Buskett Gardens

Where it sits. Buskett fills a shallow valley about three kilometres south of Rabat, under the walls of Verdala Palace and a short way inland from the Dingli cliffs. It is the only substantial semi-natural woodland in the Maltese islands — a country that lost its tree cover thousands of years ago and where a stand of mature pines is genuinely exceptional. The name is a Maltese rendering of the Italian boschetto, a little wood, and that is the correct scale: this is a valley of terraces and watercourses rather than a forest, and you can walk from one end to the other in half an hour. Its ecological weight far exceeds its size, and it is protected as part of a Natura 2000 site together with the neighbouring Girgenti valley.

Planted for hunting. The wood was laid out in the late sixteenth century by Grand Master Hugues Loubenx de Verdalle, who built the palace above it in 1586 and wanted game to hunt within reach of Valletta. Later Grand Masters extended the planting and added orchards; the British governors who took the palace as a summer residence maintained the grounds. What survives is a mix of the deliberate and the wild: Aleppo pines on the higher ground, one of Malta's few remaining stands of holm oak, carob and olive on the terrace walls, bay laurel and poplar along the damp valley floor, and citrus groves — orange, lemon, bitter orange — in the sheltered lower sections, some of them descendants of the Order's plantings.

Birds, and the argument about them. Because it is the only extensive wooded roost on the migration corridor between Africa and Europe, Buskett concentrates birds in a way nowhere else on the island does. Honey buzzards, marsh harriers, kestrels and falcons come in to roost in the pines on autumn evenings, sometimes in the dozens, and the spring passage brings warblers, orioles, hoopoes and turtle doves through the same trees. This has also made the valley the focal point of Malta's long conflict over bird hunting and trapping: conservation groups run monitoring camps here each autumn, and the presence of both birdwatchers and enforcement officers in September is a permanent feature of the place.

Mnarja. On the night of 28 June and through the following day, Buskett hosts L-Imnarja, the oldest surviving Maltese folk festival, tied to the feast of Saints Peter and Paul. It began as a harvest celebration and retains the shape: an agricultural show with livestock, produce and honey, all-night għana folk singing — improvised, competitive, sung to guitar — and a mass consumption of fenkata, rabbit stewed in wine and garlic, eaten under the trees. The following afternoon, bareback horse and donkey races run up Saqqajja Hill in Rabat, with banners awarded to the winning stables. It is the one night of the year when Buskett is loud.

Walking it. Paths run along the valley floor and up through the terraces; none are long, and they connect outward to a good half-day of walking. West and south, tracks climb to the Dingli cliffs; a kilometre to the south-west lie the prehistoric cart ruts of Misraħ Għar il-Kbir; north the road returns to Rabat past the presidential residence at Girgenti. Surfaces are earth and rubble with some steep rubble-wall steps, and the valley floor holds water after winter rain. There are picnic tables, a small kiosk in season and shade in quantity, which in a Maltese summer is the rarest amenity of all. Water is the hidden structure of the whole valley: springs feed the lower terraces, a stream runs after heavy rain, and the rubble-wall terracing exists to slow that water down long enough for soil to stay put. It is worth looking at the walls themselves, laid dry without mortar in the technique used across the islands, which lets water through while holding earth back.

Getting there and timing. Buses 181 and 201 serve the Buskett and Dingli area from Rabat, with a walk from the stop; there is free parking at the main entrance, which fills on Sundays when Maltese families arrive with barbecues. Entry is free and the gardens are open daily during daylight. February to May is the season for green ground, wildflowers and orange blossom; September and October for the raptors; late June for Mnarja. High summer flattens the colour, though the shade still works, and the woodland is one of the few places on the island where a midday walk in August is tolerable.