Winter in Malta is a perfect time to take advantage of the great hiking opportunities the island offers. Our first full day in Malta also happened to be Christmas Day and we knew that not much was going to open so we decided to enjoy the great weather and take a hike. The visitmalta.com web site has downloadable maps and descriptions of Malta hikes all over the island, including details on the length and intensity of each hike. The maps give you the name of the bus stop and their locations for the start of each hike and there are numbered markers along the hiking trail that correspond to the markers on the downloadable map which also provides turn by turn directions.

There are seven hikes on the visitmalta.com site. We decided to do the Watch Towers hike on the northern part of Malta.

The beginning of the hike started across from Mellieha Beach. We saw the first road marker for the hike when we got off the bus. You walk in the direction of the arrows on the markers.

From Mellieha Beach the route to us into Foresta 2000 a nature preserve where plant and wildlife are being restored to a Mediterranean woodland.

There were great views at we hiked higher and reached some ruined buildings with interesting graffiti.

Next up was the St. Agatha’s Tower or the Red Tower, a defensive tower built in 1649. You can go in the Tower, but it was closed since it was Christmas Day.

The walk from the Red Tower down towards the coast provided spectacular views of the water and a landscape of stone walls.

From the coast we headed up again and passed some farms and farmhouses. We had the road to ourselves, there was not a person in sight.

We made the final descent back down toward the water.