Orange groves
Rows of trees with thick shade.
Freddyolsson — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Marika Caruana — CC BY-SA 4.0 · JosephAmodio — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Kikku33 — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Godwin Borg — CC BY-SA 4.0
Buskett Gardens is one of the few woodland areas in Malta, covering 30 hectares in the fertile Wied il-Luq valley near Rabat. Verdala Palace, an official residence of the President, overlooks it, while the gardens themselves remain an open place where Maltese people come to walk and picnic. Forests once covered Malta, but trees were cut down for shipbuilding over the centuries. The Knights Hospitaller planted these gardens as a hunting reserve. In June 1557 Grand Master Claude de la Sengle retreated here as his health declined, dying in Mdina two months later. The gardens host the Feast of Imnarja on 29 June, with hundreds of people arriving the evening before. You will find broadleaved trees, native conifers, Mediterranean shrubland and groves of oranges and other fruit, with old stone arches over the paths. At the edges stands a small stone chapel of St Nicholas and St Lucy, and from the other side you see Verdala Palace above the trees. The gardens are at their best in spring and offer rare shade in the summer heat. They lie about 3 km from Mdina, 1.7 km from Dingli Cliffs and 11.3 km from Valletta in a straight line. The palace is an official residence not normally open to visitors, so view it only from a distance. The paths are earthen, so bring your own food and water, and leave the place clean.
Rows of trees with thick shade.
A simple stone building among the trees.
Stone passages through the valley.
Wied il-Luq, Rabat, Malta
It is an official residence not normally open to visitors, though you can see it from the gardens.
Spring for the greenery, and summer for rare shade on the island.
