Epic Hiking Adventure in Xghajra, Malta (INSANE Views!) 🇲🇹

Ischaira, a small village on the coast of the southeastern region of Malta that few people might know of. It's halfway between Valletta and Marsaskala. This location has some of the rawest and beautiful wild nature on the island. So I went to hike this coastal area where I found some natural pools, interesting historical things and had an interesting negative encounter. We had a bad encounter with that angry guy right there because I was not filming him. I don't want to film him. I want to film this beauty right here. Look. Hello everybody. Good afternoon. Welcome to this video. And I'm here in a place called Ischaira. And behind me is Smart City and the shoreline. So that's a new mall, the biggest mall here in Malta. I'm here actually for a short hike of an hour. I'm heading to Zonor and Marsaskala. But check out this rawness right here that you find in Ischaira. So this is early May. I'm shooting this video but check this out. So people are already... You might see them fishing right there and maybe even attempt to swim. So let me just go here to show you the beauty of this rawness here. I call it untouched rocky shores here in Ischaira. Check out this is the shoreline where I'm gonna go. I'm gonna head that way. I'm gonna head that way towards Marsaskala. So it's gonna take me around an hour. I'll probably leave you the track that I designed down below this video. So make sure you check it out if you are ever here. Just for those who are catching the bus, you can catch the bus number 3 that goes to Kalkara. You stop at the bus stop called Smart City. And then you follow the link, the Google Maps that I'm gonna link down below the description. So it's a beautiful sunny day as you can see. Smart City like I said. Shoreline right there. And I'm gonna go back and continue the track. Continue this afternoon, Sunday afternoon track here Ischaira towards Marsaskala. Let's go! So there's fresh rosemary being cultivated on... Take a look on this shoreline here. And also like cactus right there, right here. But this is rosemary guys. Fresh rosemary. So this is a quiet area for those who've never been here. It was a very quiet one of those Maltese shores. One of those Maltese shores. I'm saying like this because of the sun. One of those Maltese shores that is very quiet, underdeveloped perhaps. And you see people relaxing right there. Also with their boat. This guy is relaxing. It's a new building also. These are all... Take a look. These are all new. And you have the best view right here. Okay, so along this route or track, let's call it a track. And we have some stops. I might do some stops. Which one of them is the pillbox back from the Second World War. So there are a couple of things that you might encounter. And you will encounter if you come and walk this track that I'm doing. But look, you need a lot of work because of the AC. Obviously the rust. But all good if you have family or with a pram. The pavement is very, very good. Look, see their family with their kids. People already swimming. So let's move on. So you can also come with a book or with your Kindle. And come here, relax, read, do your thing, listening to music. Or perhaps you want to listen to the waves closer. Look at that. You can come, find a flat spot. And you can just come, relax, meditate like this spot right here where I'm showing you. And just do your meditation. And relax under the beautiful sun, sunny weather and the sea waves right here. Also you might encounter the ice cream man, ice cream van right here along the coast. That's the ice cream man Mr. Wimpy right behind me. And there's a cafeteria right here. One of the few that you might encounter here. So look guys, there's salt pans. They're not in use but look. These are salt pans right here. You can go down, check them out. So as you can see, they're already doing the work, perhaps preparing for summer. So you see the difference between this railing and the one you find there. So this is nice, nicely painted blue. That's part of the colors of Shire I believe. If I saw correctly on their emblem. This is one of the main bus stops that you can go also directly to Valletta from here. So next stop is the pillbox, Second World War pillbox. Let's see if we can find it and show you what's going on in there, how is it right now. Look guys, the natural pool right there. How awesome is this? It's a fully natural pool. So you see, the waves, you see, fills it up. So it's always nice and fresh. All right, so let me go closer to this pool right there. That's another road. Make sure you check out the signs, falling rocks and slippery surface. So be careful with that. Let's go and check this natural pool out. Waves from a large marine crust. Look how cool it is. Wow, this is amazing. This is pretty cool. I believe that in summer this is back. Let me know in the comments below, have you ever seen anything like this? Wow, you see the rawness here. Wow, this is what I like. If you can come here, you can definitely enjoy these kind of untouched places. Because you don't see a lot of foreigners here or tourists, let's call them