window is spectacular. The sound of the surf against the rocks is amplified by the hollow, and the waves come almost right up to the floor of the cavern. When we were there, two young Gozitan couples sat drinking beer and staring out at the dramatic scene. For a while we were alone with them. Then a few Spanish tourists showed up and we left.

Here's a video of our trip back through the cave from the open water into the Inland Sea. We were alone on the boat except for its reticent pilot and a french woman.

Xlendi Bay, Home Sweet Home

On the corner of Xlendi Bay, where the main road from Victoria meets the waterfront line of restaurants, we feel like we can predict the future. That corner white and blue building above is where we rented an apartment. The rhythm of the waves heard from our window in the morning tells us what kind of weather the day will bring, before we even leave bed. A loud group making their way down from the bus stop in the late afternoon means the restaurants won't clear their oil+vinegar sets from the tables quite as soon as they'd planned. A certain boisterous laugh made us know, immediately, that it was a group of Americans. Perhaps likening it to clairvoyance is a bit of a stretch, but we feel a bit ahead of the town's rhythmic ebb and flow.
We awake to the fishermen going out, and it feels like it is only us and them that have opened their eyes to the day just yet. When we hear them come in, we know that it is time to take our trash down to the curbside for 8:30 collection. By this time, the diving school students have arrived and made black constellations in the blue green water below our patio. So has the Xlendi Pleasure Cruise boat, a small compact thing that sits waiting patiently for any biters. The sound of the garbage truck signals a final check of our backpacks and we make our way out to catch the 8:45 bus to Valletta. Without ever once looking at a watch.
Xlendi Bay sits and waits for people to arrive and enjoy it. In our seven days here, we have not been able to figure out the business hours of any establishment. They all seem to run according to the same principal as us; when you hear the day come out your window, you better get up and ready. If we are home during the day, we have a truly Pavlovian response to the clinking of utensils being set out on the tables below. We fix ourselves a sandwich and smell pizza and pasta wafting upwards to our patio. In the evening, the clinking begs us to uncork our wine and plate whatever we've made. At least once a night, we hear a rendition of Happy Birthday from below.
Xlendi is a place for special occasions and daytrippers. But mostly daytrippers. They lap onto shores like waves. We feel like the thin line of current that shines in the bay - that last mark of arrival when all other incomers are long gone. Daytrippers, or "afternooners" more precisely, announce their purpose more than they realize they do. Backpacks and sensible shoes mean that they want to climb the white staircase that zig zags up the cliff. Then, come down and around to the tower. Afterward, they get a treat from Gelateria Granola and/or sit for lunch. The click of high heels hitting the pavement out of a parked Jeep Tour vehicle, tells us that they are going to skip the hike and go straight to lunching. Souvenir stalls open, selling thick knit sweaters you hope you won't need and thin Maltese flag beach towels that you purchase optimistically. (Ours will leave this country with us, unused).
The Boathouse Restaurant is the first to open and the last to close. Churchill, on the opposite side of the bay, is sporadic at best. We were told about both by a woman from whom's minimart we bought our necessities in Valletta. When she described The Boathouse as being on one side of the bay and Churchill as being on the other, we hadn't really thought that they were as close to each other as they were. "They are both great. Or anything in between. It's all good!" she'd said. Moby Dick restaurant and bar was right below us, where these British women ate smoked salmon salads. When we arrived without a cell phone and saw a sign to "call upon arrival" on our door, the proprietor of Moby Dick gave our landlord a ring as we drank coffee. When we left, he gave us a business card with a wink. He also had rental apartments available. No hard feelings.
That first afternoon, as we waited, a very tan man who had initially asked if we needed a cab kept checking up on us. As we sat and waited, two huge groups of high schoolers on Spring Break occupied Xlendi Bay. A French group raucously swam and pantsed each other as they changed back out of their bathing suits. A Spanish group sat along the water's edge, chain-smoking and texting. Sunglasses on. These two lovebirds snuck away to a cave and jumped a little when we came clomping in our boots.
It is a beautiful bay with nooks and crannies, old churches and limestone cliffs. The modern buildings may be a little bit of an eyesore, but the laidbackness counteracts them perfectly. The water is clear and full of fish. In fact, we really wonder if the Maltese Scuba School we saw advertised on a flyer back in our St. Petersburg schoolhouse was here. We'd seriously considered signing up, but thought that it'd be difficult to blog underwater. It's amazing to think that we may have wound up right here, in the same apartment, in the same village, having made an entirely different decision.
At night, when everyone is gone, the bay transforms back into its most natural state. A few lights, illuminate the road on one side and the staircase on the other, but those will turn off eventually. The sunsets are as spectacular as the sunrises. All we hear is the water out our windows. Home Sweet Xlendi.

