Marsascala to Marsaxlokk

A rural walk between two of Malta's east-coast harbours takes in a series of towering cliffs and headlands, with constantly-changing scenery and new vistas opening up every few hundred metres.

It starts at Marsascala, an old fishing town that still retains traces of its its character in the face of touristic expansion, and ends at Marsaxlokk, one that has remained far more untouched, as a perverse outcome of having had a power station plonked in its eyeline.

In between, pass ancient (still-worked) salt-pans, farms, fantastic sea-carved rock-formations, a slice of Maltese leisure-existence that few get to see, bays only visitable by boat, fortifications, troglodyte dwellings still partially in use, stunning long-distance views from the strategically-vital cliffs of Delimara point and one of the island's best almost entirely locally-patronised swimming-places.

Passing through some of the few places on the islands that are inaccessible by car, this walk gives a perspective on Malta that few outsiders get to see and fills one with admiration for the very toughness of these people, who have retained a distinct personality in the teeth of the twin challenges of living on a desert rock and surviving wave after wave of invasion. To enjoy rural Malta, one needs to put aside all expectations of dinkiness, however: while the country affords moments of spectacular beauty, and a charismatic sense of its own dark history, it's not a place whose inhabitants would waste a defunct fridge when they could use it as the foundation for a wall.

It is not possible to go anywhere on Malta without encountering the odd eyesore in this case a power station and squatter holiday village.