tourists. But check this out. These are the things that you encounter here in Shire. Amazing, right? It's amazing. Let me see if it's cold. But it's slippery. Let's see here. Now look at this grass, this is all slippery grass. This is very dangerous. Let's take a look here. Yeah, it's okay, it's chilled. Not too cold, but it's chilled. I mean, the weather helps because the sun is beating really, really hard. But check out these waves, guys. I'm trying to snap some pictures for my Instagram. Because these waves are amazing. Let me pause the video here and take some cool pictures for my Instagram. This is another angle for you guys when it comes to this natural pool right here. Let's go this way. I'm off the track because I really wanted to show you the beauty and the rockiness of this place. Take a look at this. This is why a lot of people come also fishing in here, especially in summer. But look, this is like a trench right here. But it's with seawater that comes in and fills up the pool. How cool is that? Let's go closer. Hopefully, we don't get wet when it comes to these waves. But they are not that big. We can handle them. Mr. G is a big boy. Take a look at this. You see? This is where you don't need to go. But I'm good. Yeah, it's good. Look. I'm not stepping on the grass. But look at this. Look at this. Look. This is the promenade right here. Take a look. This is all coming towards me. All nature, guys. Beautiful. So just imagine. Just imagine coming here, grab a book, a nice book, or maybe something like meditating or anything that you love. Maybe walk with your dog and come here. Just imagine yourself the next time you come over here. And I'm promoting this place for no reason, really, because I don't have any attachment with it or nobody from the tourism board or visit mode or something like that. But I believe you can also get good rates when it comes to renting a place in this area. You know? Imagine you have a place right here. If it's for renting, you know, and you walk every single morning in peace. You can jog. Perhaps another activity that you can do. You can jog. You can relax. And you can walk with your dog or take a walk with your family towards where I'm going. It's just one hour. You can go there. I'm stopping, you know, in these stops to show you what's around here. I came here, I believe, during the World Cup. It was with my old camera. But this is different. Can you see? It's different in here. And it's rocky. There's no beaches in here. But you can find easily, you know, some places where you can just come down here on the shore, find a good place, a nice flat place. It's hard, yes. You can, you need to look out for that. But this is one of the rawest places you can come in Malta, in the south area. And you can enjoy it. Look, people with their boats coming through here. And then you can go perhaps to eat something. One of these only few cafes here or restaurants. Or perhaps you can go to Smart City or the newly opened place, the biggest mall in Malta, Shoreline. All right. So enough from here, guys. I hope that you enjoyed this snippet from this vlog. But now I'm heading back on track and see what else we are gonna find along our way. Look, there's some people snorkeling right there. And as you can see, look, there's a lot of wild flora and fauna right here. I don't know. No, this is not rosemary, actually. But I don't know. No, it has a different smell than rosemary. But there's a lot you can see here. Look how wild. Now I'm on another path towards the journey. But as you can see, look, I wonder what's gonna happen in a few years in here. Look, it's filled all with plants and rocks and whatever. So I think we're very close to Zonor area and to the pillbox. Maybe it's this one. There's a lot of people camping in here. There's also salt pans, more salt pans in here on this side. See, people come and spend maybe the weekend or maybe the afternoon here with their family. And I'm going this way because I believe this is the pillbox, Second World War pillbox. Let's see if there's any signage in here. But I just saw on the Google Maps in here. Let's see if I'm correct. There's more people here. Oh, it's a pillbox. Could be. There's no signage here. I think it's this one. But I'm very disappointed because as you can see, there's no signage. It looks abandoned. And unfortunately, these are the things that... Take a look. These are the things that are part of the culture and they need to preserve them more than anything else. Correct me if I'm wrong. So okay, people come here and enjoy the area, which there's nothing wrong with that. But this is something that is part of our history, you know. I don't know exactly what is the history of it. But all I know is it's listed on Google Maps as a pillbox. Second World War II. If you have any encounters, maybe some of you, maybe some of your grandfathers or great-grandfathers have told you stories about this. Let me know in the comments below. So this is in Shira, guys. Pillbox. World War II. Second World War. But as you saw, that's the state of it as of today, May 2024. Okay, so now we're heading to the Zonor area. That way. So it's much more