Gypsy Kitchens: Gozitan Stewed Rabbit With Green Sauce

Though it's that time of year, this isn't an Easter recipe.

The Maltese love fenek. Rabbit, that is. In the old days, when Malta and Gozo were isolated and poor, there was very little meat other than rabbit, which they used to catch in the wild. Today, it's mostly farmed, but it remains as popular as ever - there are even special parties, called fenkata, held at tiny bars. We decided to try out a traditional Gozitan preparation, stewing the meat in olives and red wine to keep it tender. It went particularly well with another Maltese peculiarity - the island's bread based, herby green sauce, which is more starchy side dish than condiment.
The butcher we bought the rabbit from asked if we wanted it pieced or whole. Initially, we told him we'd take it whole - but he was very suspicious. Eventually, he decided it would be best if the thing was dismembered and began hacking. We stopped him before the back was cut apart, but not before he'd taken the head off and neatly split it open. With the meat came the liver and two other small organs, which we discarded. Too many rabbit livers in restaurants - they're tasty, but not great stewing meat.

Rabbit meat is very lean, and so it's important to cook it carefully, as it can get tough. First, we marinaded the meat in red wine. Also in the marinade were two onions, some garlic, a handful of mint, a handful of parsley, four or five sprigs of thyme and a few pinches of Maltese rabbit seasoning (we don't use a lot of pre-made rubs or seasonings, but this local "Tiger Brand Rabbit Seasoning" was too interesting to pass up - very curry centric).

Marinade it at room temperature for about two hours, or longer in the refrigerator. Use a full bottle of wine.

While the meat is being soaked, make the green sauce. Zalza Ħadra is one of Maltese cuisine's oldest and vaguest recipes. In Apicuis' De Re Coquinaria, an ancient cookbook said to have been compiled in the late 4th or early 5th century, the recipe simply says to take some "Alexandrian" bread, dunk in water and vinegar, put in a mortar with honey, mint, salted cow's milk and oil and then place in a container over snow. Since then, the recipe has maintained its basic method of soaking crustless bread in water and vinegar and mixing it, in a mortar, with at least one green thing.
We went with a derivation of a recipe from the 1908 Maltese cookbook Ctieb Tal-Chcina. Soak two thick slices of crustless Maltese bread (any country loaf will do) in water and vinegar. Smoosh out as much liquid as you can and then pound with two cloves of crushed garlic, a few capers, chopped parsley, mint and rocket. Add the greens in as you go so you can really get a lot in there. We wanted to use the very popular local herb marjoram - but it's so popular that it's always sold out. Once done working that pestle, cover with olive oil and refrigerate. Mix before serving.
About fifteen minutes before cooking, preheat the oven to 325° (fahrenheit) and get together the other ingredients. Cut a few good strips of lemon rind, strip (or cube, if you prefer) three or four carrots, drain olives and capers. Capers are extremely popular here, Malta's famous for them. Use the best green olives you can find - we could have found better ones. We used a spoonful of coarse mustard, but that's not really traditional. If you have a bay leaf, of course it would go well.
Remove the pieces of rabbit from the wine (but keep the marinade!) and let semi-dry while you heat oil in a frying pan. Brown the meat well and quickly, using high heat and making sure to get as much of the surface cooked as possible. Don't leave the rabbit in too long, though - this should only take about five minutes. Put the meat back into the marinade and add the other ingredients (carrots, olives, lemon peel, etc...) and salt. Cover and bring everything to a boil on the stove top, cooking for about five minutes. Then remove to the oven.
This is a picture of the pan BEFORE cooking, not after.

