Attard, the village of the President's gardens

Attard is one of those central Maltese villages that tell you nothing as you pass through, yet hide two of the island’s most pleasant visits. It has 13,413 residents according to the NSO and is mostly residential. The President of the Republic lives here, and that detail explains much of what there is to see.

One of the Three Villages

Attard forms, with Balzan and Lija, what the Maltese call the Three Villages, three places run together in the middle of the island. The parish of Balzan says so on its website, and Lija local council offers a detail that helps place it in time. Lija broke away from Birkirkara parish in 1594, nineteen years after Attard, which puts Attard’s own parish at 1575. That’s a calculation from what Lija says, not a date I’ve read in an Attard source.

The MTA register lists 9 restaurants, 17 snack bars and one licensed nightclub in the village, and no hotels, just one guesthouse and 10 holiday lets. The area’s big hotel, the Corinthia Palace, is registered in neighbouring Balzan. Iklin, close to the Three Villages, has even less, a single guesthouse and four holiday lets.

San Anton Palace and its gardens

The main reason to come. According to the Office of the President, San Anton Palace is the President’s official residence and began as the country villa of the knight Antoine de Paule, who enlarged it into a palace with gardens after being elected Grand Master in 1623. It’s ringed by gardens, and the public has been allowed into one of them since 1885. The Maltese National Assembly met here during the revolt against the French, British governors lived here, and the head of state has done so since the republic was proclaimed in 1974.

Visit Malta calls San Anton Gardens probably the best known in the islands, with mature trees, fountains, ponds and plaques marking trees planted by heads of state. In summer the central court becomes an open-air theatre, and Visit Malta mentions open-air Shakespeare there in July. The gardens get a page of their own.

Ta’ Qali, the old airfield

The other half of Attard is Ta’ Qali. Visit Malta places it within Attard’s limits and describes a big open space with room for the national stadium, a park, a vegetable market and the crafts village. Before the Second World War it became a military airfield and RAF station, and today it’s a recreation area.

Visitors come for two things, the Ta’ Qali Crafts Village, housed in the old airfield huts, and the Malta Aviation Museum, open until 17:00 except on Sundays, when it shuts at noon. If you’re there on a Saturday, the farmers’ market runs 9:00 to 17:00, and on Tuesdays from 16:00 to 19:00.

My half day in Attard

In the morning, San Anton Gardens, while it’s cool and before the sun and the traffic build up. Then Ta’ Qali, with the Aviation Museum open until 17:00 Monday to Saturday and the crafts village for a look at the workshops. On a Saturday the farmers’ market rounds it off, and on a Tuesday you’ll catch it late in the afternoon. Attard also has 2,147 foreign residents according to the NSO and a density of 2,020 people per square kilometre, the profile of a residential town with good links to Valletta.

For British visitors with an interest in the RAF, this is a corner of Malta where the wartime connection is easy to feel, from the old airfield huts to the aircraft in the museum.

A word on names, too. You’ll see the village written as Attard, Ħ’Attard or Ħal Attard on signs and maps. They’re all the same place, and it’s the Ħ’Attard form that the NSO uses in its population tables.

Getting to Attard

Two routes run to Attard, the 54 and the 106, according to Malta Public Transport. Ta’ Qali is served by the 56, 186 and 202, which the aviation museum says call at the Stadium stop, plus the 404 and 405. Some hop-on hop-off buses include San Anton and Ta’ Qali on their northern route. Timetables and fares, in Malta’s buses.

For a bed, I’d look at Valletta to get around the whole island, or Mdina and Rabat if you’d like to be a stone’s throw from Ta’ Qali.