rocky, as you can see. Although I'm on the beaten part of the road. But still, the road is not with asphalt, I believe. But still, manageable. You just have to be careful. Look how many of these herbs. It smells nice, but it's not rosemary, guys. Believe me, it's not. It looks similar, but it's not. And look, it's where people camp in here and enjoy beautiful weathers here. Actually, this is a camping site. That I'm getting into. So on this side, it's a sewage plantation. And you can also know because of certain smells. But this is also a national park. So it's Park Nacional Italinuada. You can check it out. So from here, look at the views, guys, that you encounter here. Beautiful. So now we're heading off the fields area. The beautiful fields area of Shaira. Shaira slash Zonor. And this is where the national park starts from here. And we're going to go this way, this road. Let's go. We had a bad encounter with that angry guy right there. But we count him down because I was not filming him. I was filming the area. I don't want to film him. I want to film this beauty right here, look. But he had some issues with the TV filming that area and stuff like that. He was saying, blabbing and swearing in Maltese. But those are the things that you encounter sometimes. Not everybody is like that. Actually, this is the first time I've had some stupid encounter like that. These people are so angry in life. It's like you did something to them or to their family. It's like they want to really come and hurt you, you know, come and fight you. I don't understand this, some people. But anyway, let's keep going. You see, there's also railing in here on this side. And all we're gonna do is we're gonna go along this route, which is the correct way. Check this out. Beautiful. There's a lot of birds here. Chirping birds around here. And they do practice hunting in there, look. Look how many. One, two. Those are small rooms for when the hunting season is open. Check out this way, guys. Let me show you what we'll have here. Oh, nice. Wow, this is interesting. Look at this. Take a little look, my friends. Wow, look at this. What a sight. So I've been walking around 40-45 minutes and the sun is beating. Although it's 5.30 in the afternoon, but the sun, guys, it's already picking up. I see a tower right there. Let's see if we find a sign about this tower. Check this out. Let's get closer, guys. Let's get closer to this coastal tower. There's even more salt pans down there. Not in use. They were used in the past to harvest salt. And there's only a few still in operation in Malta. One of them being in Marsalforn. Famous guy, Lely Talman. This seems like a new room on top. They built a new room. It's a new limestone. So there's a warning, danger of falling stones. We saw that all over the coast. There's a lot of young kids here. Let me just turn the camera this way. These are the young kids. Check this out. There's no signs, nothing. Man, this tower is a mystery. Well, mystery for me. There's only a window right there. Obviously for the watchman. But look. This is impressive history, guys. Look. Look at the state of it with the salt. With the sea salt right here. That's interesting. I see if I can find the name of this tower. Beautiful spot right here. Let's check this out. I want to see. Right here, so many people taking pictures and stuff. What? All right. Check this place out. That's a nice place. This is as raw as it gets. I don't know where this will lead you. But we're going to focus on our road. As we continue here exploring in the Maltese nature. The coastal roads of Shaira, Zonor, and our last stop, Marta Scala. So all this, if you haven't seen the sign earlier, because I got stopped by that interesting guy. And this is the park, National Park. So this is one of the national parks in here. The few that you find in here in Wadar. There is, I don't know if there's a name in English. But as you search it online, on this area, this is it. So as you can see, literally into the raw wild. And no access, as you can see, no access to cars. So we're heading to Zonor beach point. It's pet friendly, it says. We're gonna check it out. A lot of people camp here. This is the main thing, even when we were younger. It's a place that you can come and you spend not only one day, or two days, even whole weekend, or sometimes in summer, for a week. You see, there's a lot of space. You can do that. And if you're into snorkeling or into spearfishing, we used to have a friend. He's passionate about that. That he used to come. And since I was a chef, they used to go fishing in the morning, get like octopus, and yeah, octopus, sometimes fish, or even back then, not now because it's illegal, sea urchins. Because now in Malta, sea urchins, there is a law that it's illegal to catch sea urchins. Which we call rizzi in Maltese. Also, you used to find in menus, seafood restaurants, sea spaghetti with sea urchins, which was really good. But that's the law right now. So all from this side, when we were teenagers, you know, we were a group of teenagers coming here for summer, or passing a quiet weekend from the chaos of the city. All right guys, so if you