Bake the whole thing, covered, for between one and half and two and a half hours - ours took a little longer because the stove we were working with isn't great. The meat will be pretty firm when it's done, and will be coming off the bone. Check regularly - you don't want to overcook it.

We served the rabbit with the olives and carrots, with the green sauce alongside and none of the cooking liquid. If you'd like, you could certainly thicken the juices and wine and make a very nice, more traditional stew or sauce. The green sauce was herby and a great accompaniment, though, with a lightness and freshness that served the stewed meat very well.

Here are the recipes:

Gozitan Stewed Rabbit and Maltese Green Sauce

For the rabbit,

Ingredients:

1 rabbit, pieced and cleaned

1 bottle red wine, uncorked

2 onions, chopped

5 cloves garlic, sliced

4 carrots, peeled and stripped

3/4 cup green olives

2 - 4 tablespoons small capers

4 - 6 sprigs fresh thyme

1 handful fresh mint, lightly chopped

1 handful fresh parsley, chopped

1 tablespoon mustard

Olive oil or other good cooking oil

Ground black pepper, perhaps a bay leaf, salt

Process:

- Marinade the rabbit in red wine in a large roasting tray or a deep casserole. Into the wine, scatter herbs, onion and garlic. Grind pepper into the mix. Cover and let sit 2 hours at room temperature, or longer in the refrigerator, up to 24 hours.

- Preheat the oven to 160° fahrenheit. Assemble other ingredients.

- Remove the rabbit from its bath, retaining marinade. Let dry for a few minutes, then fry quickly in oil over high heat until browned but nowhere close to cooked. Return to marinade.

- Bring the liquid (with the rabbit in it) to a boil on the stovetop and let simmer for about five minutes, then cover and put into the oven.

- Cook between 1 1/2 hours and 2 1/2 hours, checking for doneness and making sure not to overcook. When the rabbit is nicely firm and definitely falling away from the bone, it's likely done, but check to make sure just in case.

For the green sauce,

Ingredients:

2 thick slices crusty country bread

2 cloves garlic, crushed

2 cups mixed herbs (parsley, rucola and mint - but feel free to add in other greens on hand)

1 tablespoon capers

Olive oil

White vinegar

Salt

Process:

-Remove the crust from your bread slices and let soak in water with a splash of vinegar for a few minutes.

-While that soaks, chop your herbs and crush your garlic.

-Remove bread and squeeze until as much liquid as possible is wrung out. This will turn into a gloppy mash. Don't get too preoccupied with getting it "dry." You just don't want it sopping.

-Put bread, garlic, capers and a quarter of your herbs into a mortar and mash.

-Continue to add herbs until they are all mixed in.

-Salt, cover with olive oil and set aside in the refrigerator.

-Stir before serving. Check out all of our recipes.

