Qrendi

Where it sits. Qrendi is a small village of some 3,300 people on the southern plateau of Malta, sandwiched between Mqabba, Żurrieq and Siġġiewi and about a kilometre and a half back from the cliff edge. Its administrative territory is out of all proportion to its size, because it contains two of the most significant prehistoric monuments in Europe, a celebrated sinkhole and — after a jurisdictional dispute with Żurrieq that went to a legal ruling in 1910 — the sea caves of the Blue Grotto. Qrendi was itself part of the parish of Żurrieq until 1618, when it was constituted separately. The land around is open, stony and farmed in small terraced fields, with dry-stone walls and low corbelled field huts, and it slopes gently south to the point where it stops abruptly at a two-hundred-metre drop.

Ħaġar Qim and Mnajdra. On the coastal ridge at the southern edge of the village stand two megalithic temple complexes, both inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage list. Ħaġar Qim, built and rebuilt between roughly 3600 and 3200 BC, sits on the crest, its facade formed of enormous globigerina slabs — one of them more than five metres long — set on end. Four hundred metres downhill and lower on the slope, Mnajdra faces out over the sea towards the islet of Filfla. Its three linked buildings are constructed in harder coralline limestone, and the southern one is aligned so that at the equinoxes the rising sun throws a shaft of light straight down the central corridor, while at the solstices the light strikes the edges of specific upright slabs. Both sites are now sheltered under free-standing protective canopies, put up in 2009 after decades of weathering damage, and share a visitor centre with reconstructions and finds.

Il-Maqluba. On the eastern side of the village, immediately behind the small chapel of St Matthew, the ground simply falls away into a wooded hole about forty metres across and a similar depth, with a floor of dense vegetation. Il-Maqluba — the word means overturned — is a collapse doline, formed when the roof of a solution cavity in the limestone gave way, an event that Maltese tradition dates to 1343 and explains as divine punishment on a wicked hamlet. It covers roughly 4,765 square metres and functions as a natural refuge for plants that struggle elsewhere on this dry plateau, which is why it carries protected status as a Natura 2000 site and a tree protection area. Descent to the bottom is not permitted, but a belvedere partway down gives a clear view into the bowl.

Towers, church and streets. Qrendi's parish church, dedicated to the Assumption, was raised in the seventeenth century and dominates a square that was opened out in modern times when the walled grounds of an old villa were cleared for a bus terminus. In the village itself stands the Cavalier Tower, a curious octagonal seventeenth-century tower on a square base, built as a private lookout and quite unlike the Order's standard coastal designs. Out on the cliffs beside Mnajdra is Ħamrija Tower, completed in 1659 as one of the thirteen small watchtowers built under Grand Master Martin de Redin and restored in recent years; from beside it the cliff walk runs west towards Għar Lapsi and east towards Wied iż-Żurrieq. Two annual feasts split the village between rival band clubs: Our Lady of Lourdes at the turn of June and July, and the Assumption on 15 August.

What the visit is actually like. Most people arrive on a coach, spend an hour at the temples and leave, which means the village core is quiet almost all the time. Walking it takes half an hour and turns up wayside niches, a scattering of pre-modern farmhouses and views out over the open plateau. The temple sites are exposed and there is very little shade even under the canopies, so a summer midday visit is punishing; early morning, when the sun is low and the stone is warm-coloured rather than bleached, is far better, and it is also when the Mnajdra alignments make sense on the ground.

Getting there and timing. Buses from Valletta take around fifty minutes and stop both in the village and at the temples; there is a large car park at the visitor centre. Combining Qrendi with Wied iż-Żurrieq and the Blue Grotto makes an easy half-day, as the two are about three kilometres apart along the coast road. March to May is the strongest window — the fields are green, the cliffs carry sea squill and thyme, and the equinox openings at Mnajdra, when the public is admitted at sunrise for the alignment, fall in late March and late September and are ticketed well in advance.