can see, there's this mini blue hole that I'm trying to find, and it's somewhere around here. Maybe where this guy is fishing. So I need to find a place where to get on this track right here. I'm trying to find this because there's some blue hole, mini blue hole around that area. We'll see. Let's see if we can find it. It's this mini blue hole. Oh yes, it's the mini hole. Mini blue hole right there. We managed to find this mini blue hole. It's not that easy. What happens, the water right here, the sea water comes along here, on this side, and it fills the hole right there. The mini blue hole right here. One of the things that you are gonna find along this route. Another natural pool right there. We made it to the zone or promenade right here. Bar, lounge, toilets. There's the national pool right there, but still with coastal, enjoying the coastal views. See, you can go around here and you can enjoy coastal views right here. Zone or point. Look, I can smell charcoal. People are ready to get cooking. And in some places, in some areas, you cannot do barbecue. There's a lot of signs here. It's good that now I'm facing the sun. Maybe we're gonna get some color before summer gets in. So this is a place where also I used to come, and one time I swam from this point, where those two girls are, to the other side. And I don't know, nowadays, if you can still do that. I don't know, I'm not sure, but you've got to be careful one thing for sure, because there's boats and all type of boats that pass through here, through this canal of the peninsula, because Marzaskala is a peninsula. So this is the German palace, guys. Still abundant, but there are talks concluding that they're gonna transform it into apartments and maybe a small hotel. So pretty much we're already in Marzaskala, because Zone or this part, it's like a neighborhood of Marzaskala. As you can see, most of the things you find here are apartments. Apartments and apartments. Above apartments, so it's like a residential area. And there was a big, some time ago, there was a big protest here, because they were willing to turn this area right there into a marina, which the residents are not happy, we're not happy about that. Take a look, this is where they were planning to do it and it fell through. So basically the residents win this one. And last time I was here, when this was happening actually, you could see in the balconies like streamers with saying no to marina, something like that. So that's interesting that the residents won this cause, actually. Because there's new apartments coming through. It's a great location as well. This is a great location if you want to rent for summer. You will find your luck much more in here than in Shira, for sure. Obviously because it's a bigger area. And imagine you come here, you can jog, you can walk. Same as in Shira, the promenade, you know, the pavement and stuff. You can just come in here and chill, or maybe you rent a boat like this guy, or a yacht and sail your way through here and go around the island. So one thing you'll notice, there's a lot of cranes around Marsa Scala. Look there, there's one there, big one there. That's too big here because of its constant development. So constant building of apartments or renewed. This is happening also in here. Take a look, different scene. So this is the Marsa Scala pitch, the water polo pitch. And this is a place where you can come and eat. We've already done it beautifully. Nice relaxing music. I'm gonna go far away from the music because of YouTube. You might be saying, but Gordon, where's the pitch? There was a water polo pitch. So what they do is they build it just where the chairs are. They build it outside and this is where they train. Water polo is a big sport in a way that not big as a lot of people practice it, but we are very good at it. Malta participates a lot in European leagues and they win a lot as well. This is the side street. You can see, nice for pictures as well. I'm near the parish church of Marsa Scala. So we just made it to the location that I've designed on the track. So again, if you watch this far, I'm gonna leave you the link for the track that I did from Meshaira till here, till the main stage. Let's put it this way, so it's a few meters away. And this is the more famous area of Marsa Scala, right here. Again, people fishing. You can see also the typical Maltese boats here. But then this is where all the restaurants and bars and where you can enjoy and chill. And here is packed, especially in summer with families. As you can see, there's a lot of people walking and chilling and eating already. Because it's Sunday. And yeah, what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna wrap up this vlog, guys. So again, if you're interested to do the route that I just did, I'm gonna leave you down below the link of the Google Maps. It's an interesting walk. It took me longer than planned. The duration is supposed to be one hour. But it took me more, obviously, because I had to stop and film for you guys. So do me a favor, hit that like button, subscribe and click on the notifications bell. So thanks for watching. Peace out from Marsa Scala.