04-22-2024: Bus, Mdina, Buskett

One of the places we have not visited in Malta is Buskett Gardens, or as we have learned is now called Buskett Woodlands. As you have seen from pictures, Malta is very densely populated in a majority of the country. The major cities are mainly based on the eastern half of the island. The western half is generally more rural and less populated. Buskett is one of the few areas where there is a woodlot of deciduous and conifer trees. It also adjoins Verdala Palace, now the summer residence of Malta’s president, but it was built during the period of the Knights of Malta as a hunting lodge.

To get to Buskett we searched the Malta Public Transport routes and found that we could get to within a 20 minute walk of the entrance to the woodlot. The weather was somewhat overcast and very breezy so we dressed in layers, including the all-important windbreakers. We first took a bus to Rabat where we were to change buses to Dingli. Once in Rabat, we decided to walk around nearby Mdina, the famous historic, fortified Silent City. We never tire of wandering around the streets and alleyways, although it gets very crowded as Mdina is one of the must-see tourist attractions in Malta. Everywhere you look there are wonderful architectural details and fabulous stonework and decorations.

Mdina sits atop a hill so the views from the city walls area breathtaking.

After wandering around Mdina we headed back to the bus stop for our bus to Dingli. We grabbed some quiche and pastizzi to takeaway for our lunch from a food stall near the bus stop.

Dingli is on the west coast and is famous for its cliffs, and that was the name of our bus stop, Cliffs. We got off the bus out in the middle of nowhere and found ourselves in a stiff breeze. It was not obvious in which direction to walk so we huddled against a wall to try and find directions on Google maps, which was of no help. This is what we were facing, not a sign in sight.

So we started walking. Off to our left was a cement factory and a cement truck came by. We asked the driver for directions to Buskett Gardens and he said to keep going straight and we’d find it. That was a relief. By now though, we were out of the major wind and we found ourselves very much enjoying our walk down the lane. One of the marvels in Malta, I find, are the rubble walls all over the place, especially in the rural areas. All these walls are dry stacked and I think it is miraculous that they stand firm over decades and centuries.

We walked up a small hill and at the top we saw Verdala Palace off in the distance, straight ahead with the Buskett Woodlot below.

Verdala Palace was built is 1586 by one of the Grand Masters of the Knights of Malta. During British rule, is was home of the British governor of Malta.

Malta was once covered by indigenous forests, but these were all cut down for ship building. The Knights of Malta planted the Buskett Woodlot to serve as a hunting reserve. The woodlot today covers about 75 acres. Many different trees and shrubs grow in the woodlot, including numerous fruit-bearing trees. It is one of the greenest areas in Malta. One of the nicest things was a large number of citrus groves and the smell from the orange blossoms was heavenly. We walked down a dirt road for a while where we had nice views of Verdala Palace. There were lovely flowers blooming everywhere.

I saw this sign along the road and I thought it would be good to post it to show you what an unusal language Maltese is. There has been quite an effort to get Maltese back to being the national language, as opposed to English. Malta was a British colony from 1800 to 1974, so English was the official language. But now Maltese is more widely spoken and most signs are in Maltese. This one is in both, so you can see that Maltese is rather complex, as I say, a mishmash of Arabic,a Semitic language and Italian, a Romance language.

We then turned off the road down a path and found ourselves walking through the woodlot which is located in the fertile valley of Wied il-Luq. There was a old stone farmhouse with its vegetable plot in the valley.

By now, we’re starting to get tired so we made our way back to where we started, thanks to Google maps. Now, we needed to find a closer bus stop than the Cliffs. I thought I had one in view on the map, but Christine asked a couple if they knew where a bus stop was. The guy pulled up a map on his phone and pointed us in the direction of the bus stop. It was the same one I had identified. As we were nearing the bus stop, a bus heading towards Valletta pulled into the stop. I ran to the stop and the bus waited for Christine to get there. On this bus, we were seated and it wasn’t crowded. My thinking was that we could just go into Valletta and transfer to a bus to Sliema. Christine wasn’t happy about this because Valletta was out of the way. So, a few stops before Valletta we did get off and waited at a stop for a bus to Sliema. This was an area we new well so I knew a Sliema bus would be along soon. And it was – a very crowded bus. We jammed ourselves in and held on as we lurched forward. Most of the riders got off at the ferries section of Sliema so by the time we got off, the bus wasn’t a sardine can any longer.

Christine wanted to get off a couple of stops before ours to walk along the promenade. The sea was quite wild again with the wind. So, we ended our adventure today with a bit of sea breeze and nice views.

We were happy to be back at the flat where we relaxed, had a dinner of salad and leftover chicken and watched more Bridgerton. It was quite an adventure to one of the few places we had never been in Malta. I will say that riding the bus is a great way of seeing the countryside and on some of the routes away from Sliema and Valletta, you see more of the locals and get to listen to the Maltese conversations only imagining what they are talking about. We really love being here.

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