Stops
Trails
Car Parks
INTERACTIVE MAP
FIND YOUR WAY THROUGH MAJJISTRAL.
FIND YOUR WAY THROUGH MAJJISTRAL.
- Park Boundary
- Geo Trail
- Main Trail
- Car Parks
Download GPX
Points Of Interest
17 Stops1
Geo Trail
Entry
Coastal Cliff Walk • 4.2 km2
Main Trail test
Heritage
Tower Loop • 2.1 km3
Cars Parking
Parking
Main Trail • 1.2 km4
Geo Trails Stops
Vista
Cape Trail • 5.6 km5
Main Trails Stops
Viewpoint
Cliff Edge • 2.9 km BIRDS
Birds of Malta
A flyway between two continents.
Majjistral sits on one of the Mediterranean's busiest migratory corridors. Honey buzzards soar in autumn, bee-eaters call overhead in spring, and a hardy cast of residents — zitting cisticola, spectacled warbler, stonechat — work the garrigue year-round. Bring binoculars, walk softly.
All year round 01 Yelkouan Shearwater
Puffinus Yelkouan · Garnija
Breeding migrant. These birds visit their coastal nesting colonies in January or February and lay one egg. The chicks leave the nest in June and July. Majjistral Nature and History Park is home to one of the largest breeding concentrations of this shearwater in Malta
All year round 02 Spectacled Warbler
Curruca conspicillata · Bufula Ħamra
The Spectacled Warbler is a common bird found in the Park all year round. It breed on the garigue and nests in low-lying shrubs
All year round 03 Blue Rock Thrush
Monticola solitarius · Merill
The national bird of Malta. It can be seen breeding in the coastal cliffs and is a permanent resident of Majjistral Park
Reports & Checklists
Annual bird lists and breeding surveys compiled by the park's volunteer ornithologists.
Explore different worlds inside one Park
From wind-pruned garrigue to a fleeting winter rock pool, each
habitat shelters its own cast of species. Many are listed as Annex 1
habitats of European importance.
01
Garigue
Low shrubs under a metre, with annuals and bulbs. Watch for Mediterranean Thyme in late spring.
02
Maquis
Maquis is a dense evergreen shrubland and ranks among the most important habitats in the park. Evergreen honeysuckle is one of the shrubs that grows in it.
03
Sand dunes
A small sand dune remnant at Ramla tal-Mixquqa holds the last shifting sand dunes on the island. It supports the only known population of Sand Restharrow in the Maltese Islands.
04 Habitat
Boulder scree
Boulder scree formed when wave action eroded the clay beneath the limestone and sections of rock collapsed. It is a special habitat for plants that has stayed protected because it is hard to reach
05 Habitat
Coastal
Much of the park’s coast is made up of cliffs and boulder screes. Together with the clay slopes they form a habitat known as Rdum
Lithology & Geomorphology Four layers of Majjistral Park
Four layers of Majjistral Park
Majjistral is a geomorphologist's classroom. Hard Upper Coralline Limestone rests on soft Blue Clay; rainwater erodes the clay, the cap collapses, and great boulders tumble to the shore as screes. Karstification, faults and landslides keep the coast in slow motion.
Upper Coralline Limestone
The cap rock. Hard, karstic, forms the plateaux and the cliffs above the rdum.
Greensand
A thin orange band — exposed boulders glow distinctly against the limestone.
Blue Clay
Soft, impermeable. Holds Malta's freshwater table and erodes to feed the boulder screes.
Globigerina Limestone
The middle layer — soft, yellow-grey, planktonic. Malta's traditional building stone.
Lower Coralline Limestone
The basement. Carbonate sand, gravel and shell fossils — high erosion resistance.
BOULDER SCREES
Collapsed cap rock that armours the shoreline against the waves.
KARST TOPOGRAPHY
Acidic rain dissolves the limestone into shafts, tunnels and caves.
TERRA ROSSA
Reddish soil pools in dissolution depressions.
Cultural Heritage
Stones that remember.
Cart-ruts, rubble walls, classical-period tombs, corbelled giren, Knights-era
entrenchments above Golden Bay, British pillboxes and Navy markers.
Every century of Malta's strategic life has left a trace on this coast.
Għajn Żnuber Tower
Għajn Żnuber Tower, a two storey limestone tower.
Giren
Corbelled stone huts passed from one generation of farmers and shepherds to the next.
Knights-era entrenchments
Early-18th-century coastal defences flank the valley above Ir-Ramla tal-Mixquqa.
British barracks & ranges
Għajn Tuffieħa barracks, pillboxes and Navy stone markers from the early 20th century.
Gallipoli hospital camp, 1915
A 5,000-bed convalescent camp for soldiers wounded in the dardanelles campaign.
Walk the layers yourself
Twelve waymarked trails link the geology, habitats and heritage you've just read about.