Ta' Qali

Where it sits. Ta' Qali is a broad, flat plain in the middle of Malta, lying within the boundaries of Attard and Mosta and bounded to the west by the ridge that carries Mdina and Rabat. On an island of terraced slopes and rubble walls it is an anomaly: several square kilometres of level open ground, formed on a clay-rich basin, with the bastions of the old capital standing on the skyline above it. That flatness is the reason for everything that has happened here, from polo in the 1930s to fighter aircraft in 1942 to a national stadium, a park and a wholesale vegetable market today.

The story behind it. The plain was used as a landing ground in the interwar years and was developed into a Royal Air Force station at the start of the Second World War, one of the three main airfields on the island alongside Luqa and Ħal Far. During the siege years of 1941 and 1942 Ta' Qali was bombed relentlessly — its runways cratered and repaired daily, its aircraft dispersed into blast pens built of rubble and empty fuel drums, its personnel sheltering in tunnels cut into the surrounding rock. Hurricanes and later Spitfires flew from here in the defence of the island, and the wrecked hangars were never fully rebuilt. After the war the RAF wound the station down, and by the 1960s the plain was a disused airfield with a scatter of Nissen huts.

What it became. Rather than clear it, Malta colonised the site piecemeal, and the result is one of the odder multi-use landscapes in the country:

• The Crafts Village — glassblowing, silver filigree, ceramics and leatherwork housed in the surviving wartime huts, where you can watch glass being gathered and blown before buying the result.
• The Malta Aviation Museum — volunteer-run, in hangars on the old airfield, with a restored Spitfire and Hurricane among the exhibits, plus engines, wreckage recovered from the sea and a working restoration workshop.
• The National Stadium — Malta's principal football ground, opened in 1981, together with the national training facilities.
• Ta' Qali National Park — planted from the 1990s onward and much extended since, with woodland belts, walking and running paths, playgrounds, picnic areas and open lawns.
• The Pitkalija and the fairgrounds — the national wholesale vegetable market, the Malta Fairs and Conventions Centre, and the trade fair grounds that moved here from Naxxar in 2010.

What you actually see today. Arriving from Attard, the first impression is of space — car parks, wide verges, the low bulk of the stadium, and the escarpment of Mdina beyond. The park is the reason most families come: it is one of the few places in Malta where children can run on grass, and on a Sunday in February or March it fills with picnics, kite flying and football. The crafts village is quieter and more interesting than it first looks, particularly the glass workshops, where the furnaces run through the morning. The aviation museum rewards an hour, especially for anyone who has read about the siege; the aircraft are displayed in working hangars rather than in a designed gallery, and the volunteers know their subject in detail. Remnants of the airfield survive around the edges: sections of taxiway, a few dispersal pens built of rubble to shield parked fighters from blast, and rock-cut shelters now sealed or used for storage. The Pitkalija, the wholesale vegetable market, works in the very early morning and is a different kind of spectacle — lorries, crates of tomatoes and cauliflowers from the fields of Mġarr and Siġġiewi, and an auction conducted at speed in Maltese. From most points on the plain the eye is pulled west to the walls of Mdina on their ridge, a view that has changed remarkably little since the airfield was cratered beneath it.

Getting there and timing. Buses serving Attard, Rabat and Mdina stop at or near Ta' Qali, and there is abundant free parking — unusual in Malta. Concerts, fairs and match days transform the traffic situation, so check the calendar if you are driving. The park is at its best from October to May, when the ground is green and the trees give useful shade; by August the grass is burnt and only the woodland belts are comfortable. The crafts village and aviation museum keep daytime hours and generally close early in the afternoon, so come in the morning. The site also makes a practical staging point for Mdina and Rabat, which are a few minutes uphill, and for the Wignacourt Aqueduct, whose surviving arches begin a short distance east along the Attard road.