Things Maltese People Like

The (new) bus system. Last July was the end of an era in Malta. A British company named Arriva took over and transformed and regulated the bus system in Malta (which we've been using to get just about everywhere). Before the teal bus takeover, Maltese buses were a tourist attraction in and off themselves. They were yellow and white with red piping and consisted of some bus models that were no longer in use anywhere else on Earth. Buses were shipped over to the islands throughout the decades and never left. Privately owned, they were detailed, repaired and altered however the driver saw fit. We were disappointed that the vintage carriers were no longer in place, but the locals are nothing but pleased. For the first time ever, there is an actual bus schedule, cemented routes, efficient vehicles. The island of Gozo has service 7 days a week. Tourists may buy nostalgic postcards and magnets and long for the old days, but Maltese people sure do like the new bus system.
Limestone. In the article about bird hunting that Merlin referenced, Jonathan Franzen calls Malta's archipelago "densely populated chunks of limestone." He's not too far off. Above is a quarry we spotted on a walk down to the Dwejra coast. The soft, yellowish rock was, for a very long time, the only building material available on the island. And you can see by any picture with a chalky khaki colored backdrop, it's still used all the time. Usually, when you walk through a European neighborhood that was completely rebuilt after WWII, you see a hastily erected lego land of concrete. Here, since limestone was employed, the new buildings blended in with the old ones. Even some of the ugliest modern apartment blocks have a timelessness about them, because they're made from the same rock as all the rest.
Light bulb trimming. These are more than just your average big bulb Christmas lights. They are full on light bulb size and they light the trimming of churches across the country. I'm sure they create very pretty silhouettes in the dark, but during they day, they add an idiosyncratic tackiness to some pretty beautiful buildings. Something about them reminds of me Baz Luhrmann's William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet.
Naming their houses. Some memorable ones include Our Dream Home, Australian Paradise, God Bless USA and Love Nest. Most include the owner's name and, very often, a combination of names. For example, if a husband and wife are named Silvio and Marian, the house may be named Silmar. When all else fails, people tend to default to 'Madonnanina.'
Rattan door blinds. They are hung up over a majority of the doorways in Malta. I honestly cannot figure out why. I mean, there's already a door - why the second layer of covering? Maybe it's actually to protect the door from dust or damage? I did notice that during the midday break, many blinds were unrolled. So, possibly, it's the reverse of a welcome mat. When the blind is down, don't bother knocking.
Local products. Only 20% of Malta's food is domestically sourced. However, there's a huge appreciation for the products that are local. This specialty food shop on Gozo sold a plethora of products and the little stack in the foreground made up our purchase. Maltese capers, sea salt and lemon preserve. Menus specified if something was local, produce vans parked near bus stops and in town squares and you'd see people with grocery bags from the nearest supermarket stop to fill their fruit and vegetable needs with the little guys.
Butcher shops named after the butcher. This is a rare example of a name being grammatically correct. Teddy the Butcher. Usually, it went something like George's Butcher or Nick Butcher. It's like someone walked into these establishments that had been around forever and sold them a sign. Then came the task of figuring out what to put on the sign. I kept waiting for one to be open so that I could go in and ask if Teddy or George or Nick were there, but the timing never worked out.
This Land Rover. At first, we were sure we were seeing the same truck over and over. But when the colors began to differ, we realized that there are just an extraordinary number of old Land Rover Defender pick-ups on these islands. I'd never seen a pick-up Defender before and, at this point, I've seen about a dozen. I guess that's what you get from a former British colony.
Red phone booths. Speaking of Britishisms. A red phone booth, in which you can insert a prepaid card to make calls, punctuates the end of many Maltese blocks. When one happens to be placed next to a chalkboard reading "Steak and Kidney Pies," you really feel ye olde influence.

What The Heck Is Ftira?

