Walk down from Buskett Road through tree cover unlike anywhere else on Malta to a shaded valley floor of citrus groves.
Garden, Rabat. Meridian Dispatch.
Malta's bird conservation charity, which runs field visits there, lists Buskett as open at all hours. A visitor guide adds that it is best enjoyed in daylight.
Visitor guides list it as a public nature reserve with free entry. The gardens lie below Verdala Palace, about 3 km from Rabat and Mdina.
Public buses run from Valletta and Rabat, with a bus every hour or less. The nearest stop is Buskett, about 5 minutes' walk from the gardens.
Malta's bird conservation charity says parking is available at the site. Visitor guides describe it as free, informal and at the roadside, near the main entrance off Buskett Road.
Visitor guides report no reliable cafe inside the woodland and no facilities on the deeper trails. They advise carrying water and snacks for the walk.
Plan on a car rather than a walk. The Clapham Junction cart ruts lie very near the gardens, but visitors report that reaching them takes a short drive.
Buskett is one of Malta's largest green spaces, divided by a natural valley.
One slope climbs through uncultivated terraced fields and maquis scrub. Woodland tops that slope, mainly oak, carob, olive and Aleppo pine.
The Knights of St John planted these trees as a hunting ground. They also built Verdala Palace next to the gardens in the 16th century, and it still overlooks the woods as the President of Malta's official summer residence.
The site also holds bay laurel thickets and holm oak remnants, habitats that EU rules mark for special protection.
Look in the watercourses for the painted frog, Malta's only endemic amphibian subspecies, which lives here all year. Look up as well: raptors and other birds use the woods on migration.
Enter from Buskett Road and follow the paths as they wind downhill through the trees to the valley floor, which stays shaded and cool.
The paths are lined with ivy-clad stone walls and lead on into wilder woodland, so choose your own way among the groves.
The shade makes it a good place to walk or picnic. Carry your lunch down and pick a spot under the trees.
Before you leave, photograph Verdala Palace on its rise above the trees.
Pack water and snacks, especially in summer.
Buskett fits easily into a day in Mdina and Rabat, 8 to 10 minutes away by car. Dingli Cliffs lies a short drive further on, so go there next if you have a car or taxi.
Winter is a quiet time to walk here.
Two nights in Rabat, next door to Mdina, give you one day in the catacombs under the town and another on the sea cliffs at Dingli.
Read the Rabat guideExplore the rest of Rabat
Sea cliffs drop around 250 m to the water along Malta's southwest edge at Dingli, the highest point on the island. A road and a footpath…
A stone bridge over the dry moat leads to Mdina's main gate, a baroque archway built in 1724 and carved with the arms of Grand Master…
Inside a ring of bastions on a hill at the centre of Malta, the old capital is a quiet walled city of palazzi, churches and narrow lanes. A…
Baroque architecture and a floor of inlaid marble tombstones fill Mdina's cathedral, rebuilt by Lorenzo Gafà after the 1693 earthquake.…
From the ramparts at the northern tip of Mdina, the view runs across central Malta to the Mosta dome and on to the sea at St Paul's Bay.…
Cliffs shelter this rocky inlet of clear, deep water below Siġġiewi, once a favourite with snorkellers and divers for the caves near the…
A paved path of about 500 metres runs downhill from Ħaġar Qim to Mnajdra, three temples set in a hollow facing the sea. The lower temple is…
On a ridge above the sea near Qrendi, Ħaġar Qim is a megalithic temple built from huge slabs of soft limestone, now sheltered by a white…
Save Buskett Gardens to your Malta trip in the Meridian Dispatch app and build the day around it, with the best of Rabat pinned on one map.
Download on the App StoreLast updated