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Ninety seconds on Salina Catacombs
By booked appointment only, made by email using the link on the Salini Catacombs page of the Heritage Malta website. A member of its staff accompanies every visit.
No. Heritage Malta lists the site as partially accessible, and some areas cannot be fully reached by visitors with impaired mobility. The chambers are entered down a few steps.
It depends where the day is based. Rabat's catacombs lie in the plateau under the city, near the ditch of Mdina. Salina's has over 15 small chambers above Salina Bay.
Above Salina Bay, you step down into rock-cut tombs from the late Roman and Byzantine period, opened for your visit by a Heritage Malta staff member.
The site is a cluster of more than 15 small hypogea, underground burial chambers tunnelled at different levels into a low hill that slopes gently to the sea. The largest and the smallest open off a rectangular cutting in the hill.
The most impressive chamber holds the detail to look for: two decorated pillars, a stone table for funeral meals and two tombs under carved canopies. That set is rarely found outside the catacombs of Rabat, and the carved work suggests the families buried here had some wealth.
The water below the site was a Roman port of some importance, and the inlet once reached further inland than it does today. The bay takes its name from the salt pans the Knights built along it in the 17th century.
Before you set out, book by email through the booking link on Heritage Malta's page for the site, and agree a day and time. The official address is Salini Catacombs, Naxxar.
A staff member meets you at the site and stays with you throughout. The chambers sit at different levels in the hill, so you go down into each in turn.
The largest, cut into one wall of the rectangle, is entered down a few steps through a square-headed opening. Another is entered down two steps.
There is no audio guide at the site. Heritage Malta can instead provide a private tour for a fee: ask for it in your booking email. The staff member who opens the site comes with you either way.
The site is listed under its Maltese spelling, Salini Catacombs, so use that name when you search a map app or the Heritage Malta website.
By bus, the closest stop is five minutes away on foot, and the Plan your journey tool on the official page gives the route. There is no gift shop or other amenity on site.
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