Ftira seems like a simple concept, but it's not. And it might not even really be ftira.
Malta isn't a big place, and Gozo (the "other island" in the archipelago) really isn't a big place. But it's big enough to have culinary specialties, and ftira - or is it ftajjar? - is principle among them.
We journeyed all over this speck of rock, getting confused, finding clarity, getting disappointed and, finally, finding the best ftira on earth (probably). So, what is this thing? It took us a while to figure that out.
Ftira, we knew, was a Gozitan specialty that was something like pizza, but also different from pizza. But I'll get to that in a minute.
Trying to be good about tasting local specialties, we stopped - on our first noon in Gozo - at the Clock House restaurant in Victoria, in front of which was a blackboard advertising Ftira. There was a list of different options, and the waitress was very flattering when I ordered. "Ah," she said. "You've ordered the one that we order. That's the traditional Gozo choice."
Well, this is what I ended up with. A tuna sandwich. It turns out, Ftira is a little more complicated than I'd thought. The clockhouse wasn't being misleading.
This is the second ftira I ordered, in the seaside town of Xlendi, and probably the worst. The sandwich, at least, was flavorful.
So, here's the thing. Ftira is a specific type of Maltese bread - not Gozitan bread, but Maltese bread in general. So, sometimes, a sandwich made on Maltese ftira bread can be called a ftira. That's a country wide thing. But Gozo has a special kind of this bread, which is similar to a pizza. But a pizza with Gozitan ftira toppings - anchovies, olives, onions, capers and slices of potato - isn't really a ftira either. This was basically just a pizza, masquerading as something else. It was dry and uninteresting, with no sauce or cheese. I was beginning to think that eating ftira was a worthless experience.Here's one problem - what I was looking for is actually called ftajjar, but is listed on menus and referred to as ftira (or, even, pizza). Here's the first good one I had a slice of, at a place called (inauspiciously) Victoria Hotspurs Sportsbar and Pizzeria.
It had all the elements - a strange crust, all the traditional toppings and the thinly sliced potato, plus a generous drizzle of olive oil.
Just across the square, and even less outwardly appealing, we found Rizzle's pizzeria, which was attached to a sweets shop and sold a lot of deep-dish pies and green pea pastries called pastizzi (another local treat). In their window, though, were some excellent examples of classic ftira.
The crust is unleavened, but still bouncy and doughy. It's reminiscent, somehow, of focaccia or - as Rebecca noted - very thick eggroll wrapper. The texture is chewy and it oozes oil, almost as though it were fried.

We bought a small one and decided, at that point, that Rizzle's was the best. We almost decided to stop eating this stuff - ftira fatigue, one could call it.
Malta is often mistakenly thought of as somehow Italian. In fact, it's decidedly un-Italian, with its own language, traditions and feel. Much of the tongue and culture is more north African than anything, and modern influences are heavily British. The word ftira is actually Tunisian, and calling this stuff pizza, just because it's round and flat (and Malta is close to Italy), is an attempt at fitting something exotic into a familiar role. That's what had me confused at first, and what has every pizzeria in the country offering inauthentic "gozitan ftira."

Above, premade, frozen ftira sold at Jubilee foods, in Victoria.

So, what does a perfect ftira look like, and where can you find it?

On a sun-baked street, in the quiet maze of little Nadur, is the incomparable Maxokk bakery. Open for over fifty years, the little storefront initially baked and sold all kinds of bread, but then gave in. Their ftajjar was so popular that they decided to dedicate their whole business to it.

Run by a small old lady and a large young man, Maxokk sells ftira either cooked, and ready to eat, or "half cooked," designed to be finished at home. There are no tables, just a couple of benches under a tree in the square outside. There is pizza on the menu, but nobody orders it - everyone comes for the specialty.
And it is delicious. The potatoes are crisp and well cooked, the tomatoes are melted, the capers and anchovies add a perfect level of salt and brine. We ate our ftira in a reverent state, in awe. This was completely different than pizza or bread - it was a kind of heavenly, savory tart. This is what a local specialty should taste like: surprising, interesting, specific and confusing.

