Stop 10 of 12
The Ħamrija Tower
The youngest thing on the walk, by four and a half thousand years
Keep going
Stop one of Ħaġar Qim & Mnajdra plays straight away. The other 11 are one payment:
- Every stop from here to Wied iż-Żurrieq, narrated
- The map following you from stop to stop, hands free
- The whole tour saved to your phone — no signal, no roaming
Not sure yet? Start with The Visitor Centre & the Ridge.
The written guide below is open either way.
Guide to The Ħamrija Tower
The small square tower on the headland is one of thirteen watchtowers that Grand Master Martin de Redin paid for in 1658 and 1659, each within sight of the next, so that a warning of corsairs could pass around the island in minutes. It is a room on a room with a gun platform for a roof, restored and occasionally open, and the headland beside it looks over everything on this walk.
The chain
De Redin funded thirteen towers around the coast from his own purse, each visible from the next, so that a fire by night or smoke by day would be relayed from one to the other and inland to the Standard Tower at Mdina, from which every village was warned. This tower watched the south, where Barbary corsairs could appear without warning and be gone by nightfall with whoever they had caught.
An eye, not a fort
A room over a room, a flat roof for a gun or two, and one door reached by a ladder that could be drawn up: the tower was manned by a few militiamen in shifts and was never meant to hold out. It was meant to see. It has been restored and is occasionally open; the narration is written from outside.
From the headland the whole walk is in view: the two shelters on the slope, the cliff path, Filfla, and the coast running east towards the Blue Grotto. The shorter routes return uphill to the centre from here.
What to look at
- The door set high in the wall, once reached by a ladder
- The flat roof with its parapet, the gun platform
- The next tower along the coast to the east, on the headland above Wied iż-Żurrieq
Practical
- Route
- The medium route turns back to the visitor centre here; the full walk continues along the road.
- Terrain
- Rough track to the tower; the climb back to the centre is steady.
Walk to stop 11 · The Blue Grotto Viewpoint
Take the track inland from the tower back up to the visitor centre and the car park, then follow the coast road, Triq il-Panorama, east for about twenty minutes to the viewpoint on the bend above the arch. The road has no pavement in places; walk facing the traffic.
About 31 min · 1967 m