Walking to Ghaxaq

Today is Boxing Day and I needed the 4 hour walk via Birzebbugia to Ghaxaq (pronounced Ah-Shah).  On Christmas Eve, I joined my landlord's family for a delicious seafood dinner - four courses of ftira, fish soup, shell fish and crab thermidor.  Then on Christmas day I went to Sue and David's flat along the Marsaxlokk front for a huge traditional British Christmas lunch that lingered into tea time!  So a long walk was exactly right for today.

The photo that heads up the post is of a stone bridge on the valley road between Birzebbugia and Ghaxaq.  The walk is lovely and well-described in the booklet on countryside walks that I picked up from the local council offices.  I have passed through Ghaxaq before when I was walking to Luqa to join a Rambler's walk but had never walked up from Birzebbugia.  I have learned from a library book called 'Towns and Villages in Malta and Gozo.  Part 2, The South' by Charles Fiott that the name Ghaxaq derives from the family name but must be linked to the word 'ghaxqa' which means a delight.  This in turn probably influenced the village's motto laeta sustinio (I shall stay happy).

I also learnt from the library book that Ghaxaq, like many of the Southern villages and unlike the North, has two factions.  Each faction has its own band club, festa and firework group and there is strong rivalry between the two.  Sometimes, but not always, the division is also on political grounds.  The parish church is the centre of all the competing activity leading up to festa time but the band clubs and smaller churches are the practice areas.  Even on Boxing Day, there was a lot of activity going on around the band clubs with children singing carols and Christmas lights on the tree inside.

In addition to the band clubs, churches and winding streets with interesting glimpses of farmhouse courtyards, Ghaxaq has a House of Shells with a facade covered in patterns made from shells, as well as a watchtower for Marsamxett harbour and known as it-Turretta (the turret).

On the return journey, I tried to follow the directions in the walking guide.  This should have brought me past an abandoned Roman villa and some ancient cart ruts but somehow I missed the turn and after wandering up and down a road that seemed to be used as a tip, I returned the same way I had set out.