Megalithic Temples of Malta

If someone had told me that the oldest free-standing structures on Earth were in Malta, I wouldn't have believed them. Especially if said person was Maltese (I'm skeptical of hyperbolic national pride). But here we are looking at the megalithic temples of Malta, which legitimately do take the cake. Still standing after all these years, they are a thousand years older than the oldest Pyramid. The oldest and, arguably, most important of Malta's ancient temples is Ġgantija on Gozo (seen above). Imagine Malta, an archipelago in the Mediterranean of which Gozo isn't even the largest island, that far back in time. Metal tools weren't a part of their existence yet. The wheel hadn't even been introduced.
Many archeologists hypothesize that Ġgantija was built as a place for fertility rites. A number of excavated statues (in what positions, I wonder) support the theory. Ancient animal bones at the site suggest that sacrifices took place as well. According to Maltese folklore, however, a giantess erected the temples for her own private worship. "Ġgantija" means Giant's tower. Residents knew about the ruins long before it was paid any official scientific attention. French and German artists traveling to Gozo in the late 1800s depicted the not-yet excavated site. In 1827, the Lieutenant Governor of Gozo cleared the site of "debris." It was a partial excavation which probably did more damage than good and the temples sat, decaying for about a hundred years afterward. But a hundred years of hard weather ain't nothing for these guys. They were studied and cared for properly beginning in the mid 20th century and declared an UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1980.
There are two temples in the Ġgantija complex. Encircled by a perfectly preserved wall, they were built in circa 3600 and 2500 BC, respectively. The older temple is actually better preserved and one can still see traces of original plaster. By all expert accounts, these temples are not just impressive by virtue of the fact that they were constructed at all, but more so because of artistic and architectural flourishes. In fact, the entire period of 3000 - 2000 BC is referred to as the Ġgantija Phase of Maltese history. It's an archeological point of reference in a history steeped country. And, yet, we walked around the temples completely alone.
In 1992, five other temple complexes in Malta were added to the UNESCO listing and it now reads "The Megalithic Temples of Malta," all of which fit into the Ġgantija era. Of the five, we visited two and they felt not only different than Ġgantija, but also different than one another. The Mnajdra temples have been covered by protective tents since 2009 - as is its neighbor the Ħaġar Qim temples. Unfortunately, this means that you can no longer see the sunset perfect in the doorway of Mnajdra's lower temple on the two equinoxes. The structure is perfectly astronomically aligned. However, protecting the structures is undeniably important.
The temples show signs of benches, tables, vaulted ceilings. Bowls, tools, moving stones and statues were found during a 1949 excavation - along with the requisite animal bones. The architectural design itself is amazing even to a layman like myself. Two different types of limestone were employed, one for the interior and one for the exterior. Small-stone corbelling supported the now-gone roof. Walls were built post-and-lintel with some pretty huge slabs of limestone. Some doorways are squares, some are arched and these pockmark designs look like prehistoric wallpaper. Each "room" has its own feel. The main altar is geometric perfection - so well lined that its image appears on the back of the Maltese euro one cent, two cent and five cent pieces.
A famous Maltese linguist suggests that the name "Mnajdra" comes from the Arabic word "manzara," meaning 'a place with commanding views.' I believe it. Mnajdra is coupled with the Ħaġar Qim temples by this simple walkway. An island floats out in the sea, shrubs are almost swallowed up by wildflowers. It is a beautiful place to worship, both for the original patrons of the temples and the rest of us, there to pay homage to the craftsmanship, skill and creativity of the ancient Maltese builders.
I wonder just how amazing it was to approach Ħaġar Qim from Mnajdra and vice versa with nothing but the beautiful Maltese landscape as their backdrop. Ħaġar Qim, though, severely needed the tent. These temples were made with a different, softer limestone than Mnajdra (globijerina, which flakes with age). The complex feels like a maze with a sort of hallway joining at least six different rooms. The spaces had different uses, according to the buried clues: pretty pottery, statues of obese women, animal bones. While this last one is a common finding, Ħaġar Qim appears to have been a particularly popular place for ritual sacrifices.
One of the things that makes all of the megalithic temples of Malta so intriguing and unique is the fact that not a single human bone has ever been found. Structures as old as these were always graves or burial plots. It gives the sense that the builders here really just wanted to create something for the beauty and communal purpose of it, as opposed to necessity or out of the human desire to honor one's dead.
Ħaġar Qim is ridiculously impressive and there is loads of information about every individual area. There's the fire place, the square reservoirs that collect rain and distribute the liquid down in a line, like an ice tray does when you tip it a little. A number of the pieces present are reproductions with the originals placed in a museum for safer keeping. You could walk around and try to spot everything in a book. While we were there, many people did just that. But it's also nice to just walk and marvel at the 17 foot tall, 57 ton slab of limestone set upright in the temple's facade. It is the largest stone of any in the megalithic temples of Malta.