De la Grotte Bleue à Għar Lapsi : falaises, temples et baignade

A crack in the cliffs with a slipway, a huddle of boathouses and more boat captains than residents. Wied iż-Żurrieq exists to ferry people into the caves, and has done since somebody first realised visitors would pay for it. The trip takes about twenty-five minutes and threads through a chain of caves, of which the Blue Grotto is the finale. The boats are small, open and shared with eight strangers; they don't run when there's swell, and the captains decide that, not you. While you queue, look up: the squat tower on the headland has been watching this inlet since 1638.

The classic shot of the arch is taken from a layby on the road above the harbour, ten minutes uphill from the slipway. In Maltese the arch is Il-Ħnejja (simply, the arch) until British soldiers renamed it after Capri's Grotta Azzurra and the new name stuck, as English names do. Come mid-morning and you'll see the boats threading in and out beneath you like beads on a string, which is frankly more entertaining than the arch itself. The blue is real, not a filter: sunlight bouncing off the pale seabed inside the cave and lighting the water from below.

One ticket covers two temples, and most visitors only really look at the first. Ħaġar Qim sits by the visitor centre under its big fabric tent; Mnajdra is 500 metres down a walkway towards the sea, and it is the better of the two: quieter, more complete, and aligned so precisely that at the equinoxes the rising sun walks straight up the main axis of the south temple. The tents are ugly and necessary; the soft globigerina limestone was dissolving in the rain after 170 years uncovered. Give the pair ninety minutes, and don't skip the short film at the centre. It's the fastest orientation you'll get.

From Mnajdra, pick up the coastal path heading west and you're on garigue proper: the low, scratchy limestone heath that looks dead in August and turns into a rock garden after the first rains: wild thyme, spurge, the odd orchid if it's spring. You'll pass the small Congreve Memorial, then Ħamrija Tower, and for the whole stretch Filfla sits offshore like a capsized loaf. It's under an hour of walking, none of it difficult if you're shod properly, all of it on loose stone if you're not. Nobody else will be up here. That's rather the point.

Għar Lapsi is where Siġġiewi goes to swim: a bite out of the low rock shelf where a cave roof makes a natural pool, sheltered from everything but a proper southerly. There's a slipway, a scatter of fishermen's huts, ladders bolted to the rock, and water so clear the fish appear to be hovering. Snorkelling is the sport here (the caves run along the shore and divers come for them), but floating on your back counting swifts is also acceptable. Blue Creek, the bar-restaurant on the rocks above, does a decent plate of calamari and a cold Cisk (the local lager) while your shorts dry.