What can I say about the megalithic temples on Malta.

The temples were one of the reasons I wanted to go to Malta and I was lucky that I was able to see the three main groups, including the Hypogeum at Hal Saflieni which is not easy to visit as only 80 people per day are allowed through and it is necessary to book well in advance. Having been told this fact by Maltese friends I went on-line to try to get tickets. Other than a recommendation to book early there was no way of getting tickets so I emailed the museum in Valletta and they sent me an email and told me to present a copy of their email to the museum and tickets, for a certain time and date, would be waiting for me.

My daughter, who wanted to see "architecture", for some reason best known to herself had decided that temples were not architecture. For that reason I went to see the temples at Hagar Qim

The entrance to the temple at Hagar Qim.

and Mnajdra

Mnajdra

before she arrived. It was my first experience of the Maltese buses. The temples are situated within a short walk of each other and the position, particularly of Mnajdra, is pretty spectacular with no other buildings in sight and on a hillside overlooking the sea.

From the hill behind the Mnajdra temple looking over the sea.

Even she had been told that the Hal Saflieni Hypogeum was a "must see" so she was happy about visiting it. I had been told that the bus took 30 minutes to get to Paola and that we should present ourselves 15 minutes before the tour was to start. In fact the bus took only 10 minutes and when we arrived 15 minutes before the tour we were told to go away and come back in 14 minutes. We were unable to take our bags or cameras into the hypogeum and I have no photos of it so go to the website above and have a look - it is amazing. It is underground and was carved out of the rock using stone-age tools.

We then walked to the temple at Tarxien where my daughter did a very fast tour and then sat in the shade with a book while I wandered around.

The temple at Tarxien.

As it is situated in the middle of an urban area it was hard to appreciate what it must have been like

The Tarxien temple is in an urban area

and I found it rather over-restored although it had the most interesting carvings of all the temples.

The entrance to the Ggantija temple on Gozo

As I was in control of the car on Gozo we visited the temple at Ggantija which is the largest of the temples and is thought to date from about 3600 BC.

Ggantija

The view from the entrance was beautiful but there was a lot of scaffolding as it is being restored at the moment.