Comino
CominoDreieinhalb Quadratkilometer, ein Turm der Ordensritter, eine berühmte Lagune und fast niemand zu Hause.
Dieser Guide ist vorerst auf Englisch. Das Wesentliche ist übersetzt.
Der Ort heute
Between ten and four in summer, the Blue Lagoon is a flotilla of day boats and the smell of sun cream; I'd rather not lie to you about that. The trick is timing. Catch the first boat from Mġarr or Ċirkewwa, swim that improbable white-sand channel while it's still quiet, then walk away from it. Most visitors never leave the lagoon, and the rest of the island is yours. Twenty minutes of thyme-scented garigue (rocky scrubland) brings you to Santa Marija Bay, with its tamarisks, a tiny chapel, and usually nobody. Above the southern cliffs stands the Knights' great square tower of 1618, and further along the battery that watched the channel. There are no cars, no village, no shop beyond the lagoon kiosks; the hotel shut years ago, and the census counts the permanent residents on one hand. In winter you can have all three and a half square kilometres to yourself, plus the birds the reserve is actually for.
Wie er hierher kam
Comino takes its name from kemmun, cumin, which once grew wild here. Its strangest resident came in the thirteenth century: Abraham Abulafia, a Kabbalist who had tried to convert the Pope, spent his last known years on the island writing mystical texts. For centuries afterwards Comino belonged mostly to corsairs, who lurked in its coves to ambush shipping in the channel, which is why Grand Master Wignacourt planted St Mary's Tower on the southern cliffs in 1618, the fifth of his six great coastal towers. A battery followed in 1716 to close the strait. Farming families scratched a living from the thin soil into the twentieth century, and the British occasionally used the island for quarantine. A hotel arrived in the 1960s and closed for good in recent years; a contested redevelopment hangs over it. The tower, restored by Din l-Art Ħelwa, played the Château d'If in 2002's The Count of Monte Cristo. Today the whole island and its surrounding waters are a protected nature reserve and bird sanctuary.
